Who plays paintball?

Spinout007 wrote: I've watched a 13 year old at a Bday party run his spider on full auto, and literally go through 3 cases in about 4 hours.......absolutely freaking nuts, his mom put her foot down on the last one, "you need to make this one last".

LOL, that's nothing, last world cup I played I went threw 2 cases in 5 minutes, every game. For 15 games, but then again the team I played with had a paint sponsor so we didn't care.

Andrew

Yeah, you could say I play, very seriously into Milsim woodsball.

this is the way my A5 currently looks, dressed as a AMD 65

I can also configure it as a normal AK, a Krinkov, a G36, and soon as an L1 A1

I'm basically making the L1A1 kit from scratch, I milled the magwell from a solid billet of alumnum. The AK kit is a TACAMO kit, and the AMD is a kit bash I did with the TACAMO kit and a real AMD hand guard.

If you want to get into Milsim, go to Milsim Empire for all things Milsim.

Chris Rummel

Can I just say I sort of rage against this new MilSim stuff in paintball? It's hard to tell people "No I'm not a crazy using this to train for a government invasion. Those guys over there in full uniforms with name tapes and unit patches pretending their in the military? No it's nothing like that". I some what understand the appeal, but I think it's taking paintball in a bad direction.

Actually its the best thing to ever happen to paintball, far better then running around with pimpy space guns at 30bps shooting at each other from behind inflatable cones! Most of the people that play milsim, or woodsball are very happy to see the death of speedball.

Also the majority of milsim players are also into recreating various conflicts, I just finished the battle of the bulge last month, not just people pretending to be in the military, I did that for real, this I do for fun. Chris Rummel

I actually just read a fantastic article about this "us vs them" mentality within paintball. It's really killing the sport. They are two distinct and different type of games that people enjoy. Why can't we all play a little of everything and be better players for it?

I bought my marker more because it was cheaper to buy the "deluxe" model and have all the upgrade parts at once than to spend money buying the same parts for a normal BT-4 and build it up to the BTDE's specs. The Lapco barrel I plan on buying is probably incompatible with the MP5-esque foregrip, so I'm going to get a conventional foregrip to replace the dummy mag and probably take off the sight rails since I never use the sights anyways. That should make it less MP5-ish.

The thing that is killing speedball is mainly the economy, I can play all day with woodsball, on one case and still finish with ~300rds left. Look at the above posting, about how much paint that guy burned through, in one day.
Far fewer parents are willing to shuck out $40 to $60 per case of paintballs these days only to have their kid burn through it in no time. Not to mention the speedball guns tend to be in the $1000 range. They tryed to make speedball a spectator sport, but it gets pretty dull after awhile, to watch. So that has fallen by the wayside.

The latest move today is toward woodsball, and to be honest most woodsball players see it as an unwanted intrusion in our territory. I see paintball as an ersats war game, to be played tactically, I don't want yellow jersey wearing speedball players in my game, just because your side of the game is going under doesn't mean that I welcome you in my game.

This sounds harsh, but attitudes like the one you posted about "guys running around in fatigues pretending to be in the Military" has been what we woodsballers have had to listen to for the last 10+ years. And frankly my experiences with speedball players has not been the greatest, when they have played with us, ie they are generally the ones that would take practise shots at buildings, signs, and other private property even after being told not to, that has shaped my attitudes against them. If anything gives paintball a bad name is things like this.

Chris Rummel

To be fair, if the MilSim doesn't include missions with long waits at finance or navigating Tricare it's not doing a good job of pretending to be the military.

LOL good point.

Osterkraut wrote: To be fair, if the MilSim doesn't include missions with long waits at finance or navigating Tricare it's not doing a good job of pretending to be the military.

LOL! Fair enough.

Chris, I've seen woodsball players scream at kids playing for first time because they weren't being "tactical" enough. I've watched a guy hide behind a bush for an hour straight, never firing a shot because he couldn't get a "clean shot off". I've also seen plenty of woodsball guys take practice shots and peoples cars (not theirs I assure). I guess the point I'm trying to make, is there are a good and bad players on both sides of the game. If a guy is rag bag and won't follow the rules, then he should kick out, regardless of what game he most often plays. Maybe those wayward speedball players just need someone to show them how to play woodsball?

Look at what the us vs them mentality did to open wheel racing in America. Paintball is barely a fraction as popular, do you really think it could survive as a legitimate sport

Bah I wear blue and black digi camo in the woods and on the speed ball field. It's pretty useful on both fields, know how to use a shadow, the camo pattern does the rest, don't draw attention to yourself with sudden moves and people will look right past you. My first time out playing woodsball, I wore jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. I used shadows to hide and in fact had people shoot at me as they thought they saw me, I didn't flinch or run, they moved on, much to their dismay as I shot them in the back and then disappeared backwards into the woods. Now would I try that in yellow? nah, but I wouldn't be so dumb as wear yellow in the woods and think that I wouldn't be walking around with a bullseye on me. Use those fools that do wear bright colors in the woods as target practice or to run distractions.

I played some and loved it, but was too old to really get into it. Or, said another way, as much as I liked it, I had other hobbies. Also, with the simi-automatic guns, the "sport" has devolved into a point-and-spray type of activity, one that benefits retailers big time. Going through cases of paint is great fun - for kids whose parents fund their $100/wk habit. I have to wonder what lies the kids tell their parents to convinice them that the "only" markers that are for sale also happen to be the newest (fastest-shooting, and coolest for impressing friends.)

I can play speedball with friends most of the day, and only go through about 3/4 of a case. The only time we really go through paint is when practicing and playing tourneys, then again we get a pretty steep discount when playing at our home field. Playing speedball while making your shots count, makes you concentrate on movement and accuracy. I play with one guy in his 50's that, I kid you not, if you leave the end of your toe peeking out from behind a bunker, he'll tag it for you. I think I've shot him out of the game maybe half a dozen times in playing with him over a year.

I love parents that come to the field and see our speedball gear, and ask how much it costs. You get to see the sticker shock first hand. And then their relief when you start showing them gear that costs quite a bit less, that unless their youngin' is serious about being competitive, they have no need for it. Personally my favorite marker right now is the autococker I just picked up used for 70$, pure semi auto, mechanical, and once timed right, it throws paint as fast as I can pull the trigger, which is plenty fast.

^ That is exactly what I'm talking about, also why I avoid playing with children at all really. I have kids and will love them to start to play when they are old and responsible enough. I really don't think kids should even start to play paintball until 12 yrs old minimum!

Likely the reason the kids were being yelled at, was because they rarely if ever move up, I know I personally have "yelled" for them to move up because they love to hang back and just rain paint. "yelling" to be more tactical is just not cool, or being tactical yourself. If you just hang back and don't advance you will never be in a position to pull a flag or flank anybody, or make points for your team. I think they are just afraid of getting shot out, but hey that is part of the game,there is always another game, and that is how you get better.

My other argument, is between renegade woodsball and woodsball at a field. Primarily what I try to play as much as possible is renegade or what is called renegade by field owners. This is playing NOT on a regular field, field owners don't like this because they don't make money off it. At a field, you mostly have to use field paint, it is almost always capture the flag, you have to deal with locals that have the fields memorized, and you have to pay a greens fee. In renegade you can use whatever paint you want, use selective fire guns, play whatever type of game you want, play with whoever you want, and IMHO get a better day for your money.

As for camo, you are correct proper use of shadows and contrast and remaining still are the two most important things. I've seen guys wearing the jersey like you describe dominate, and I've seen guys in gillie suits get shot out constantly because they moved too much. I used to think a gillie suit was a great idea, but they are generally hot and uncomfortable, which makes you move, and hense defeats the reason for wearing it.

Chris Rummel

A few of my favorite classics in my closet:

Scenario:

Pump action Tasso with annod cammo finish with custom grips:

Original VM-68 magnum, modified with many original accessories and a pachmayr grip. :

Tournament grade pumps, Top An original Line SI Bushmaster , heavily modified and customized. Bottom Modern Action Markers Illusion, custom modified for me by the designer, plus a few mods and add on I did myself. :

I forgot to add, when playing speedball with friends, we generally play "hopper ball" or only bring a hopper worth of paint onto the field, Bring a pod to top off with when you switch sides, but if you run out on the field, you bunker people with movement. 90% of the time, I don't run out paint, I'm generally one of the last people out.

924guy, those are sweet!

Nice markers 924!

Chris, when i say yelling, it was something like "You worthless berkeleying kids can't play paintball to save your life! If this had been real you'd all be dead right now!" etc etc. And I'm fairly certain that guy never served anywhere near the real thing.

This is all I'm saying, there are bad examples on every side of every sport. We could sit here until we're too old to play any more recalling horrible experiences we've had. But in the end, wouldn't it be more fun to go out and play, and play with the most people possible? And maybe in the process make some friends, and she people and angle on the sport they might not have had?