But what gets me is the tournament guys who show up. Ok, sure, it's not good to make a general statement like this, but they're just totally unprepared for it. I have videotape from 1992 of the Ironmen playing a big game in St. Louis. They're doing "G" counts! They're counting how many players they've eliminated!

I think it's hilarious. Having been to my share of big games, I know it's futile. Just the sheer mass of players that come at you at any given moment makes counting just... useless!

So PGI asked me to write something about how big games work for tournament players who may be wanting to go to a scenario or a big game. (...a concept that strangely compelled me...)

Big Games and Scenario games differ in styles, but they share a lot in common, the biggest being the size. In an exchange, you could be facing one, ten, thirty, a hundred opponents. You never know 'till you get there and it's on top of you.

If this article teaches you nothing else, let it be this : "BE PATIENT!" More people get eliminated from a big game because of stubbornness or eagerness than anything else. You've got all the time in the world. Use it all if you have to! This 'aint no speedball game! Take your time! This is a dramatic change for a lot of tournament players used to 10 minute hyperball matches. In the big game, Speed Kills.

Let's talk about the fields. First. Think big. Bigger. Come on, go huge. How huge? Paintball Sam's Big Game is 1/2 mile from fort to fort of Wisconsin beauty. Skirmish's World Record Game is 700 acres of woodland pleasure. Think big.

What I'm getting at is you may be used to the tiny tournament fields, and nothing this huge. You slam forward hard only to get back-doored by a group who went a few hundred meters backwards and cloverleafed right around you.

Always assume you're surrounded. If nobody's shooting at you, they're waiting for an ambush. If there's no ambush, there's going to be. It only takes one scared newbie to hide from you to totally ruin your offensive.

Numerically speaking, think HUGE!!! Racine gets 500 players a day. The world record game got almost 1800 people in '94. Yeah, big time big. Everything is bigger in the big games. EVERYTHING.

Why am I hammering this point home? On a tournament field, what's the worst case scenario to you as an individual player? 10 on 1. And you can handle that, right? I mean, back on the tape and let's go for it. In big games it may come down to you against 50, or a hundred with no tapeline as a security blanket...

And it doesn't matter if you've got a VL-3000 and 1600 paintballs on your backside. You could eliminate a few of them... You have never been monstered on by 50 guns at the same time, have you? Imagine the worst tournament welting you've ever gotten in your life. Multiply it by 50, and imagine a referee laughing at you.

So let's change your thinking on an individual basis. A likely scenario is that your teammates get eliminated or separated from you somehow. That happens on a big field. So you're alone. As a single person, you can do a lot of damage if you think long term and have patience. Realize first of all you alone are not going to be able to take on 50 people by brute force. Realize second that you can be out here for an hour or more, so you have lots of time. Get comfortable.

You have to think about the overall goal of the game. Capture the flag? Get the fort and hold it 'till 3:30? The main thing to focus on is the overall goal. And as an individual you want to either achieve that goal or prevent the other team from achieving their goal.

Have a plan and stick with it. Even if your plan is "Get over to that tree." Great. Make a new one after you get to the tree. Keep in mind your overall goal for that particular game. Make one-step plans that will achieve your ends.

You should know a little about the psychology of your opponents too. For starters, players feel a false sense of security when they're in large numbers. Prey on that. If I find myself alone on a big game field I'll try to get up behind the other team and get surrenders and backshots. Everyone assumes that the rear is guarded, nobody actually guards it.

For example, at the Ohio BASH (a great charity event, must go if you're in the region) I did something like that. They end the day at a central station called "Charity Point." Both teams slug it out to control it. Ok, fine. I'm on the blue team. I get separated from my friends when I get eliminated, and make a run back to my re-insertion point. So I'm alone.

I sneak over to the red entry point and watch them for a few minutes. In a lull in the action I stand up, both hands on my Piranha, and start walking toward charity point on the red side. You tourney guys know this move as the "dead man's walk". The funny part is I passed a few red guys on the way to Charity Point, and they thought nothing of it and let me go.

When I got to the main trail leading up to Charity Point I found a referee and said "Watch this." And I proceeded to shoot the six players immediately in front of me in their harnesses.

They were mad. "What the fuck are you doing!?!? I'm on your team!" they kept on yelling. One guy finally had the brains to turn around, saw me, and yelled "OH SHIT! THE BLUE TEAM IS RIGHT BEHIND US!" I shot him in the tank, and he laid into me with his Spyder after he was hit and got me. Six for one, I'll take it.

Problem was that the ENTIRE red team reared around and said "WHERE?" and proceeded to open up at me. The ref managed to get them to let off. I was laughing too hard to care.

Point is they never bothered to look behind them. I took advantage of that, and it worked. Granted, I could have easily hunkered down and waited for people to walk up on me, but I didn't. That's ok.

You can use the same idea to harass the other team. Really simple. Requires a lot of guts, but you can tie up a whole lot of guys doing this. First you have to let a lot of the other team walk past you. That takes guts and patience. (That patience thing again...) When they do, get about 75 feet away from them (or whatever your effective longball distance is...) and eliminate as many as you can.

They will turn around, they will return fire. Here's where you high-tail it out of there into the all-concealing shadows. If they don't send anyone after you take a hard left or right, move a ways out, go back at 'em and start over.

If they send people after you, you can have fun. Lead 'em on a chase as far as you can! I personally like to move back a ways, shoot a bit, keep moving. They'll soon either lose interest or they'll keep on you. If you've got moxy, you can really have fun here by leading them in a half-circle and getting them to shoot at their own team. Heavy losses from all sides. They hate that.

Another piece of psychology to think about, too : players in large groups have a momentum. As a lone player you aren't about to stop them if they're making an endmove. I advise you to wait them out, let them use up their momentum on the flag pull, or whatever. Take 'em on when they're not ready for it. There's always a lull after a group achieves a goal. They've got their guns down, and they're not looking to get hit.

Let's talk about structures for a moment. Many big games revolve around a fort, or a structure of some kind. Buildings are easy to take, as I've talked before in another article. But taking one on alone is harsh. Not to mention that it's harder to fool 30 guns in well-placed windows.

So if you're daft enough to go after a building alone, you're going to have to pull out every dirty trick in the book. No holds barred, let the BS fly. Some big games allow you to lie about your armband color. Use this, because defenders won't doubt you for the most part. I know many a flag-hang at the Racine Big Game that was founded in the well-placed 'lie'.

If you aren't allowed to lie about your arm-band color, you're going to have to shoot your way in. Or, if you're lucky, you can sneak in from behind (or in front, or the sides... Whichever way works for you.) Either way, it's a guts check. You're going to have to wait them out.

Up until now I've been assuming that you're alone. TOTALLY alone, with nobody to work with. Just you against the world. What if you have your mates with you? Now we're talking.

Now you have some power, and you can create your own momentum. Even if it's just you and two guys, three players can mount a devastating offense or defense, if you do it right. You can do so much with more people in the big game.

I've been avoiding the "Human Herd" psychology for a while now, but this is a good place to start talking about it. Human beings are very susceptible to being herded. If someone is leading, it's natural to follow them until it endangers your safety. Getting eliminated endangers the safety, so people may not follow you into it.

When I play the big games, I tend to see a mass of bodies and no real "momentum" to them. I take it upon myself to fire people up, to lead them. Or at least focus them on a point to move up on. I'm always hoarse after a big game weekend, but I figure that someone has to do it, and it may as well be me.

Sun Tzu put it best. "...when people are skillfully led into battle, the momentum is like that of round rocks rolling down a high mountain - this is force." (From "The Art of War". Get it. Read it. Think it.) Meaning that once you start them rolling, they will believe they CAN, and that will start an emotional avalanche. Once they believe they can achieve the goal, they will. Self fulfilling prophesy, and all that.

The key is to become that mountain to start them going. No, don't go out and get eliminated. Just feed them encouragement and they'll build and roll. "You got him! Move up! Take his spot! Go get 'im! We got the side! Push it! Push it!" I know a few guys who bring bugles to games just to sound a charge.

It takes a lot to get them going at first, but once it's rolling 'aint NOBODY stopping you. So there's your instant team. Just add momentum. Ever heard 200 people giving a "Rebel Yell" as they move across a field? They'd tear down the Great Wall if it was in their way. Keep them focused, you'll go far.

Ok, so now you have a team that's motivated and ready to go. What you have to remember are the keys of paintball in general. Focus, Communication, Teamwork and Patience. I would throw 'leadership' in there, but sometimes you don't want to lead. That's part of the teamwork thing. It's just that in the big game, you're going to have to do this with people you don't know. So trust is important as well.

As in your individual game, you want to have an overall goal. "Get the Flag", "Get the hill", "Shoot a lot of bad guys." Whatever. But the whole group has to know this goal and implement it. If someone doesn't know the goal, they won't be motivated to get it.

Let's say your goal is to hold some ground. This is common in big game formats and scenario games as well. It could be a bunker, a flag, or a hypothetical spot on the field. Or, perhaps you're trying to delay the other team from getting a key point. Ok, let's party.

A defender can win by just surviving (I learned that from "The Legend of Kung Fu"...) So don't be afraid to perform a SLOW fallback, or to just hold a position for a while. Trust me, you won't be bored when it all comes down. As always, work your cover, watch your angles, and so on. But also communicate with your buddies before, during, and after an assault on your position.

My girlfriend is good at this. At the Racine big game she and eight other players sat on a hill and defended it from waves of attackers for 90 minutes. They talked about "The Plan" before hand, and kept to it. They didn't say anything, but when someone would come up to try and take the fort, one would shoot at them and eliminate them. Just a simple holding strategy, but a well-communicated holding strategy.

The very next day, with different defenders, it didn't work. Why? Well, mostly because they didn't stick to the plan. One side fell apart, and the rest got swallowed from behind. They weren't focused on the goal. That's what made it disintegrate.

Anyhow, when holding ground you have to watch all flanks. Your back is not secure. Watch it. Your sides are vulnerable. Watch them. All it takes is one crawler to ruin a perfectly good holding position. Like I said, you won't be bored. If the other team hasn't seen you, use camouflage as best you can. The longer you wait, the more effective your shots will be.

As for taking more ground, that's a little different. Fan out, watch your trips. (On the clock-face method. Watch the 3, 6, 9 and 12. Triples.) As you're moving up, put one guy WAY out in front, at least 60 feet. But keep him within shooting range. If he springs an ambush, you can be prepared for it and return fire.

Again, remember your goal. If you don't have to advance further, don't. If you don't have to take a fortified structure, ignore it. If you can spare the people, leave two or three to watch it and keep their collective heads down. But don't waste your time, energy or paint. Save it for what really needs to be done.

I also want to take a moment to talk about an egress - leaving an area once you no longer need to be in there. This should be organized a little bit too. I like a reverse leapfrog myself, where a forward player shoots cover fire to his teammates who bail. Once they're in the clear, they shoot for cover fire and the forward player bails out. nice and clean.

There's always the "Run-like-a-banshee-in-heat-and-don't-stop-'till-you're-clear " method, but it's a lot nastier and not as professional looking. But, I'll admit, it's a lot more fun to do. Especially if you yell "Whoob-Whoob-Whoob-Whoob" as you do it. (I don't know if the "Three Stooges" is big in the UK or not, if not then I just lost 75% of the readers of this magazine...)

One last part as well here. When you're maneuvering in a big game, remember the field size. Don't be afraid to totally disengage the opponent by retreating. (It's not retreating, it's a "New Retrograde Offensive Position"...) If they lose sight of you, you can start a crawl at them, or set up an ambush.

Here's a free trick for you. Only works in big games anymore. You need one gutsy and fast player (Your rabbit). It helps if your rabbit is easy to identify somehow (like wearing a deer suit...) And everyone else sits tight behind hard cover. You send the rabbit forward towards the other team. He shoots a few balls to get their attention. Now you start the gutsy part.

Once they shoot at the rabbit, he should yell something like "OH HELL!" or whatever. Then RUN BACKWARDS towards your own teammates in waiting. The other team will send players after the rabbit, if not the whole squad. (Who wouldn't want to shoot a deer?) When they get into range, and are focused on the rabbit, the rest of the team pops up and hammers them. This move, also known as the "Bait and Trap", works more often than you think.

I'll close with one final thought about big games. The big game experience isn't about who wins and who loses. For recreational players, it's a chance to see the latest in technology they won't normally see. For tournament players, it's a chance to relax, slow down, and enjoy the event and not worry about points or whatever.

But for everyone, it's a chance to meet new friends and reacquaint with old ones. I look forward to both of the games at Paintball Sam's big game every year in Racine. I love to travel to new places and meet all sorts of people. I get to play fields I never would have as a regular player. And I get to play paintball like we used to. Kinda gets me, right here...

Tyger
tyger@luminet.net

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