This weekend marks my epic return to the paintball fields; I haven't been paintballing in over two years now. Unfortunately, most of my crew is either in Vancouver or is unavailable, but we'll have to do. I'm going with my church youth group to
Stormin Norman's.
To prepare, I've been building endurance by running 2.8km twice a week since the middle of April. The best time so far has been 13:50 which is still about 40 seconds slower than my running times back in high school. But hey, high school was a very long time ago, and I'm getting old.
The other thing I've been doing is reviewing battle tactics, and I've come across an excellent introduction to paintball tactics. It's entitled, the "
Paintball Tactics Guide". The guide uses Flash to demonstrate its key concepts, and it's very entertaining to go through, and it covers all the basics that you need to know. The guide starts with individual level tactics, then squad level, then team level. It's very well done!
For the more hardcore tactician, you can scan through the
U.S. Army's Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad Training Manual. Some really good stuff in there, but it's a long read. I've been told most military tactics will work in the paintball field. Err.... minus the parts about putting up defensive barbwire, calling in airstrikes, and positioning heavy armour units for frontal strikes.
However, some of the tactics won't work very well at the Stormin Norman's because of the terrain. For example, the field we're playing on has lots of tall trees, and it's very rocky. There isn't a lot of brush and bushes. This makes concealment extremely difficult. On top of that the rough terrain makes it difficult to move around once engaged in a fire fight. Communications are also extremely difficult since the many cliffs and hills obscure any line of sight with other friendly forces.
The terrain also gives players from the upper base a huge advantage because they occupy the high ground when the game starts. They merely run downhill to engage the enemy. Players who start on the lower base start with an uphill battle. This makes it very difficult for lower base team to quickly rush forward and take ground. Their shooting distance is also reduced because of the uphill firing.
Anyway, on the battlefield, I intend to do offensive sniping as usual. People who've played Ghost Recon with me know that sniping is my forte. It's fun holding down enemy forces and harassing them from a distance.
A few things that I have to work on this time around is shooting left-handed, shooting from the prone position, and coordinating base defence. My best defence is going offence, but there are certain scenarios where the defending team is not allowed to leave the base. I don't have a lot of experience defending a fixed position.
For those who are going, here's a checklist for stuff to bring for paintball:
- Clothes that can get dirty. Absolutely no shorts. Long sleeve shirt since you'll be bush wacking.
- Water/juice
- Gloves
- Cash for extra paintballs and food
- Shoes/boots that have traction
Remember, in paintball, it's all about getting angles on your target.
