Well, it's time to step onto the proving grounds. This place separates the men from the non-men. Surprisingly enough, age is not a factor of skill. You'd be surprised by how many 14 year old paintball prodigies there are, and how quickly the flank and kick your ass.

Most games are played with teams. If you come in a big group, they will give you your own field, and you can divide yourselves into two groups. If it's a walk-on game, they will divide the random members into somewhat random teams.

How does this affect you? Well, it may be the difference between winning and losing, depending on your attitude.

You have to have the right attitude

You have to enter the game with the right attitude. Many people enter and think "I'm gonna win!". That's good and all, but its not helpful for a newbie. People who think "I'm gonna win" usually do some foolhardy stunts, and 90% of the time, they feel the sting of an opponents paintball. Most certainly you never want delusions of grandeur. An entry level paintballer should have the attitude, "I'm gonna survive". You do yourself and your team no good if you're eliminated. By surviving, and not rushing out and winning, you do this:

Think on the playing field

This may seem like ridiculous advice, but if you remember it on the playing field, it may save your hide quite a few times. You usually want to think really hard before every major action. You don't want to rush into things. Like attempting to take a fortified position with 4 people head on. Why would a person do something as crazy? Cause he saw their teammate do it, so naturally they followed suit. I have never seen two people cut down so quickly. You want to determine the probability of success of every major action you do. Some actions are given, like cover your teammates, but most every other one should be given a fair amount of thought. For example: If you need to move, think, where would the best place to move. Do I need to put myself in an advantageous position? or do I need to retreat into a more safer position. Stuff like that. It'll help you live longer.

For the beginning paintball player, you never want to play alone.

Just because you don't know the person, that doesn't mean he can't be your partner. Most people won't mind you pairing up with them, unless they're some solo hot shot wannabe. They don't exist. The best players I've ever witnessed was a trio of 14 year olds. They employed every effective tactic that worked.

Having a teammate reduces the chances of being flanked by the enemy

Work as a team:

If your partner is facing right, face left.

Cover your partner when he moves, and ask for cover when you move. Also, tell your teammate where you are going.

Inform your teammate of the enemies you have spotted. When you do that, he should do the same.

If your teammate decides to rush an enemy position, support his attack with one of your own. Run at a 45 degree angle of his running path. You usually want to approach on the vulnerable side of the enemy position. Running the black pattern splits the enemy fire into 2, causing a one on one situation. Running the blue pattern puts you into a more supporting position. Make sure that you are askew, and not lined up. You do not want your teammate in your direct line of fire. If you run the pattern far enough up and over, you put the enemy on the right in a position where the one on the left is blocking his line of fire.

Countering the rush:

If it's the one on one situation, you had better hope that you shoot straighter than the attacker. You should have the advantage of cover, but some crazy stuff has happened on the field, so don't get cocky.

To counter the attack on one side, the teammate on the vulnerable side should pull over behind the cover, and the teammate away from the action should move over to accommodate him. Doing so will give you a better field of fire against the rushers, while utilizing the diminishing cover.

Sometimes, you gotta run.

I pulled this on a sorry bastard once. In paintball, you sometimes camp, just like in Quake, hoping to catch someone off guard with a shot in the back. I was in a field with building like structures, and I was moving from building to building, using them as cover, trying to get closer to the enemy side. Upon entering a building, a hail of paint had followed me inside, and I had come very close to being eliminated. Incredulously I asked him to surrender since we were only 7 feet away from each other, with only a wall between us. He responded with "why don't YOU surrender". Obviously not. Sticking my gun out the door I fired a few shots to make him back down, and I peeked out the door. He was crouching against a structure and was facing towards my team's side. He returned fire. I was stuck in a room, and I had nowhere to go except out the same door. I provided myself with cover fire, and quickly ran out the door, towards the enemy side. I was safe. But I wondered to myself, is he still sitting in the same place? Huh, easy kill if he was. So maneuvering through the buildings, the building he happened to be leaning against had two doors, on opposite sides. So I just waltzed through, walked up behind him, and yelled in my most threatening and barking voice "SURRENDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". He didn't have to be asked twice, just a little "don't shoot me". The point of all this is, if you happen to be sniping, or whatever, and you are attacked, and your attacker is not killed, he will come for you, so once you're discovered, you gotta move. Or you'll end up like that guy.

It's not the military.

Sometimes before the game starts, your team will start planning, and assigning certain positions or jobs. Some may be "rush the center" or "defend left flank", etc. I was unlucky to be assigned the position of "defend the left flank" so the game started and I rushed out to the left flank to defend my territory to the death. And indeed I did, less than a minute into the game I was eliminated, in a most painful way. When I rushed out to the left flank, I was <dismayed, shocked, terrified> to find that the left flank consisted of a shoebox and a tree no wider than a broom stick. I stuck out like a cactus in a desert. And soon after I was eliminated. I had made two critical errors. I rushed out to the left flank before checking what it consisted of, and once I got there and the hail of paint came towards my direction, I dove belly down, prone on the ground. Let me tell you that being like that makes you an easy target. Getting hit in the back is no picnic. Hell, I'd rather get shot in the head, it hurts less, seriously.

What I should have done was checked out the left flank beforehand and not go to the left flank in the first place. And if I did, and hell started, I should have run back to the major concentration of cover. Sure you aren't following orders to the "T", but you sure as hell can't defend the left flank when you're dead.

Know how to fire, and when to do so.

Knowing when to fire is essential. When I refer to fire, I mean how you fire and how fast. There are many situations in which the rate of fire is specific.

If you are covering a teammate, don't be shisty with the paint. When a teammate is moving, put out as much paint as you can. Targets in the open are almost certainly dead targets.

If you are playing a pop-a-mole game with someone else, ex: one pops up from cover, shoots, and ducks down, then you pop up, shoot, and duck down, save your paint. 2 quick consecutive shots is all that's need to keep that person in place. This is where the teammate you covered comes into place and flanks the target.

If on the off-chance that you are alone, and are in a hunting or sniping mode, this is crucial. Take only one shot and move. Don't go full auto. While you may eliminate the target, by doing so with a high rate of fire, it will attract attention to yourself.

Know how to range and lead your target

Targets greater than 20-30 feet away need to be compensated for gravity. When shooting at a target that far away, you usually want to raise your barrel 10 to 20 degrees, depending on how far away they are. Leading a moving target is more challenging than compensating for gravity. The only advice I can offer is to shoot continuously at a point that intersects your enemies path of movement, and hope that he crosses it. When shooting at a moving target, you don't want to move with him. When I say move with him, if he is running from right to left in your field of vision, you do not want your gun moving from right to left, or follow the target. You want to pick a point in front of the target and move against him. Ex: target is moving from right to left, and your gun is moving from left to right. A ball in front of the target has a greater chance of hitting, than a ball behind a target.

How to keep their heads down.

When offering cover fire, or trying to pin some people for the flank, usually these people are behind cover, such as a half wall. When shooting at these people behind cover, it is very unlikely they will allow you to score on them. When providing cover fire, or to keep their heads down, don't try to shoot over the cover, rather shoot the cover itself. When you shoot at the cover, it makes a loud popping noise, compared to if you shoot over the cover, and it just lands in the grass. This loud popping noise is pretty unnerving to the average player, and if you keep it constant, the player, fearful of getting hit will cower and try to squeeze themselves into a ball. A player in a ball is very immobile, and is ripe for the flanking.

Keep your head down

People, especially newbies, love to fire their guns. They like the feel, the sound, of their marker firing a paintball. And usually if they have a semi-auto model, they like to fire rapidly. What does that mean for you? Your probability of getting hit goes up. A lot of people don't keep their heads down properly. They leave it close to the top of the structure, so they can pop it up, and look around. That's good, but bullets travel straight, therefore, you'd never get hit, but paintballs fly in an arc. Occasionally a paintball will have "English" or a spin on it, like a pitchers throw, but instead of curving left or right, it curves down, so a normally straight shot can drop drastically. I can tell you I've had my fair share of head shots due to my inefficient cover use. Also if there is an elevated sniper, you need to keep especially low.

Know the terrain.

Know the terrain. It's like knowing a doom or quake map. Figure out where the camper spots are, and avoid them. Walking into a sniper's field of fire isn't pretty. If you can't get beforehand knowledge on the field you're playing, hang back, or team up with someone who does.

Look before you leap

When ever you need to move, or advance on an enemy position, don't just go in a straight line. Stop and look at the terrain. Based on the geography, determine the best route that would draw the least fire, therefore ensure the highest safety. Also determine which destination would put you in a more advantageous spot. This goes hand in hand with the thinking tip from above.

Don't rush fortified positions up front and alone