I've played airsoft and paintball, but I've never done airsoft with a large group (my friend, who is now in the army, used to play airsoft with me and a few other kids).
I love paintball, but I hate speedball because it bores me.
There's a field in my state called Adventure Games that I used to go to. I won a membership once due to being tall, catching a thrown plastic bunny and surviving the crowd that pretty much tried to elbow drop me to death. That's not paintball related though.
I use a spyder rodeo (haven't played in a long time) because I was born in Texas and rodeos are sort of a thing. That and I wanted a gun with an expansion chamber that used semi-auto because I hate wasting money. I had an all-american 16' barrel on it, so it was fairly accurate for a paintball gun (pretty much paint on paint up to 20 yards or so, and accurate enough to hit a person consistently around 50).
I enjoy paintball in the woods or somewhere you can use your brain to do things. Story incoming...
There's a course called "The Bridge" in Adventure Games. It consists of two sides with a nasty swamp in the middle that WILL cause you to sink into waist-deep mud. People lose shoes and boots there are all the time, it is awesome.
Anyways, there's a bridge that's maybe 30 feet long or so that crosses the swamp right in the middle. Bunkers are set up on either side (mostly sandbag bunkers, a few cardboard and a few earthen ones, they change it every year). In the center of the bridge is a flag. Your teams goal (teams are usually 30 or so people each) to grab that flag and take it to the other side of the bridge. That or eliminate the entire team.
On the one side of the bridge (we'll call them East and West sides, and pretend the teams start on the North and South sides) there's a swamp that's more mud, trees and water than anything else. on the other side...uh...East side, it's all tall grass and mud. Tall grass meaning it is roughly chest height, if you crouch down you become invisible. There are some random planks laid out on the East side so you can try and walk to the other side, and there are some barrels in the grass too.
One day I decided to focus on the East side. I wear camo because hey, why not. Anyways, I decided to crawl into the tall grass, get close enough that I can see the plank most people try and cross (because people would rather be obvious than muddy for some reason) and lay down in the mud. It's pretty gross and there are tons of mosquitos flying around, but I decide to wait because it'll totally be worth it when somebody walks by me.
While I'm crawling there are the usual paintball sounds, but nobody can see me and nobody can hear me over the swishing of paintballs through the grass. Nobody on my team tries to push up, but I'm totally ok with that since that's sort of my plan.
I wait for about 5 minutes of moist, mosquito-y fun before I see one guy start crossing the plank. He's talking to somebody so I wait and just grab my gun and keep it pointed at him. He settles into a crouch on the other side of the plank and takes cover on some barrels that are facing my team's side (which we'll call south side). His buddy crosses the plank and does the same thing.
Then another one does. And another.
At this point somebody on my team must have noticed them, because I heard
whump whump whump on the barrel and they started shooting back. I figured this is my time to do something, and I raise my gun and fire maybe 15 times at them. You aren't allowed to hose people, but I didn't want to worry about bounce-offs or anything breaking on the grass between me and them.
I missed one of them (hey, there was grass and stuff) but he clearly didn't see me and starts unloading into the grass, aiming high enough that it doesn't matter to me. I have to wait a second for his friends to get off the field before shooting him a few times.
With their east side gone, me and a few people from my team walk around and end up having the bridge flanked. Victory!
I really like hiding and using tactics. Just shooting people is fun, but strategy is where it's at for me. If I want to just aim at people and use angles I'll play gears of war
Only my M14 survives...
