Hey, its been a while since I've been on here. While I don't really play much anymore since all my friends are now married and have kids I have played a fair amount in the past and we usually do get together once or twice a year now and play it. I don't have as much fun now as I used to, but it is a good time. Don't worry about it hurting, its not bad at all. Just make sure you wear at least 2 layers of clothing, some kind of glove and of course the mask is an absolute requirement. I have a head thing too that comes down and covers the sides and back of my neck. Probably the most painful shot I got was in the front of my neck just next to my adam's apple....ouch.
I've only played 2 outdoor places and 1 indoor. I didn't care for the indoor at all because aside from my friends there was a bunch of other people that were really good and had high end equipment....they kicked my butt. Usually, we'd play at my friend's grandmothers house. She had a small patch of woods and a field behind her place. The games we usually played was the typical 2-team last man standing thing, civil war and border patrol.
Civil war was played in the field where the 2 teams stood in parallel lines about 100 feet apart and everyone took there hoppers off so it was single shot, load, single shot, load...etc and the two teams marched closer and closer till the other team was wiped out.
Border patrol was great. The border patrol team crammed into my friends jeep and they slowly drove back and forth along the woods and the "mexicans" waited in the woods for a chance to race to the other side of the field (U.S.). Many times the mexican team got drilled big time before making it across (Yes, I know not very politically correct.
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Another tradition we'd have was playing on each other's bachelor party. We'd play paintball during the day and grill out for lunch then go home clean up and go out and party at the bars. When we finished up the paintball the the day the bachelor would "run the gauntlet". Everyone would chip in 5 bucks to take a shot at the bachelor who would make about a 50-60 yard dash to the finish line where at the end of the line was the cash that everyone chipped in. The shooters line up along the course and would absolutely unload on the bachelor before he reached the end. Boy did that hurt when I did it. Fortunately my bachelor party was 2 weeks before the wedding so I didn't have any welts left over for my honeymoon.
Getting shot here and there while playing isn't bad. Getting nailed dozens of times during about a 10-15 second sprint really smarts. Thats ok though, it was probably the fastest 60 bucks I ever made.