Lake District Sports - Paintballing Types of Games

Basic variations

Capture the Flag - A team must take the flag from the opponents' flag station on the opposite side of the field and return it to their own station in order to win.

Centerflag - Similar to Capture the Flag, except there is a single flag at a neutral or center position on the field. Victory is achieved by capturing this flag and taking it to a designated area, usually the opponent's starting station.

Elimination - The objective is for either a team or individual player to eliminate all of their opponents.

Woodsball

Speedball

Speedball is a fast, close-quarters game played on a field about the size of one or two basketball courts. As its name suggests, the defining feature of the game is speed; matches usually last no longer than 5 minutes. Rounds are played using either a capture the flag or centerflag format combined with elimination. Bunkers are usually placed in a symmetrical pattern so that no team has an advantage over the other. The fast pace and ease by which spectators can view the action has made this format popular among national, local, and tournament leagues. The first commercial speedball field opened in 1982.

Scenario Paintball

Scenario paintball games are based on a storyline or theme. Scenario games allow for a wide range of player skill levels and an even larger amount of participants. These games can span a period as short as 12 hours or last for days. Objectives vary based on the storyline but cooperation is a major theme in these games. One of the largest annual scenario games is Oklahoma D-Day at The Bunker in Wyandotte, Oklahoma which in 2005 drew around 3,000 players.

Tournament Paintball

Modern tournament paintball developed in the 1980's. Woodsball tournaments have given way to speedball fields, whose inflatable bunkers provide flexibility in bunker setup and the most efficient use of time. Teams consist from anywhere between three and seven players and compete against others to accumulate points towards winning overall in the tournament. Points are awarded for capturing the opposing flag, bringing the opposing flag to the starting point, eliminating opposing players, and having non-eliminated players left at the end of the game.

Tournament Formats

Centerflag - Also commonly played in 3-man, 5-man and 7-man formats.

X-Ball - A newer format first played at the International Amateur Open in 2002, X-Ball pits two teams against each other in multiple rounds of Center Flag played one after another until game time runs out. A team scores one point for each game of centerflag they win, and the team with the most points at the end of the match wins. Professional X-Ball matches are 50 minutes long, split into two halves, while other leagues use various shorter game times. Although only 5 players play in any given game, depending on league rules teams may roster up to 19 players and substitute them after each point. Unlike most tournament formats that forbid players to communicate with people on the sidelines, X-Ball may have a coach who can communicate, along with the spectators, to players on the field. Players who receive penalties are not permanently removed from the game, but placed in a hockey-like penalty box for several minutes. X-Ball has taken root at the national level, although variations are found in regional and local competition. The X-Ball Light variant has one period, typically 15 minutes long. The first team to reach a set point total (commonly 5 or 7 points), or the team with the highest point total after game time has elapsed, wins the match. X-Ball has another form of play, where a game of speedball is played with a normal speedball bunker setup, but incorporates a large inflatable X in the middle of the field.

Stock class

A pump action paintball marker operates on the principle that the player has to chamber a new ball after each shot by pumping or sliding the marker's cocking mechanism back allowing a new ball to enter the chamber, then pushing the cocking mechanism forward with the aid of the pump handle, to close the chamber requiring a total of two separate movements to "load" the marker. After loading, the paintball marker is ready to expel the loaded paintball.

A popular style of pump play is the use of what is referred to as Stock Class. Stock Class refers to the marker configuration, reminiscent of the original paintball markers of the early 1980s. These markers forsake the use of 200-round hoppers and large bottles of air. Instead, they utilize a ten- to fifteen-round tube parallel to the barrel of the marker. Typically, the feed tube of paintballs is mounted over the top of the marker running flush with the body of the marker so as not to allow any stacking of paintballs over the chamber and hence requiring the marker to be tipped (rocked) forward or backward before being pumped (re-cocked). The complete action for loading another paintball into the chamber of a Stock Class marker is called "Rock & Cock". 12 gram CO2 powerlets are also incorporated into Stock Class rules so as to require the player to recharge the marker with propellant after roughly 20-40 shots (depending on the efficiency of the marker).

Although this style has lost popularity due to modern paintball technology greatly increasing the speed of paintball guns as well as their overall performance, pump tournaments in both the Stock Class and in another class, in which hoppers and propellant other than 12 gram cartridges, continue to be held and in fact attract some of the most popular professional tournament players to guest play on these pump teams. Special pump-only events have started to spring up around the country starting in 2004 and pump play might be seeing a resurgence due to its slower-pace and old-school feel.

Reball

A "reball" is a soft, dense/light-foam substitute for a paintball. Reballs are the same size as normal paintballs but weigh less, and do not contain a paint filling. While they do not break open to leave a paint mark on players, the lack of filling makes them useful for indoor locations where accumulation of paint from broken paintballs would be a problem. A reball is more expensive than a paintball, but since they can be reused, they are cheaper over the long term. Some paintball parks have added dedicated reball fields. The primary use of reballs, as intended initially by the manufacturer, is as a practice aid for teams who wish to practice and save money by using reusable ammunition. Other manuacturers have made Reball duplicates like the V-Ball, a velcro (hence the name V-Ball) reusable paintball. Reballs are also used at a lower velocity because of their inability to break on whoever they hit. For example, a Regular paintball will normally be shot at 280-290 ft/s, but a Reball is supposed to be used at around 250 ft/s. Reballs themselves were preceded by Lazerballs by Brass Eagle. These were of a larger caliber than a paintball, and designed specifically for Family Fun Centers and other venues where paint clean-up would be an issue.