I need some back player help

[SpongeBobSquarePants]

Well I am totally bored so I figured I would ask you guys if you have any advice or links to help me improve my game. I'm the back guy any help is appericated

[Brak]

shoot your own team mates, thatll get someone exited!

try switching positions with people, or try woodsball, in woodsball there really arent positions

[FalconGuy016]

agh how can you stand being back player ??? I cant stand waiting for the paintballs to fly through the air and hit a place, far enough so you can see them coming and hide before they can hit you

[Kevmaster]

shoot the lanes on the break
shoot the bunker the guys running to, NOT the guy
shoot to keep front guys down
shoot the hell outta your trigger

get the idea? SHOOT ALL THE TIME

[BobTheCow]

i don't care WHAT anybody says, woodsball can be amazing.
and i hafta agree w/ falcon about the back player situation, literally dodging paint. i know i've done it, and seen it happen too(in all of 3 times playing speedball).

[WARPED1]

Communicate,you got to be loud.Lay paint everywhere.When the front guys can't see,be thier eyes.Tell them when it's safe to move.
Shoot the edge of bunkers,don't waste paint shooting things that don't count.If you shoot where they're most likely coming out to shoot your front guys,shoot there!Alternate sides you shoot at.95% of experienced players won't pop up over the top,unless they're bunkering you.

[EsPo]

watch a few games, and find a popular bunker that people on the other team are going to, on the break, just lay down lots of paint near that bunker, where the person will be running into it........ im bad with words.. i hope you understand what im saying.

btw, well, your a backman, so your not going to move much... y not bring a little fold up chair, you know the one that goes in the little bag?.. well anyway, just bring that on the field.....and you get my drift right?

[Curly]

It is key to be watching the field and communicating. It is also a good idea to keep the g (elimination) count and keep track of how many guys they have left.

You must be on the trigger a lot and shoot a lot of paint. definitely lane and sweetspot off the break to get guys going into the front bunkers.

As your front players move up the field you want to be following them up. you dont want to sit in the back can for the entire game.

You also need to learn how to finish the game. This is important because as a back guy you should be one of the last guys out. Practice reading the other players and how to react when they come to do you.

It might be a good idea to have two guys on opposite sides of one bunker and have them try and run around and shoot each other. This is a good drill so that you know how to react when you are going to get bunkered.

The most important thing is to have fun.

[SpongeBobSquarePants]

Ok i new most of this stuff, this is what i have got so far

Sweet Spot of the break shoot in the running lanes infront of them make them run into the paint.

Stay on the trigger but dont waste paint use the spray and pray techinque

COMMUNCATION COMMUNCATION COMMUNCAITON be your front guys eyes and ears

Learn How to close the game.

Bring a lawn chair i will get tired

Does that about cover everything? Thanks for the help guys

[Collegeboy]

I play back all the time. It is imo one of the more important positions on the field, but also gets the most slack.

A good backman needs to be able to communicate well. Before I go and play a game of speed ball I always take about 2 minutes to identify people and bunkers with some sort of primitive system. Like divide each side into three areas, front, mid, back. Now divide the bunkers in that area into number systems. Pretty easy, go 1,2,3, either start from the center and go to the tape or from the tape to the center but do it the same each time so not to confuse people. This helps so as to not give away positions and all to the opposite side while keeping good communication with your team.

Now next on the agenda is break away move. Before the game starts, if you can, walk the field determine shooting lanes and bunkers which might be easy to pin someone, and which ones are better to go for. Now after that happens on the break you want to do two things, shoot into those predetermined lanes trying to get at least one guy out, and while doing that try and get a sense of where each person is going. This will come in handy for covering your players on their moves and to determine which moves you want to take.

Now during the game, I find the best bunker for a back person is a stand up one, for the simple reason of sight and easy of operations. But the thing with stand up bunkers, alot of them are prone to side shots. So be careful if you screw up and you flanks start to fall, you might want to retreat to a better bunker to get more cover. Now while the game is going you have to be constantly laying down fire while again keeping up with your players movements and the enemy movements. The most important part here is not to worry too much with the actual taking some guy out by yourself, if the opportunity comes then go for it, but 9 out of 10 times, you will be shooting at a bunker to keep someone down while your teammate moves.

It is a tough job being a backman. You have to do three to four things at once for the entire game. Being a backman is more then just the fat guy on the team who has the fastest gun and can care the most paint. The guy has to be a strategist. Basically a general on the paintball field instructing his troops.

The above is just the basics. I do think Bob Long has written a bunch of articles about the importance and the job of the backman. You might want to check and see if you can find some of them.

Now if only I could do what I said above..

[halB]

Originally posted by BobTheCow63
i don't care WHAT anybody says, woodsball can be amazing.
and i hafta agree w/ falcon about the back player situation, literally dodging paint. i know i've done it, and seen it happen too(in all of 3 times playing speedball).

woodsball is the ish. and youll learn some different things.

[c sherer]

Formerly I had Superman Syndrome, where i'm a 6' 3" 240# guy playing front because I could do it better than anyone else on the team. Well, the fields got smaller and migrated from woods to UltimateAir. I could no longer play front, so I got better fronts (read: 4', 98lb weaklings who can run 0-60 in .5 seconds).
Relegated to back, I soon realized that in modern tournament paintball, the back position is the most underrated, but the absolutely most important.
Front players are expendable. Mid players have to play mid and front and are mostly expendable. Mid guys are the game breakers (look at LaSoya - He does it better than anyone).
Back men MUST be able to do it all. They are the eyes and ears of the mid & front guys and without them, a team is totally blind. Want to win a game? Take out the backers off the break. Forget laning the front players, do the backs.
Back men have it good. We get to shoot lots of paint (face it, we ALL like to shoot paint). But, we also have to be the brains on the field. We are the control. We are the men behind the joysticks. Without us, the front/mids are mostly blind. We are also the closers. The guys who have to play the end game and the guys who have to play mid and front equally well.
That being the case, we generally have the hardest role in a modern paintball team. We have to know our team codes perfectly. We have to monitor time for everyone else. We have to study fields in order to find the best paths that the opposition will take on the break (for laning). We have to be accurate with heavy volumes of paint. We have to be very loud and to yell out plays and positions often to our mates. We have to be able to see how a field develops to assist our front/mids in their bunker runs.
Face it - We have the best role in the game! We get to do it all and we get to do it for most of the game!
Having played front, mid and back, I am MOST happy to play back, because I get to do it all. Sure, the fronts get all the glory and fame, but any front player worth his salt realizes that without his backers, he just an easy bunker casualty. Back men like Adamson are what we shoud aspire to be. He plays his position quite well. He is a shooter an a communicator. Yeah, he's fat and old like most of us backers, but woe to the little runner coming at him(us). We are crafty, devious and smart SOBs and we WILL shoot the hell out of you!

C Sherer
AsylumFactory

[pbguy888]

Yeah I compare backers with line men in football. You arent gonna do squat without them

[Kevmaster]

oh, and i guess i forgot this.

naming each bunker is good "back beer can" is the typical back bunker thats a cyllander(sp?). "doritos", "home plates", etc.

also, gotta keep cout of your men up and their up "G2 Up 4" would mean two of them down, 4 of us alive...

[Curly]

Yes like Kevin says the count is very important.

We use G for elims and ball for our elim count. So G 2 Ball 1 would mean that two of them are gone and one of our guys is gone.

The reason that this is important is because it lets you know where you stand. When you get G 2 with no balls then you know that you are up. Its time to start moving and playing agresive. When its g 1 ball 4 then its time to start playing defensively.