The Charge. I am invincible. Nothing can stop me. Every paintball will miss me. You are nothing and deserve only one thing. For me, the aggressive player to Run AT and shoot you.

Every person on the field looks on in shock as I run screaming and shooting with the biggest burst of energy ever imaginable. It is impossible they say! It can’t happen he has to be shot. The psychological elements of having a guy running at you with a bloodcurdling shout… with the sound of his shots whizzing past you RINGING in your ear is blasphemy!!! You are no more than 10 feet away pumping shots seemingly into his stomach. He has to be hit! Along with this comes the shock that He… Is… Actually Hitting You!!!

As the guy/girl just shot you in their seemingly impossible charge take your position and proceeds to rip apart your stunned team. You decide to inspect him and realize that he hasn’t even got a mark on him. Some would just write it off as luck and a stupid move. Others just look on in open-mouthed awe. Meanwhile the keen seek to do it on their own and improve upon the Charge they saw you do.

This tactic is called bunkering. It is the homerun of Paintball. In doing this play the charging player sometimes may or may not take out the guy he is going for. The point of the charge is for the 3-5 seconds (or even more than 10-15 seconds) where every player is focusing everything on that man. If your team has the sense they can put the other team into a full rout by starting their push on the other side of the field. Chances are the attention of every opponent (especially if your guy is screaming hail marys) is upon your charging player. The other team simply will not even know your players are moving up. Of course you need a guy to do this play. Some will never do this because they say they are “defensive players.”

To me paintball has no defensive players. There are only reserve players just waiting for the team attacking them to make a big enough mistake allowing for them to penetrate their attack with a hailstorm of paint while you becoming the offense and making their advance right through them. Name one war where a country defended with to victory. Name one war where the less aggressive force won. In order to win you must take the initiative. For initiative you must be more aggressive than your opponent. You may be forced to start out a game with defense, but in the end you must attack to drive home the victory. Even Russia in its retreat waiting for winter in World War 2 while playing the defensive role was doing attacks and pinching the enemy wearing him down. Of course you don’t just do this strategy to win.

That is why the last and final most important reason to be aggressive is Bragging Rights!!! You walk into a conversation after a couple of games into a wonderful day of paintball and enter a bragging conversation. These are conversations where everyone brags about either themselves or someone “so good that they can…” You can just say oh yeah I once moved up the flank of an eight-man team and took them all out while my team cowered back at the starting point. The only noise you will hear is the audible click of their jaws snapping shut. Then the whirring of their brains to try and remember to pick you first for their team.