I've noticed that on these forums, there is a lot of intense write ups on tactics that seem to be done up by aspiring westpoint students. Advanced tactics can have their place in paintball, but more often than not tend to serve as a distraction on the field, so I thought some more general, and lay person friendly tips might come in handy.

Starting off, the most important bit of advice I can give to front players is to play the tape line. This is so critical it can be stated over and over again. Play the tape line!

If you are going to be leading your team (either organized or rec play) your job is to provide information back to the people behind you, and take out the opposing front players to slow down their advance (and the other team by extension). Both of these tasks are aided greatly by you not being shot right after insertion. When you make your advance, head on an angle towards the tape at a run. You want to reach it by the time your a third of the way lengthwise down the field and if you've left your team behind (as I tend to do) you want to stick right under the tape. Pretend it is a lunge line and you can't go more than 10' from it. The obvious advantage here is that you only have to worry about directly ahead of you and to one side. You should be playing the side of the field that your team is going to strong side unless there are more than one front player, in which case you have the option of swinging around the other side and trying to make it all the way around.

As you work forward, keep calling back to your team mates so they don't FF you. This is crucial, as I've been shot by my own team just as often as by the other, because they didn't expect anyone so far forward. You also want to call out player positions as you pass, so that if someone takes you out, your team won't be ambushed by the same player. One great thing about playing the tape is that you can often get into a prime position to hit players from the sides. Most bunkers are laid out to protect from fire in a 50-50 manner, so the sides are wide open. If you aren't straying to far from the tape, no matter how loud you are most people in the middle of the field won't notice you until you start shooting them.

Just work your way up quickly at first, then after the halfway point a little bit more slowly, trying to pace your team with a 30-50 foot lead. Once you hit the back corner, play the back tape exactly like the side, and then again if you make it to the other corner.

The obvious advantages of playing like this are being in the ideal flanking position without having to draw attention by moving there laterally, as well as only having one less direction to watch. The unobvious advantage is your open terrain. Usually the sides of fields are not built up as much, meaning you will have to up your game and not hide behind bunkers, but rather use the scrub brush around you as a makeshift shield in firefights. Really you'll just have to play a little bit more active and learn to take the enviroment into account, which will make you an all round better player.

If this bit of advice helps, let me know and I'll do a general write up with some more simple advice for players who prefer the middle position.

Nice info. Thanks for sharing.

Agreed. Playing the tape line is one of the simplest ways to get a team stuck in their own base.

If you can get even just 2 or 3 fast players to each of the far boundaries of the field right after the whistle, and have them move into the opponent's territory they will have a 3 pronged attack on their hands and immediately be on the defense.

If you have your middle players (the main body of your attack) work up behind the front on the tape line, you can play off of it by 50'-100' and still know that you only really need to watch forward and to one side. That frees your guys up to move quite a bit quicker, clearing more of the field faster than the other team.

Really, moving quickly up the field is the best tactic in woodsball. If you get close before the other team expects it, they are left struggling to get into position while you are already set up and able to bring fire down on them. Most battles are won by the quickest team to the strongpoints.

If your middle players can keep close to your front players on the tape, they will have command of the whole field, even if they are stongsiding. Hills and such can prevent a view of the whole field, but as most fields are longer than they are wide, it's easier to weave back and forth and do a thorough sweep as long as you have one side to work that you are sure has been cleared.

Trying to work as a team with paintballers is usually very tough, even with radios and a team you know well, as everyone reacts differently once the balls are in the air. It's always best to simply keep to a simple plan and have everyone know in a general fashion what do do if things turn south. Playing the tape allows your front players a much better chance of actually scouting the field and not being picked off, while working a bit in from the tape but still using the advantage given by a good front player on the one side gives your main body middle players a chance to move and react.

i get my three fast guy to go up and play front position and one goes mid and i stay back and pick off any flankers

Too many people/teams push up the middle hard, it is usually just natural to go head on. If you take up a sort of [V] formation and have your back-middle players dug in hard to defend against their hard central attack, it takes only 1 or 2 skilled players going up on the flank to demolish their team.

Most cover will not work from front AND side attack and if you can get up beside an enemy while they battle it out with your back-middle gunners, it'll be as easy as stompin a 12 year old birthday party.

I use a very similar strategy for going up the side. We have a new team that has been playing together for less than a year. I am having problems with friendly fire. I was shot 3 times by my own team during last night play, once even in the face! How do you guys call to your team without giving your position away to the oposing team?

My team has jerseys with the same camo, so we can usually tell who is who at a glance. If you can't see someone well enough to tell what camo they have on you shouldn't be wasting paint on them anyways, it'd do you more good to move into a better position.

At big games, or really any game with more than just my team playing, we tend to not shoot people in the back unless you can see their armbands, and we wave to members of our team if we have flanked the opposition to let them know where we are and to hopefully not shoot us.

Both those things can backfire, so always check armbands. I've both walked backwards towards oppositions bunkers to get right up beside them and clear long open stretches, and waved at them to let them know where I am. Most people won't shoot at you as they will realize only a idiot tries to get away with something like that.

suppressive cover fire, maneuver, and outflank. works everytime.

good advice thanks!


ya most of the time we (2ppl) try and flank right off the bat and catch the other teams left or right wing with a quick surprise rush as the rest of my team (2-3) pretened the whole force in in the middle and then sweep into the middle and mostly catch their team with their backs turned to us
works like a hot damn, most of the time hahahah a couple of times back fired on us...

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