What is Tactical Paintball?

The type of game we run is a bit different than a traditional "scenario" paintball game. It's also different from "military simulation" airsoft or paintball, and it's very far removed from tournament or "speedball" style paintball games.

The primary goal of Tactical Paintball is to put the player in realistic tactical military situations using paintball gear and other props to provide safe, fun, challenging games. It is where scenario paintball and military simulation cross over.

So what does all THAT mean?

Realistic: This means that the objectives of the game will be simulations of real-world military missions. Players won't be capturing any flags. They may be disarming a bomb, or securing some documents, or eliminating some guards, or many other tasks that might comprise a real military mission. Fantasy themes are not used.

Tactical: The tactical scale of military conflict is the smallest level of fighting. Players represent soldiers on a 1-for-1 basis. Hence, unless we rustle up 30,000 players for a game, we aren't doing division-sized engagements! Due to typical attendance limitations, most Tactical Paintball scenarios are based on squad- and platoon-level engagements, not entire operations like Overlord or the Tet Offensive.

Military: We simulate modern military engagements. Paintball gear is much better at representing soldiers from 1940 to the present than it is at representing swords and arrows. Players more closely approximate soldiers than vampires, aliens or knights. Often, military roles or leadership structures will be used in the game. This is to enhance the play experience and provide structure for the more complicated missions. Players should be ready to either lead or follow. Loners and free-willed players who "just wanna shoot stuff" won't get the most out of Tactical Paintball.

Paintball Gear: Paintball gear is our substitute for real weapons. Mil-sim style gear is welcome, as are most paintball guns and equipment. Since immersion and roleplaying play a part in the game, we prefer players embrace some sort of military dress or camouflage, rather than colorful tournament clothing. We also strive for interesting props that have an actual in-game effect, not just "stuff to cart around."

Safe: We do not want to simulate the stress, fear and personal danger of real combat. Those parts are not fun. We do want to recreate some the adrenaline and tension of combat. The game should be safe and exciting. As a sport, paintball has an excellent safety record that we would like to maintain.

How is that different from scenario or mil-sim games?

Scenario Paintball

Scenario paintball has a wide variety of styles, sizes and rules. Several common factors exist in most games:

Extended play times, usually from 8 to 26 hours of continuous play.
Unlimited re-insertion into the game, often at set time intervals.
A victory point scoring system, usually based on mission completion and possession of objectives/territory or props. These occasionally include player losses as part of the score.
Props of various sorts, often tied to victory points.
Emphasis on large numbers of players, from hundreds to thousands.
Themes vary from traditional fictional or real military battles to movies, comics or other completely fantastic story lines. These themes usually have some effect on scoring, but usually little effect on game play. (It's still paintball after all.)

Scenario paintball caters to the player who wants to shoot a lot and play a long time. Getting shot is a minor affair, as you simply wait for the next re-insertion and play some more. It has strengths and weaknesses. It's strength is constant action. It's weakness is high cost, poor organization at the small unit level, and the "grunt effect," where you as a player may matter very little in the grand scheme of the game. It is more akin to a mosh pit than a battlefield. You jump in and stay for as long as you can, eventually get thrown out, then jump back in.

Some scenario paintball producers are striving for different game mechanics. The Viper RTS series of games is emulating computer real-time strategy games by giving the players in-game reasons for collection of resources. Some producers focus heavily on the story of a scenario, but I have yet to play in one that really affected game play for the average player. The confusion and lack of organization on a team level can be frustrating to the average player that is not part of the command structure, which usually involves teams, rather than individuals.

Military Simulation (Mil-sim)

Mil-sim is a very broad term. It applies to everything from airsoft games with players in realistic military gear, to RAP .40 and .43 caliber simulation games, and even to "simunition" or other training applications. There are several common factors to mil-sim:

Emphasis on realistic look of equipment. This is sometimes to the expense of performance. The "re-enactment" flavor of many mil-sim events is very important to the hobby.
Many mil-sim events are re-enactments of various historical battles. Again, these tend toward the modern and the realistic.
Some mil-sim events are not competitive. The players on "the good guys" side are set up against a relatively passive "bad guy" force. This is especially true of training simultations, where the bad guys are prevented from acting in certain ways to preserve the value of the training.

Mil-sim is best for the player who wants to play Army. Suspension of disbelief and immersion are primary goals. The gear is really more important than the game play. Immersion is mil-sim's primary strength. Players get to pretend and immerse themselves in the roles they play.

Mil-sim's weakness is the lack of competitive drive and the strict adherence to form over function. Airsoft and RAP guns have far less range and accuracy than a typical paintball gun, even if they look nearly identical to real firearms. Props, especially vehicles, are much rarer in mil-sim, due to difficulty in accurately re-creating them. Depending on the type of event, equal chances of winning may not exist and the emphasis may not be on player performance, but rather on re-enactment or training.

Tactical Paintball

So our goal at Think Tank is to make a game that has mil-sim organization and realism, add some scenario competitiveness, then throw in some interactivity and player drive. Tatical paintball is like a choose-your-own-adventure meets your favorite war movie. I have touched on some of these factors before, in an article on WineShark.com called "Trading Tension for Action." Here are some major features of our tactical paintball games:

Games tend to be shorter than typical "big games," usually on the order of 1-3 hours per mission. Missions usually involve several smaller tasks, rather than one constant one.
Missions are built to accommodate groups of 20-50, rather than hundreds. We try to allow every player to have something cool to do, rather than just being some grunt in the ranks. Bigger games are possible, but structure is hard to maintain at large sizes.
Team organization, leadership and cooperation are a must for sucessful mission completion. The tasks required in a mission are sometimes complex and difficult choices have to be made. Players that just want to run around shooting people will lose, time after time.
Missions are scored on a performance basis. The scoring is usually based on a 100-point scale, but the value of tasks is usually NOT known to the player. The player simply knows what the mission is, and the scoring reflects various levels of success or failure of that mission. This prevents "gaming the scenario" by analysing the point values.
The "storyline" of the missions is flexible and reactive to the players' actions. Events during the game often change a team's successive tasks.
Unexpected events are part of the game. Changes in mission, unexpected encounters with Non-Player Characters, or discovery of in-game props are all possible. Players must THINK to complete their missions. Rules do not change, but circumstances and "known" information might.
Re-insertion to the game is sometimes limited. Treatment of hit players as "wounded" may be part of the game. Overall, the play is designed to discourage the attitude that getting shot doesn't matter. Most other games allow unlimited re-insertion, which cheapens mistakes and makes players sloppy.
Missions are competitive from both sides. Unlike some mil-sim events, this is not a training exercise. The OPFOR is a thinking, unpredictable foe that will do their best to win, rather than simply provide moving targets for the "Blue Team."
Players may have specific roles and sub-tasks or missions within their team structure. We try to give everyone to be a chance at being the hero and doing something cool.
While we appreciate mil-sim and real tactical gear for the immersion factor, performance is more important than looks. Paintball guns have come a long way in looking like real firearms, but the best performing models still look like paintball guns. We'd rather allow a broad range of guns and gear than limit our players to strictly "look-alike" stuff. Regular off-the-shelf paintball gear is welcome.

So if this sounds like something your speed, sign up for our newsletter and join us for a different type of paintball. We'll see you on the field!