It’s quite surprising Just how many people don’t utilize the strength of flanking your opponent. Sometimes it’s a numbers game, other times it’s the element of surprise. Whatever the case may be, often it’s playing smarter, not harder.

Think about it: You’re head-to-head with a opposing player, and you have numbers on your side, say three-to-one. You can already imagine this joker, if he’s smart, will wait you out and hope that you run out of ammunition or try to take you one person at a time. In the meantime he will stay behind a good shelter and tease you, trying to get you to shoot at him, again trying to get you to use all of your paint.

If it comes down to numbers two or three people should be able to flank one, sometimes more. A decoy often helps to give you cover fire as you make an approach, preferrably from both sides of the opponent(s). The shleter they have chosen to use can dictate how easily this strategy can be pulled off, but keeping their focus to one direction will allow this move to succeed between you and your team mate.

A very similar tactic works well between just a couple of people and a squad when in the woods, as a few players can take to the sides of a commonly used path and lie in wait. A recon agent is often best to determine of the enemy is heading your direction. Placing one or more people on each side of the path, and having them stay well-hidden and quiet, wait for the opposing team to pass so their backs are towards you. This will disorient them as your decoy starts to fire on them while a player or players from the other side of the trail then follows the lead by showering the group with paint from behind. This style of move can be a squad buster, or can cause them to divide, either way reducing their power of numbers.

Remember that flanking works with more than one person, and it requires teamwork. If there is no plan, it will lead to failure. If it fails, then it was expected so it will be time to rethink your tactics. Never underestimate the honor of the decoy, or the power of ‘Taking one for the team.’

So the NeoDawgs and myself went to Fort Knox, in Winamac, IN. This is one of my favorite fields. If I didn’t have to pay for it, I would probably play there all of the time! Everybody needs to make a living, though…

FKP has improved the fields since I was there a year ago. They have added an airball field, for all of you speedballers. For me, though, they have added a new castle. The castle is more fortified than the fort, but any attacking enemy with the right vantage point can make a clean kill, as I found out!

They are also adding a ‘Miners’ Town’ to the field, which will be really nice for close-quarters combat scenario. In the end it will have 16 buildings on an intersection. Here is one of the pictures taken from a little while ago. It come along since then:

The good people there are planning on having an opening blast in August for the down, though it won’t be complete until opening in 2008.

I have more current pictures, and will post them when I have time. All the same, if you live in the area, and play paintball, stop by FKP. I doubt you’ll come away disappointed.

On the combat lines you will generally find two general way of communicating: Hand signals/radios and those who shout commands out. Which form of communication is better? Let’s look at both, for a second.

Silent but Deadly: Our woodsball/scenario players, like the players you might see in the SpecialOps videos, frequently use hand gestures and goggles with radios, some built-in. They do this so they don’t give away their position until they have to. In this case it presents them with the element of surprise. That can make or break a game in some rounds. In an open field, for example, where the tall grass is the only cover available, noise is you enemy when waiting or sneaking up on the opponent. Many players may not even move unless the wind is blowing to create some background noise.

Shout, Shoot and Scoot You will also find that on speedball fields, players will more often shout out locations of opponents, or to tell team mates to move forward. In this case there is less obstacles to hide behind. In many cases the other team is in front of you, unless you’ve let them sneak around - which happens to be bad. With the lack of cover you become easily visible, so shouting becomes more practical, though it can be distracting. Speedball also involves a lot of shooting, so it’s not likely that your cover will be safe for long.

For the player that has never gone from one type of paintball to the other before, in either case, this can be a really new experience. I suppose if you’ve bounced back and forth when starting off in the game it would not be such a difficult transition. In some cases, though, players will be deterred from playing anything other than the methods they prefer. If one wants to play any field, adaptability is as important as knowing how to communicate appropriately with your team mates.