Tactics

Learning to shoot is only part of the game, the real fun comes in when you start to understand the big picture. Here are a few tips to complement your shooting skills.

Playing the Tape

This is probably the best advice I have for a new player, heck I have been playing for years and I still follow it! Playing the tape means playing close to the fields boundary line. The idea is to make sure your opponents are in front of you, not coming up to bite you on your six! If you are playing close to the right tape line you know there is nobody to your right and only friendlies behind you so you can focus on what's in front and to the left of you, it's kind of like a gunfighter keeping his back to the wall. Move up the tape slow and quiet, pick your shots and make them count. While we are talking about woods ball in this article you can apply most of this to speedball or scenario fields, like Armageddon as well.

Get Yourself a Wingman

Two players working well together are a formidable force! Buddy up with another player before the break and map out a strategy, work together and watch your opponents sulk off the field.

Leap Frog

You've found your wingman and together you decided you're going to work the right tape, what now? One of my favorite tactics is leapfrogging. You and you wingman will play about twenty-five feet apart or so, depending on how dense the forest is, you want to keep each other in sight. One of you will play on the tape, the other about twenty feet inside of it. One man moves up about fifteen feet and stops behind cover. He checks to see if the coast is clear and waves up his partner, who will move until he is about fifteen feet in front of his wingman.

You keep bumping up, each man takes point half the time, so you split the risk and the chance for glory. When one man makes contact his job is to keep the bad guy focused on him so his wing can sneak up into perfect firing position and one-ball the baddie. If you make contact with the enemy focus on staying alive and keeping the bad guy shooting on you, let your wingman go in for the easy kill. The wingman's job is to move as quick and quiet as possible into firing position and make the kill. After you have dispatched you opponent go back to leapfrogging.

Flanking

There is no place on a paintball field as fun or exciting as behind the other team! Darting from bunker to bunker, one balling unsuspecting opponents in the back, their faces filled with rage as they turn and yell "I'm on your team you idget!", only to realize you're not! This isn't something you do with a half dozen other guys, this is a job for a small stealthy team, this is the reason you have been working the tape! Move up the tape until you are behind all of your opponents, keep leapfrogging if you still have a wingman, stay low and quiet, if you are seen be cool, try to keep your armband out of sight, act like part of their team, wave, throw some hand signals telling him he is under attack from the front, when he turns you work your way up and shoot him, it feels oh so good!

Stealth

None of this is going to work if you are crashing through the forest screaming in an orange jersey.

Camoflouge, you don't need the latest digital camo and you don't need to smear mud on your face! A pair of black pants and a black long sleeve shirt work real well, I have yet to see a forest that didn't have black in it!

Stay off the Trails!

Don't walk together, spread out unless you want to walk to the dead box together!

Stay low when you don't think the enemy is near.

If someone gets a glimpse of you but isn't sure you are there stay still, especially in low light situations just staying still can be enough to fool someone, of course if they know you are there get under cover and return fire, or turn tale and run.

Be quiet! - Shhh, I'm hunting my brother!