Budget balling. Tips and hints on how to get started cheap cheap.
- Thread starter Dusty
- Start date
Be efficient with your gear. By only having a backpack to take your gear from one place to another, it stops kit whoring before it gets a chance to develop. Also, use all of your paint at the site - if you've got paint at the end of the day's games, do some target practice (if you're in the woods) or some drills. There's no point in going home with full pods.
A lot of padding that people use isn't essential at all.
Every player should have a pair of knee pads, because almost everybody will slide into bunkers no matter what position they play, and it's easy to damage your knees if you don't have pads.
Beyond that it comes down to play style and personal preference. If you are a front player and superman into bunkers then a set of elbow pads is a good idea, but if you're a back player who always stays on your feet then they aren't necessary.
Beyond that padding is essentially just used by players to get more bounces, and so while it may keep you in the occasional game for a bit longer, it's not needed.
So basically you need to be looking in this order:
1) Knee pads
2) Elbow pads
3) Chest pad/bounce vest
Number 1 as a priority, number 2 if your play style requires them, and number 3 if you've got money to spare.
Dont spend load of money on a branded bag to keep your kit in. I've never seen the point.
Go to the nearest sports shop and spend half as much on perfectly adequate bag (Nike/adidas/ect..)
Go to the nearest sports shop and spend half as much on perfectly adequate bag (Nike/adidas/ect..)
Remember that a barrel is just a smooth metal tube - spending a small fortune on a barrel kit won't make all that much difference to your accuracy and play and the stock barrels on most markers these days are fine.
Can be a good way to save some money, but can also cause you problems as many normal sports bags either won't be big enough for all of your kit or will not be strong enough to cope with the weight.
What I would suggest is that people look at things like Cricket bags. Most are comparable to paintball kit bags in terms of size, can carry plenty of weight, have decent wheels for if you don't feel like carrying them, and are far cheaper.
For example, right now if you want a big kitbag from Planet Eclipse then you're best option is this:
£150
34x82x36cm
However you could buy the following as an alternative:
£40
30x83x30cm
Both bags have a separate compartment at the end so you can split your kit up, but the Kookaburra bag has a large compartment at either end so you can keep muddy shoes or something away from the rest of your kit at the end of the day. Build quality is pretty much identical, size is pretty much identical, and yet the cricket bag is £110 cheaper.
It's a no brainer really.
Start off with buying the mask. The rest you can kinda pick up along the way. Oh and yeah, always check the used market 
