Paintball Games

Locations/Fields

Woodsball

Woodsball is the oldest and most common style of paintball played. Most woodsball fields are large enough to hold dozens of players on each team and sometimes have some pre-made bunkers along with the natural cover. Woodsball games are generally longer in duration than other formats, and rely on entirely different tactics. Whereas speed and rate of fire are key elements in a speedball game, woodsball relies much more on concealment, large-scale manoeuvres, and patience.

Speedball

Speedball is much faster and competetive than its brother woodsball. It usually played on a much smaller field roughly the size of two tennis courts. Many speedball fields use inflatable bunkers and are generally sized for teams of 3 - 10. Since the opposing teams are much closer together, there is a lot of movement and a lot of "bunkering", or running up to an opposing player's bunker and eliminating them from a close distance. Speedball is usually considered to be more teamwork oriented than woodsball due to the structure of the game. Also the markers are much faster, smaller, lighter and more expensive than woodsball markers.

Scenario

Scenario paintball games are often larger-scale re-enactments of historical battles involving hundreds of people, such as the Battle of Normandy, or modern day scenarios such as storming a building and rescuing hostages. Scenario games can last hours or sometimes days, and bigger games often have player re-insertions at set intervals.

The most common field for scenario games is Skirmish Paintball in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania which holds several scenario games every year, including The Battle of Stalingrad and the aforementioned Battle of Normandy (also called D-Day) which increases in size every year and continues to be the largest scenario game in the world.

Gauntlet

Gauntlet, like Duel, is one-on-one; however, it does not have the same restrictions on ammunition, and players generally start on opposing ends of the designated play area (similar to most team games). Gauntlet games have become more popular as a quick filler in larger play scenarios, for instance, between players awaiting re-insertion into a scenario game.

Tournament

Tournament is played by the same rules as normal paintball, but in a competitive environment. There is a set number of people on each team (commonly 3, 5 or 7), and modern tournament play is primarily speedball. Due to the competitive nature, most tournament players use high-end markers capable of higher rates of fire.

The major leagues are National Professional Paintball League (NPPL), Paintball Sports Promotions (PSP), X-Ball and Millennium. The leagues consist of a whole circuit of paintball tournaments; however, smaller regional and locally-sponsored tournaments are very common.

X-Ball

X-Ball is a faster, more aggressive tournament format designed to give paintball an extreme turn. It was created by Richmond Italia and has its own sports league, the National X-Ball League (NXL). Teams of up to 18 players field up to 5 players at a time, scoring a point each time they take the centre flag to the opposing side of the field. The team with more points at the end of the match wins, with final scores like, 10-5, 20-18 or 15-2. Recently, the NXL world championships were broadcast nationally on ESPN2.