Want to be the player who’s team everybody wants to be on? Here’s how to be a more valuable teammate.

Playing paintball or airsoft as a true team player beats strength in numbers anyday, hands down. This involves several factors such as communication, planning, and allocation/division of your team. To start with, and probably the most important asset a team can have, is good communication skills. This can be as simple as yelling out to your teammates when you spot an enemy position. Tools such as headsets or 2-way transmitters make it much easier and more effective to communicate with your team during play. Remember to always relay things like enemy positions and movements, changes in objectives, and any other valuable game-related info to your team whenever possible. This gives your team a huge advantage. For example, You are behind cover and spot an enemy. you shoot at them and they jump behind cover. You no longer have a line of sight at them, but someone else on your team may. Yelling out to nearby teammates the enemies location, what they are hiding behind, and what type of gun they are using(ex. sniper or assault rifle) and how many there are, will give your teammates a target when they may not be currently engaged. Secondly, planning your gameplay in advance will strongly aid your team in battle. Deciding who is to go where, do what, and forming a line across your section of the field is crucial. spreading out quickly and forming a line stops the enemy from simply circling around your entire team and shooting you from behind. For example, a good plan for a capture the flag style game would be to decide who is going to run for the flag(someone who is fast and is a small target) and who is going to cover them, as well as back ups in case key players get eliminated. Remember to match the roles to the most suited players. A support player would have lots of ammo with a good rate of fire and range, while an objective player would have a small load-out so they can be a small and fast target for the enemy. Lastly, the allocation and division of your team is key to strategic play. Dividing your team into groups who have specific roles, and deciding which group is best suited for what roles is part of the “planning” discussed previously. Again being sure that your team is aligned so that the enemy cannot surround you and shoot you from behind, plan what group goes to which part of the field. You can also allocate players on a smaller scale, within groups. This involves spreading your group across the section of field your group is controlling and not bunching up behind bunkers. Remember, more than one player behind a single bunker is like shooting fish in a barrel for the enemy. Spread out, giving the enemy more targets that are harder to hit and who lay down more effective fire. We hope this makes you and your team a more effective, efficient, and ultimately a victorious group of team players!

~ A.L.