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Sturgeon's House

Toxn

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Thanks to the ongoing adventures* of one of my bosses, I'm prompted to ask a very silly question: just how useful is something like paintball as a means of sussing out basic small unit tactics?

 

As an example: from my fairly limited experiences, it seems that, sans any sort of pre-existing training or unit cohesion, about the best thing you can do is simply to buddy up and adopt simple fire-and-move tactics rather than anything to do with formations. Is this actually a good approach, indicative of a general process which can be extrapolated outwards? Or is it merely an artefact of how the game mechanics interact?

 

 

 

* Which are so crazy that they'd require their own post at this point. Suffice it to say that I'm trying to think of ways to keep the man alive as he and a bunch of dudes from his neighbourhood (lawyers, accountants and shop keepers) fight what is increasing looking like a turf war between the local residents and a bunch of violent gangs.

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Paintball is great fun and I wish I had the time to do it again. I prefer woodsball as I feel it provides a more realistic battlefield. The kiddies with the fancy doodads prefer speedball courses which is where all the endorsements happen.

The latter is all about rate of fire and stacking. I have wrecked speedball teams at woodsball leading random scrubs with field guns because speedball guys aren't used to random terrain.

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Paintball is great fun and I wish I had the time to do it again. I prefer woodsball as I feel it provides a more realistic battlefield. The kiddies with the fancy doodads prefer speedball courses which is where all the endorsements happen.

The latter is all about rate of fire and stacking. I have wrecked speedball teams at woodsball leading random scrubs with field guns because speedball guys aren't used to random terrain.

 

Come over to my end of the world - it's 90% woodsball and 10% using the gun as a bludgeon.

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I wish I could.

I think the actual tactics used has very limited value. Real bullets go through most stuff on a paintball field. Plus the guns have limited range.

What is of use is the cardiovascular exercise combined with being able to make decisions quickly, move and function while cooperating with friends/strangers in a hectic environment is useful.

I've always been good at getting my guys to do simple, rudimentary plans that factor in the team's abilities. The speedball guys essentially use swat team tactics, stacked and bunched up, and are generally overly aggressive and confident in their superior firepower.

A simple skirmish line with a refused flank coupled with a flanking charge wipes those guys out.

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I have to hit the sack. I'm not sure what online resources are available other than the Youtubez. I'd say look at some small unit manuals, but honestly, look at how an average pubbie match on WoT plays out. This is generally how my experience with pubbie paintball plays out. If you can cobble together a few guys to do the right thing, work together and make sure you have your guns in the battle at all times, good things happen. It helps not minding - and actually kind of enjoying - the pain of getting shot by a paintball. It also helps being able to read the good and bad terrain of the course - like a WoT map.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Look into something called "Simunitions," and a gaggle of imitators and similar concepts.

 

You do a barrel-swap on your gun so it fires these very light projectiles that still move at a reasonable clip so that they're a fair impression of your blaster's trajectory when it's set to kill.  Then everyone dresses up in big armor cushions and starts running scenarios.

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  • 2 months later...

Getting hit by a BB is no laughing matter. Effing hurts.

 

The benefit of paintball is that you can actually see if you hit someone or not. Otherwise just use your fingers and run around yelling "bang, bang".

 

Or I guess you could play Laser Tag like a feygut.

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I would be surprised if the ammunition was actually cheaper than airsoft.

You'd be surprised at how close they are in price. 

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Daisy-2400ct-BB-Ammo/15729970

 

http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/airsoft-ammo

 

But the real kicker: Daisy's are $20 a gun. A decent airsoft cost way more, especially back in the day. 

 

I've still got both my eyes. 

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I used to play that game with my brother and friends when we were younger.

 

Generally it ended with someone getting pissed off enough to just run up to punching range and start shooting from there. On the plus side, it turns out that I can win a pain-threshold fight with pretty much anyone except my brother.

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