Basic Tactics: Beginner Game

Throughout this series I will focus on a couple of things: guiding principles and situational actions (choices) based on those principles. The standard beginner game breaks out into one variation or another of a 2-1-2; 2 players snake side, 1 player back center and 2 players on the dorito side. (This is also a standard opening for every other level of team as it represents the basic neutral or balanced breakout.) It isn't the opening that's the issue, it's what you do with it. In beginner game the tendency is to engage in gunfights right away across the field. Even if the wire leads are actively attempting to reach their respective wire as a beginner they are also frequently engaging in unnecessary gunfights. This is one reason you often see lower division teams take their primaries with maybe one or two secondary bumps and the game turns into separate gunfights until enough players have been eliminated to encourage one team or the other to start moving in an effort to close out the point. (This is also how beginner counterpunch paintball is played. In fact this is often how it is learned. Young teams don't have a complex understanding of how the game works but they understand risk well enough to see that given their current skill level the safe play is to risk as little as possible until you gain a few kills.)

When teams play like this it is an actively anti-team style because it devolves into a series of individual gunfights. (Of course that isn't the only thing that ever happens and such teams can appear to be doing other things well, may even be doing some other things well, but it will still hold the team's development back.) Keep in mind the strategic goals from last time; gain, anchor & control the wire(s).

The diagram shows The Team's breakout, players A-E, in the 2-1-2 neutral pattern. Is Player A or B the dorito wire lead or front? Which player, D or E is the lead snake player? What is C doing at Home? From this breakout you can't be sure but probably thought B & D were the fronts and A & E the mids (or anchors) having reached the corners. And if that is correct then it becomes A's & E's primary job to assist B & D to get on the wire(s) and upfield. (We will cover the how-to's in detail in a future post.) But that isn't necessarily the correct assignment of roles, is it? What if A sees an opening to move to D2? Shouldn't he take it? And if A does make that move what becomes of B?

What's up with player C? Often as not his job is to be the fireman. If he sees a "fire" breaking out on one wire or the other it's his job to hose it and slow that fire down. The problem with that is that it lets the fire get started in the first place. It reduces C's role to a reactive one and reaction is the cornerstone of a defensive mindset. Before you know it, and without intending to do it a key player is on the defensive and doing it badly not because he's a poor player but because he doesn't have a properly defined role.

So here we are: The Team is in a common breakout arrangement and know they want to work the wires but they don't know how to put all the pieces together. Beginner game is weak because it lacks a plan, priorities and well defined player roles. Traditionally competitive paintball evolved quasi-positional players; like Fronts, Mids (Inserts) & Backs and there was a time when it was helpful to describe how players played by position. That time is over.
Ideally (on our diagram) Player(s) A & B should both be capable of assuming the lead role or the support role and depending on how a given point plays out switching back and forth during the point. One key then for the modern player is versatility, the skillset to fill multiple roles, knowledge of the various roles and the capability to transition from one role to another as necessary.
The team key is teaching (learning) the player roles. While a positional element remains in defining  player roles the critical elements are knowing the differing duties (jobs) and how to prioritize those duties. If it all sounds way too complicated, it isn't. As the series moves along you'll discover the nuts & bolts of how it all works is really pretty straightforward and (almost) simple.

I also want to spend a bit of time talking about communication. And I don't mean sideline coaching (where it's allowed.) Have you ever heard the term 'fog of war'? Coined by Prussian military strategist von Clausewitz during the Napoleonic era it had both a literal and figurative meaning. In the early 19th century orderly arrangements of troops and artillery would array against each other and once a battle was engaged the battlefield would quickly be covered with smoke making it impossible to see what was happening. Once engaged in battle intelligence gathering broke down too, as did lines of communication and the hierarchy of control making it difficult if not impossible to efficiently redirect troops or guns and maneuver on the go to take advantage of the changing circumstances. Lack of consistent cross field communication in paintball produces the same result, to one degree or another. Lines of sight are blocked by bunkers, a player is face down in the snake crawling, another is tucked tight into a dorito with multiple guns shooting at him. They have lost sight of the field. And vision is information about the changing face of the contest. No vision, no information--unless it is provided in alternative ways; like verbal communication. Trying to play winning paintball without communication is like putting a blindfold on just before the horn sounds. It's nearly impossible to make timely, confident and effective decisions about what to do next when you don't know what's happening.
More about communication next time.

The next post will be The Game Plan.

Basic Tactics #1: The Foundation

Is really strategy basics and since this is a back-to-basics series I'm going to begin at the very beginning. Most (Everybody) will already have a working understanding of basic strategy but I'm going to put it in the same context as basic tactics so that it will (hopefully) be readily apparent how the one flows from the other. Basic strategy will provide the foundation for the brick wall of tactics to be built in future posts.
Before I get started keep in mind that strategy is the overarching concept and not the how-to. Tactics is the how-to so in this post a lot of ideas we all normally begin to tack onto the basic strategy isn't strategy but is, in fact, tactics. That means this post is going to be done in very broad strokes. (We will fill in the details as we go through the series.) Even so the boundary between strategy and tactics is frequently blurry. It doesn't matter. What does matter is to see how the pieces all begin to fit together.
All strategy in competitive paintball is derived from the necessity to win points. Yes, even defense. This is true because in the game as it is currently played there is no pure defense; defense is merely a delaying tactic used to create (when it works) actionable situations for offense. For example, Team A knows Team B is aggressive. Therefore Team A's strategy is to set up in a defensive formation that minimizes their risk with overlapping fields of fire and hope to eliminate members of Team B trying to force the action. If successful that strategy will create a situation, say two eliminations, on the field wherein Team A shifts to offense in order to finish out the point. This is the very common counterstrike or conditional offense almost all teams employ much of the time. Some teams are more defensive (or less) than others but the strategy is the same.
The dominant feature of all current game strategy can be summed up as Gain the wire, Anchor the wire and Control the wire. The reason this is so should be obvious to anyone who has played or even watched a few games; corners are the most defensible positions on the field. They can only be attacked from an increasingly open angle from one side of the field. Thus, reduced risk. This factor alone creates advantages for the player or team that can take, hold and use a wire to engage their opponent. (Even when corners are intentionally inset or reduced to tiny props it only lessens, not negates, their strategic value.) The flipside is equally important. To ignore or lose a wire gives your opponent a clear field of attack from which you can't ultimately hide.
The occasional complaint about the repetitiousness of multi-point field layouts should instead be understood as the fundamental strategic reality of the competitive game as it is presently played.
Let's return to Gain, Anchor & Control for a moment. Given the point begins with all live players at the center point of each end of the field the first requirement is to get a player out to the wire alive. Whenever and however that is accomplished that is Gain. Anchor usually begins with a player established in the corner. (This can change as a point plays out. The anchor can--and frequently should--move. More on this another time.) Worst case scenario Control means that even when contested a team (players) can use a wire to some advantage and best case scenario it means dominate a wire.
Strategy is formalized in the game plan. It defines the initial method(s) the team will utilize to open game play. The game plan can also define player roles. (These frequently shift during play.) Given that paintball allows for free player movement at all times the game plan cannot blueprint each point from beginning to end. Young teams tend not to use or rely on formal game plans and the result is sometimes readily apparent but others times not. This is because of the broader range of talent (or lack thereof) & skills in the lower divisions. Native talent, better developed individual skills and on field unit execution can all overcome the game plan but as the margins narrow and the players become more equal the game plan asserts its value. Better to get into the habit early on than try to incorporate it later. (More about the game plan next time.)
Expect the coming posts to cover stuff like the Beginners game, Basic Defensive, Rudimentary Offense and then apply those ideas to the Breakout, Mid-game and End-game.
Next time we really will begin Basic Tactics. We will examine the Beginners Game and build from there. In the meantime if you have any questions about basic strategy I encourage you to ask and I'll see what I can do to answer.