From time to time I plan to post some how to articles covering the basics in paintball. I want this site to be information rich, but not geared entirely to the veteran scenario players. Newer players need the support and the tips that those of us who have been in the game for years can provide. Some of these articles will be reprints of a column I wrote for the now defunct Outdoor Sportsman. Here’s one on the basics of developing a good shot. Please post your own comments on techniques you’ve learned that have helped you along the way.

Shooting in paintball differs considerably from other types of shooting. You’re forced to deal with a spherical projectile that has a solid shell and a liquid center, creating all sorts of difficulties. Add to that propulsion with inconsistent gasses (in the case of CO2), and speed limits on how fast your ball can travel, and your old shooting skills hardly seem applicable. Thanks to constantly evolving technology, paintball guns are more accurate than ever, and the balls themselves are, on average, more consistently round and of higher quality construction than they’ve ever been. Yes, they only fly a little farther than 150 feet, but when you learn the technique, you can hit what you’re aiming for every time.
The first thing you should master is the basic shooting stance. You’ll want to use your air tank, either CO2 or HPA (high pressure air) as a stock, resting the base firmly against the cup of your shoulder, not on top or beneath your arm. If you’ve installed a big dropforward, you’ve decreased the overall length of the gun, but in order to shoot you’ll need to cramp your wrist in an uncomfortable position. It’s better to set your gun up in a longer, more natural-feeling configuration. Sight down the barrel, keeping both eyes open, and track your first shot so you can adjust your second one for accuracy. After practice you’ll be able to better predict the placement of the first ball. You may also want to rotate your hopper slightly towards the center of your body, which will help hide it behind your cover. Remember, when shooting you should expose as little of yourself as possible. One of the best ways to check your stance is to practice at home with a mirror. Take cover behind a doorframe or the edge of a piece of furniture, and look at how much of your body you expose in the mirror. If you can see more than a side of your mask, your barrel, and a bit of your arm, then you’re showing too much. Correct yourself and practice until you naturally fall into that pose.
The next stage is to work on your snapshot. A snapshot means breaking cover for a split second, firing a few balls, and hiding again. You should expose as little as possible and only for the time it takes to fire two or three times, in other words, less than a second. To accomplish this, line up your barrel with your target while still behind cover. Visualize the flight path of your ball. You should never have to acquire a target during the snap – that will slow you down. Then lean out while triggering a few times, and tuck in again, all in one fluid motion. Coming out to the side will expose far less than shooting over the top of your bunker.
The snapshot is a great way to establish position. When you’re in a gunfight with another player, snapshoot a few times but vary where you emerge from your bunker so you won’t be predictable. If you don’t hit your target, you’ll probably “put him in” which means he’ll be forced to take cover. Then you can “post.” Posting is when you remain out, focused on a single shot. When your opponent breaks cover to snapshoot, you’ll already be posted, ready to eliminate him with a well-aimed shot.
These shooting skills will work in all types of settings, from the woods to urban environments or the inflated concept fields of tournament paintball. When you’re ready to develop your shooting technique, head to your local organized paintball field to put these tips into practice.

I’ve added another date to my calendar - the Dollack/Viper collaboration at CPX near Chicago, Living Legends. Two of my teammates from Black Cat All-Stars are slated to come, so we’ll have to see how much damage a squad of three can cause. If you haven’t set your calendar, try to make this game, as it’s shaping up to be one of the best events of the year.

I’m especially psyched to see my far-flung teammates again and to hang out with some of the great industry people I’ve met on my travels.

Check out my interview on Blast Radius Woodsball Podcast, my favorite paintball show on the internet. If you love scenario and woodsball, make this a regular stop.

I’ve updated my calendar with a few more confirmed dates. I’ll be playing “Clear and Present Danger” at Wolf Creek Paintball on March 22. This is a new field (to me), and I’m psyched about checking out some new terrain and hitting the field with a bunch of players, some of whom are subscribers to this blog! We’re putting together a team for this event only, and it should be a blast.

I’ve also added a confirmed date to cover the Platoon Leader Real Mil Invitational in August. Now, admittedly, I’m not the most mil-sim guy, but I will be toting a Tacamo Type-68 in my kit bag this season (more about that in a future post and press release), so I might be able to put together enough mil-sim gear by August to give it a shot. It sounds like a radical departure from your typical scenario game. Here’s more information. It’s similar to what Full Clip and Sonny Lopez are trying on the west coast, but on a different, more realistic and military-oriented scale.

My next confirmed major event is the MPP game at Paintball Charleston. Can’t wait for that one either. MPP puts on an excellent show, and I’ve heard plenty about Paintball Charleston to get me psyched.

Finally, I’m taping an interview for Blast Radius Woodsball Podcast tonight with the host with the golden pipes, Wayne. We’ll be discussing tactics, sponsorship, and Wayne’s upcoming trip to Australia. Wayne and I came up with the idea for the trip together, but my financial and work situations aren’t going to allow me to explore the scenario world down under - at least not this year. Next year, it’ll be a whole new (paint)ball game.

So Call of Duty has gone down in the record books. For those of you who have never played a theme day at Line-of-Fire in western NC, it’s a great experience, inexpensive, and one you should book on your or your team’s scenario calendar. The props and missions that the staff of Line-of-Fire put together are often more creative and fun than those put together by much larger-scale producers. Expect a game that kicks off around noon (or before) and ends by six, and the field gives away a nice set of prizes - this time that package included shirts, hoodies, cases of paint, a sweet NXe gear bag, and an Sim-5 marker.

In this theme day the SAS took on a terrorist faction bent on using nuclear weapons to further their agenda. In a set of missions based heavily on the popular Call of Duty 4 video game, the SAS rescued hostages, disarmed bombs, bugged computers, retrieved secret codes, and eventually defended two missiles on a launch pad. What makes these theme days stand out for me is the details. On a mission to assassinate a political target, the SAS soldier had to retrieve a sniper rifle along with 20 rounds of special blue paint, then shoot from one window, through another window, and hit a mannequin.

At the same time the terrorists had a mission of their own, to interrogate a hostage and capture the evidence on film. They not only had to secure the hostage, but they also had to get the pistol, an excellent Tiberius 8, and the camera, then put it all together to get the mission points. Simple to understand - hard to execute and fits with the storyline, those are the ingredients of an excellent scenario mission.

I had the honor of leading part of the first mission of the day for the SAS. We had to learn the location of a hostage, find a stretcher, then put two and two together and get the hostage back to our base. I located the stretcher on the airball field and led a charge to retrieve it. Not only did my crew have to deal with defenders on the airball field, but we also took shots from the second story of the enemy base, making finding good cover a difficult task. I pushed up the tapeline, got the stretcher, and passed it back to my man David who ran through fire, snatched it up, and delivered it to our base.

At the end of the first half, SAS and terrorist side had tied in points, but the second half didn’t go so well. While I ran wild during the opening set of missions, I might have well have brought a folding chair out to the deadbox for the second set of missions and just parked my butt in the insertion zone. That’s how much time I spent there. Good job terrorists - you shut me and the rest of the SAS down pretty darn effectively.

The final mission of the day, worth double points, forced the terrorists to kick over a hornets’ nest, figuratively speaking. To score the points they had to take the Spankr (double barreled rocket launcher) and hit the side of the new missile silo building. Then their leader could enter with his briefcase containing the launch codes and set off the two smoking nuclear missiles. To score points for the SAS, all our team had to do was keep the terrorists out. The mission started with a bad omen - our .50 cal mounted machine gun went down about .4 seconds into the half hour time period. Fortunately for the SAS, the terrorists had a similar problem with their rocket launcher. Turns out that dropping it isn’t so good for its reliable operation. The terrorists got one of the mortars instead, but even with the defenders firing the last balls in their hoppers at the end of the time period, the terrorists never made the final push to get inside the bunker.

The SAS scored 300 points in the end and saved the world, but the terrorist team still came out as the victors with a score of 1100 to 1000. Hats off to the Owens who scripted and ran the event and all the good folks at Line-of-Fire who do what they do to make that one of the best places to play paintball.

Dorian Black from the Black Knights took these great shots of me at the game.  Here’s one that defines the meaning of covering fire.

And here’s another from the same assault on Bastogne

Finally, here’s a shot I wish I had taken.  I’ve known Gary Baum for a few years, and he’s inspired me to want to work the photography end of things more.  Look for some upcoming published pictures from this game, but in the mean time, here’s one that I didn’t take that I admire.

I love the NC scenario scene!

Bebop Productions and Black River Sportz teamed up again to put on one heck of a game, a single day historical scenario based around the defense of Bastogne. The US forces were given the task of defending the field’s central fort, and although it has plenty of cover, some excellent trenches, and an easy insertion walk, the German side got two entry points and Black River’s woods to hide their movements. Getting pinched all day between two attacking groups, even if one of those is small, isn’t easy, but the Americans held out, and through some courageous charges in the final battle, they came up from a two mission deficit to win the game by 25 points.

Allen and Danny, two of the head honchos at Black River, took the command roles again this year, but they enlisted some help from some scenario savvy XOs. Danny’s German XO, the infamous Otto, organized the troops and coordinated mission strategy for the game. His efforts paid off in that two mission lead, and he was able to send players to key points on the field, mostly by going back and forth to the CP to get updates, then walking to the front lines to personally direct the masses to their best locations. Allen’s American XO, Matt McNeil, has plenty of scenario know-how. He brought out chart paper and a white erase board, set those up at the CP, and made sure that every player reinsterting would know the current mission and where on the field the American team need players. I’ve played plenty of games with and against both of those guys, and those are two players that I would always want on my team. Hmm…maybe it’s time to start thinking about a new Scenario Dream Team article for Splat. That last one got enough people riled up.

The single day big games at Black River are cathartic slug-fests. For me, leading charges and pushing the front lines, it’s an exhaustingly physical experience that leaves me drained but feeling good. The prize package they offer is top-notch. This one had half a dozen masks, some barrels, a $400 Spec Ops gift certificate, two pairs of Original SWAT boots (the best in the game), and twenty markers. I’ve only been to a handful of games with that level of prizes, and for this one, they raffled off tickets at a dollar a pop, with all the proceeds going to the Danny Bell fund to help that scenario player and member of Port City Militia who lost so much in a tragic house fire.

I’ve attached some pictures of the action, and these are just a sampling. I took about 400 shots, and some of them are sweet. I’m giving you a taste here, but to see more, you’ll need to buy some reading material.

If you played at Battle of the Bulge II and would like your story to be a part of a magazine article, please post a comment and tell it. Describe, in a paragraph, the most memorable moment from the game - that mission you completed or that ambush you sprung or that triumphant charge you led. Was there a moment of total hilarity? Tell that story. I’ll try to incorporate some of your ideas when I get down to writing some full event coverage.

To learn more about Black River Paintball so you can plan a trip to one of their big games, check out their website.

The Truth

The concert world has changed in the past few years, moving from a touring  model to the idea of a destination festival.  Instead of bringing a traveling road show of acts to major venues, the destination festival operates on a different principle – create the greatest event and let the consumer travel to take part.  Paintball has also made a similar transformation.  While several national scenario and tournament producers create a mobile roadshow that crisscrosses the country, players recently are opting to attend several large-scale events, held on the same fields each year, that build up over time to create a unique paintball travel experience.  If you love the sport, attending one of these events is something you start saving your dollars for well in advance.
Oklahoma D-Day.  Perhaps the most well-known destination event, OK D-Day takes place each year at the D-Day Adventure Park in Wyandotte, Oklahoma.  Over the past ten years this recreation of the historic military battle has grown in scope from a few hundred players over a weekend to thousands of attendees over the course of a week.  The full D-Day experience includes different paintball games each day, a week of family camping, the notorious obstacle course, and the culminating D-Day game itself with landing craft, dozens of tanks, and thousands of players.  In any given second of action, cases of paint will be flying through the air.  The vendor village alone rivals those on the major tournament circuits, and recruiting for the battle begins a year in advance.
Elite Weekend.  On a completely different scale, Elite Weekend offers a much more personal experience with far fewer participants.  Even though Elite Weekend has only run for two years straight, the precedent it set in 2007 put it high on many scenario players’ must-attend lists.  Elite Weekend in Utah starts with a tour of the Special Ops factory followed by a complete equipment outfitting session.  Participants pay a steep fee to attend, but they walk away with a complete marker, tricked out to their specifications, a custom tactical vest, a full camo suit in a unique pattern, a mask, and all the paint they can shoot for the entire weekend.  And what a weekend it is, with training sessions with some of the top players in the game, team challenges, an SPPL-style game, and a full-blown scenario game to cap it all off.
Castle Conquest.  EMR Paintball in Pennsylvania is one of the premier paintball fields in the country.  While many fields have built castles, few rival the infamous Castle AAARRGH with its 30,000 square feet of playing area.  Twice a year EMR hosts Castle Conquest, the biggest game of attack and defend in the world.  They stack the odds against the defenders then start the clock and let the hordes do their best to invade the castle.  While it has happened that the defenders hold out for the entire time limit, the point of this incredibly intense game is to have as much fun as possible, and teams travel thousands of miles for their chance to take part.  Even if you don’t have a regular scenario team to play with, you can still have a blast at Castle Conquest.
Hell Survivors.  This famous field in Michigan, Hell Survivors, is not only one of the longest operating and largest fields in the country, but it’s also the site of three of the biggest events on the calendar.  The Tippmann World Challenge pits Tippmann armed players against all others in a massive big game over the gigantic Hell Survivors field.  The Michigan Monster Game typically draws 1500 or more players to participate in a truly monstrous event where teams push to capture the forts and towns of the Hell Survivors field.  Global Conquest is a seven team game of paintball risk, and it also has a loyal following.  Pick your own or play all three.
There are other events worth mentioning, each of them a major game worthy of long drives or plane rides.  Wayne Dollack caps off each year with a two day Grand Finale game that is the highlight of many players’ scenario season.  The legendary field, Skirmish, runs their world record-breaking Invasion of Normandy game each year, and companies have started producing large-scale events in such desirable locations as Hawaii, Australia, and England.  With so many choices, why not make paintball a reason to travel this year?  I’ll see you at the airport.

Yesterday I attended the first official day of walk-on play at a new field in Granite Falls, NC - Precision Sports Paintball.  The good people behind Precision have a long history in paintball, going back to the good old Splatmaster days.  After the clear cutting of a popular renegade field, the folk behind Precision took an opportunity to expand their business beyond their tiny storefront to a much larger location that now includes a sizeable proshop, a ten acre woodsball field, and an indoor field.

The proshop contains an impressive variety of equipment, from starter markers to some tricked out custom jobs.  They carry scenariocentric equipment as well as tournament ready gear, and plenty of it.  A new player could outfit himself head to toe at Precision Sports.  While the field doesn’t have a website yet, this site has contact information, if you want to get in touch with them.  They do provide service for all their equipment, and they have a professionally trained airsmith on the premises.

Bill from Rogue Cell, a local scenario powerhouse, runs the wooded fields, and he has a vision for the acreage.  He’s built up several forts and laid out the land to roughly mirror 1950s era Korea.  I had a chance to jump in on several attack-and-defend games, and the terrain proved just right for some excellent ambushes.  After I hid in the brush and shot two enemy players after they walked past me, their sniper took me out with a single well-placed shot.

Back on the inside, the 140 x 50 indoor airball field proved just right for some lightning fast games.  The players there are no slackers either; the ones who showed up yesterday were a mix of veterans, current and former tourney players, and some enthusiastic newer players looking to hone their skills.  I warmed up with a few one-on-ones with Nathan, and after seeing him get the angles on me, I had a better feel for the layout before the bigger games.

When it came to three-on-threes or five-on-fives, this bunker packed indoor field played like that short-lived professional three man indoor series.  Super fast games on a playing surface that made it possible for me to get down the snake in about 3 seconds.  Fun stuff.

The owners of Precision Sports Paintball have plans to add an outdoor hyperball field, a full-size X-Ball field, and to continue to improve the woods.  With an easily accessible location, reasonable prices, a friendly and knowledgeable staff, and a good crowd of locals, Precision Paintball gets the thumbs up.

I just returned from a great game at an up-and-coming scenario field, Adventure Beach Paintball in Tabor City, NC - right on the coast. They have a packed schedule this year, and they’re bringing in some outside help to make their games great. MPP and BeBop will both be running games there in 2008, so mark your calendars. Right now I have that weekend free, so it’s looking like time to plan another trip to the beach. Open the attached PDF for all the juicy details.

leningrad-flyer.pdf