Take No Prisoners: Paintball Teams
Paintball, introduced as a sport in the 1980s, has grown increasingly popular in the last few decades. Appealing mostly to male athletes, as a sport it attracts both youths and adults alike, both recreational and tournament play, and even professional teams across the country and around the world. While the premise of the game is simple, a hybrid of Hide and Seek and Tag, the strategy involved is extensive. Successful players must feel comfortable in the woods, utilize directional intelligence and understand paramilitary formations and movements. In other words, while paintball may be a popular choice for company outings or birthday parties, on a serious level, it is not a sport to be taken lightly.
Armed with paintball guns or markers, and clothed in protective masks, goggles and clothing, paintball players roam the field, eternally alert, with only one objective in mind: win. As such, paintball is far from an individual sport; while at times it may seem very one-on-one, hunter versus the hunted, the strategy is team-based, and the objectives impossible without cooperation. Paintball teams work together to defeat the enemy; depending on the style of paintball game, these paintball teams must move as a single entity, not a group of individuals, toward their goals. Only then can they win the battle.
Strength in Numbers
There are three main variations of paintball that paintball teams can participate in. Capture the Flag is one of the most popular choices; similar to the childhood favorite, this form of paintball involves two teams each protecting their own flag and fighting to secure the flag of their opponents. The team flags can either be stationed at the opposite ends of the field, or directly in the center; the winning team must capture the enemy flag and hang it from a designated pole. Elimination paintball, also popular, involves two paintball teams each fighting to eliminate each player on the opposing team. The last man standing wins the game for his or her team. King of the Hill paintball involves multiple bases that must be secured and protected by both paintball teams. The team that holds the base, or bases, for the longest amount of time wins the game.
Paintball games can also be governed by the fields and locations. Woodsball paintball teams participate in wooded areas. While most paintball variations can be played in forests, paintball teams must base their strategy around their environments, including terrain, acreage and weather conditions. Woodsball games usually provide paintball teams with a lot more freedom to engage in tactical combat, such as ambushes, planned assaults and escorts. With the large space and the large numbers of participant, woodsball games typically last for a longer period of time.
Speedball games, on the other hand, are played on small fields, often filled with inflated bunkers, piping or wooden crates. These fields are usually half the size of a football field, and lack trees, hills or terrain variations of any kind. These games take far less time to complete, and paintball teams can easily see from one end of the field to the other, tracking every player in-between. Speedball paintball teams are also much smaller in size, with anywhere from three to ten players, while woodsball teams can number in the twenties or thirties. Speedball is the preferred game used during tournament play, and in indoor facilities where woodsball is not an option.
