What is CPPS paintball?
CPPS is a paintball site based in Penkridge, Staffordshire, and is the UK's leading tournament paintball venue. Hundreds of players from all over the country travel to the site, they hold 5 Rounds of tournament paintball for each division throughout the year, along with separate exclusive tournaments for students, ladies, 7vs7, and even a pre-season cup on top of those 5 rounds!
Through the summer months, three of these rounds are the bigger events to attend where all the divisions play across the 2 days of the weekend. These big events at Rounds 2, 3, and 4, are packed with players and paintball retail vendors that have trade stands set up selling all the latest paintball kit and equipment like ourselves!
There are 6 whole field setups located at the venue, 5 of which are well-looked after grass pitches for the lower divisional fields, and they have 1 pristine astro-turf field with a "grand-stand" grass mound built around the perimeter of the field for spectators to watch. This is mainly used for training days and for the UK Elite Division, along with the European Pro Division at the NXL events.
CPPS is the perfect paintball venue for teams to train at, as they have all the essential facilities, the field is clean and maintained throughout the entire season, you can hire a private field specifically for your own team, or even turn up to open training sessions that usually take place every Sunday (providing that there's no special events on) on the astro-turf field.
Each division has it's own set of rules for how the gameplay is formatted. The higher the division, the longer the games can last.
- Elite Division: Race to 5, 10mins, 4 pods
- D1: Race to 3, 9mins, 3 pods
- D2: Race to 3, 8mins, 3 pods
- D3: Race to 3, 7 mins, 3 pods
- D4: Race to 3, 6 mins, 3 pods
- D5: 5man Single point, 5mins, 2 pods (NXL Ramp 300fps)
- Breakout: 5man Single point, 5 mins, 2 pods, (Semi capped at 8bps, 280fps)
Questions and Answers by CPPS:
Q: What is this type of paintball?
A: Tournament paintball is played with 5 players on each team. The goal is to eliminate the opposing team by shooting them with a paintball on any part of the player or equipment they are holding or carrying and press a button at the opposition’s start base area which ends the point. Depending on the level of play (we host 8 divisions at CPPS to cater to all levels of player), then a match win might be achieved by winning a single point, or numerous points within a set time frame. This could be the first team to reach 4 points for example. When the button is pressed in a multi-point division, then the teams have 2 minutes to clean up, reload and enter the field again after winning or losing a point before the start buzzer sounds to play the next point. The winning team is the one that scores 4 points or the team with the highest point score at the end of the game time.
What makes tournament paintball unique is that it is played in arenas with inflatable obstacles of different shapes and sizes placed symmetrically from each team’s start base (so regardless of the end you start from, the layout is the same). The position of these obstacles changes between events, so teams must learn new tactics to best place their players on the field.
Here's an example of what a layout could look like, these printed sheets are released in the upcoming weeks to an event, to give the players at least a few weekends to train on the field layout before they play the tournament on it! In reference to the following picture, the "start bases" would be located on either side, left and right, central to the width.
Q. Do I need my own equipment to play here?
R. Normally yes. Most of our players have come from some experience of playing paintball in the woods and already have their own equipment such as a mask/marker/loader. However, if you’re desperate to try this format of paintball, then we can help you out with some equipment to try so please get in touch!
Q. How do I go about getting started?
R. Drop us a message and we can hook you up with one of the teams or clubs (who run multiple teams at CPPS over a range of divisions). They often have spare equipment themselves and will invite you along to one of their training days. We also run new to paintball days too, so keep an eye on our Facebook page for details.
Q. What is the Breakout Division for beginners?
R. The CPPS series offer a division to new players coming into the sport called the Breakout division. You don't have to fully commit to a full season or anything, you can just play the events that suit you best! It's perfectly designed for new players as the games are slower paced, with a lower rate of fire for the paintball markers to shoot at. The standard is now 280 feet per second (as opposed to 300fps in the higher divisions), and 8 balls per second (as opposed to 10.5bps in the higher divisions), along with it being on semi-automatic. This really helps players get the confidence to being shot at without being too intimidating or painful. The logic is that so new players enjoy playing more than anything! CPPS have also made it so that you have a wider starting base area, so that you can stand 1m away from the start gate either side, allowing you more room and opportunity to make it into your position alive at the start of the game!
Here's a quick video from 2019 that show's a little insight to what the Breakout division is like!
