With that in mind, read through the pages here and look for the word "Bunker" or "Cover". Now look how they're talked about. "Work your bunker." "Get angles from your bunker." "Slide out of your cover." Hell, I don't even understand what it all means. What about the new guys? They don't have a clue! That's to be expected, they're new, after all. So with that in mind, I wanted to write a quick lesson on "Cover" for the new players. (Which means that you're gonna have to read someone else's stuff if you're already a player. That's OK, I'm not hurt.)

First of all, what is "Cover"? I looked it up. It's defined as "To protect or shield from harm, loss, or danger." (It's also defined as a term for equine copulation, but that's not important.) So in paintball, anything between you and an opponent is considered "Cover". In that there's two basic types : "Hard" cover like trees, rocks, and bunkers and "Soft" cover like grass, small trees and shrubs. Both types work the same, but they don't work the same. I haven't gone all "Zen" on you folks, trust me on this.

Let's tackle hard cover first. Almost ALL speedball fields are exclusively "Hard" cover. Meaning there's a very solid object between you and the other guys. Big trees, rocks and bunkers are solid cover from incoming paintballs. Some fields have berms, hills, and other terrain features that counts as "Hard" cover. ANYTHING solid you can place your body behind is hard cover. Seeing as most game situations are bunkers, (especially on speedball fields) I'll stick to using that term almost exclusively. Do a little mental dance and bunker becomes tree becomes rock becomes fort becomes wall becomes inflatable becomes corrugated piping becomes car becomes anything else solid. (Whiew! That's a mouthful.)

I'll avoid the finer points of moving into a bunker. That's dependent on how fast you are and how in shape you are. (I'm in shape, I chose a pear.) But once you're in a position, what do you do? A common mistake is to get as close as you can to your bunker and pop out for eliminations. It's not really a mistake I guess. It made sense to me when I was new to the game too. But, after studying videos, watching the experts play, and reading other people's articles (I still love reading Felix's stuff) it becomes obvious that this isn't what you want to nessarily do.

The closer to the action you are, the closer to the inside of your bunker you want to be. If you're further away from the action, you can afford to move further back from your bunker. It's called "Sliding back" or "Sliding out". The reason this is useful is because from farther behind a position, you can control more of the field laterally without over-exposing yourself to your opponents. You can watch their movements from a good position and still be protected from what's in front of you. If they get closer, it's only a matter of moving up a few feet forward into your bunker to counter a move of 20 feet from your opponent. You can also avoid their shots entirely by leaning a few inches, rather than a few feet. This allows you to keep your gun in position to shoot back easily, and not have to reset your arm positioning. In the thick of a game, this can be the difference between winning and losing.

By sliding back, you also can get more "Angles". "Angles" is a blanket term for shooting side to side from a position. Very rarely do you shoot at your 12 o-clock from a bunker. You're mostly shooting the 9 to 10:30 angle and 1:30 to 3 o-clock angles. Why? It's easier, and faster to lean out the side rather than poke up. Besides, on a lean my head and gun come out simultaneously. On a poke up, the gun or my head is seen first, giving my opponent a chance to take me out before I shoot.

Speaking of leaning out, most opponents lean out from your left hand side. Why? We're mostly right-handed people and it's more "natural" to lean out from our rights, which puts us on our opponent's left hand side. This means that you can anticipate most player's movements by aiming towards the left hand side of bunkers. How? Tournament players preach playing "Switch" handed. It's tough, but it helps. Me? I lay on my side on the left of a bunker and wait for their lean to my left and hammer. I'm too lazy to haul 8 pounds of gun on my off-side.

Imagine a line just over the top of your bunker, and just around the sides. This line starts from your opponent's barrel and continues past the sides and top of the bunker. Learning where that line will be is the essence of angles. And learning how much you can extend this line will improve your game. Watch your feet, your hands, your head, your loaders, your harness... Anything beyond that line can get shot.

So how do you make these angles work for you? Good question. The best way is to get a stable shooting stance that you like. This position should allow you to play in two directions at once, but also give enough flexibility to slide in if you need to. Some players get on their knees and play from there. Some players crouch down on their toes. And some go on one knee, the other one up. If you wear soft knee/shin guards go with something like that to shield yourself from incoming paint. (Get over it... the pros do it!) Any way you stance it, make sure you're comfortable with it. Shives (a Team Internet friend of mine) has big thigh pains after a full day because of his technique. It works, however, so he still uses it.

With any stance you use you want to try to "Layer" your cover. Meaning that if you can line up several trees, bunkers, or anything else into a row which will protect you from the opponent's paint you're doing just as well as hiding behind a big ass wall. It's a technique called "Tree Walking" in some circles, I call it a "Liquid wall" because that's basically what it is. Like water, every time you move it changes. A "Zen" approach, but it's a good one.

This conveniently brings me to "Soft" cover. "Soft" cover is more about finesse and grace than the brute force of hard cover. You need to think a little more about using soft cover than hard cover. You also need to trust your instincts more to use soft cover. "Soft" cover is anything that may prevent paintballs from reaching you, but isn't guaranteed. This is stuff like twigs, leaves, grass and small trees.

In a lot of cases, tall grass is just as good as a bunker. Grass will either break paint outright or deflect it in most cases. Unless someone rips a few hundred balls through the thickest grass, nothing is getting through. Everyone has a story about the guy who hid behind a twig and never got shot. I know a few fields where I can get behind a shrub and nothing gets to me but splatter. This is beautiful cover, because it allows you to watch the other guys and communicate what you see to your teammates who may not be able to see it.

Soft cover also includes some things you wouldn't expect. How about camouflage? Get behind some grass or shrubs and lay still. If they don't see you, they can't shoot you. Going back to our definition of "cover", this seems to work. How about moving far enough back so they can't touch you with the longball? If you're fast, you can outrun a shooter between bunkers. Or you can pop your gun up and lay down a wall of paint at the other guy to make him duck (Ever wonder why it's called "Cover Shooting"?) The three "Out's" : "Outrange", "Outrun" and "Outshoot", it's all good cover.

Utilizing all this information takes a long time to master. Several nuances and "tricks" exist, but these are the basics. Take what you learn, build from experiences, and enjoy!

Tyger
tyger@luminet.net