I used to play, haven't since my junior year of high school though. When the weather was good, I'd play every weekend. Got sick, couldn't play for a while, and fell out of the habit of going, never started again. Thought about it, but I'd need to fix up my gun and replace my mask, both of which have just been sitting around for the past four years.
Lot of stories from that, and a lot of good memories. Didn't hurt too much, I always wore a heavy camo jacket and pants which absorbed most of the impact. Gun shot about as straight as a smoothbore, low velocity air rifle with a heavy, spherical, rubber projectile can, too. First game I played with it I took out something like eight of the other team (don't remember how many were on each team, probably a dozen or so) on a speedball field, crawled up the sidelines and took a bunker where I had a clean shot on the remaining couple of players and shot them in the back. Best fucking game I ever played, before or after.
I also got pinned down on a woodsball course at the same place once, missed my target because I wasn't sure if he was out, since he was walking upright without his gun ready, some other guy saw me aiming and yelled, fucker dove under cover an instant after my shots burst in the goddamn branches a couple of feet from his face. Well, I wound up huddled behind a log with three guys shooting at me, when suddenly shots start hitting next to me from behind. Thinking fast, I leap up and run back through the bushes I came from, and shoot the two people who were shooting at me. Then I see the two fucktards are on my team, pause in shock, and get shot in the back by the three who had me pinned down. Spent the walk off the field cursing at those two, shared a laugh about the whole thing with the three who were shooting at me before the next game.
Like I said, good fucking memories.
Yeah, playing in the woods is much better, lots of cover, generally larger than a speedball course, so things get spread out more. As many times as I played the course at the nearby field I never did see all of it, though that was more because I knew exactly where to go to have cover and high ground, a hole in some thorn filled bushes near an uprooted tree, I could press forward, or hide by the roots and wait for the lines to pass by me from the other side (had to run like hell to get there first, enemy lines would pass by on paths to either side, if I played it smart I could take them out since they'd be on the wrong side of cover). The cheap jacket I bought to play paintball in had some hunting camo pattern on it, probably added a small margin to my success rate in the woods.
BTW, try getting shot in the ear. It takes a q-tip or a few head washes to clean it out.
I got hit in the ear a few times, shit always left my head ringing, but my mask didn't really let the paint get in. About as bad as getting hit in the faceplate, being stuck on an active course blind isn't exactly fun, and it's not so easy to clean off your mask while you're wearing it, even though the ear is more painful.