For Dominick Schwartz, the battlefield is a second home. Schwartz grew up amid the makeshift forts and bunkers of Paintball USA, the SoCal paintball company run by his parents, Mike and April. Later, he put his combat skills to the test when he joined the Army and completed tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We asked Schwartz if some of the military strategies he learned in the Army translate to the paintball fields. If you’re serious about winning your next round of paintball, check out five of his favorite paintball tips below.

Leapfrogging

During rounds of paintball shooting, explains Schwartz, you’ll “rarely ever shoot straight in front of you. You’re crossed up with the guy on the other side of the field … so no one can run up on him and no one can run up on you.” But you need to break this stalemate and advance on your opponent, so Schwartz advocates using his first paintball tip, which is modeled after a military technique known as “leapfrogging,” or “buddy livefire.” During this maneuver, you shoot while a teammate bounds forward unexpectedly. Keep doing this, and occasionally switching roles, until you’ve advanced to the desired position.

Flanking

Flanking gives you a chance to get behind your opponents without them noticing. To carry out this paintball strategy, game players maintain a force that pushes forward while a smaller, secret force sneaks out to hit the enemy from behind. “They don’t even see it coming,” Schwartz says with just a hint of glee.

Dividing and Conquering

Of course, flanking works both ways. If you think you’re in danger of being flanked by an opponent, one of the best ways to survive is to follow another one of Schwartz’s paintball tips: divide and conquer.

First, split up the left and right sides of your party evenly, saving two players for the middle. “Just hammer the left and right side and maintain the middle,” Schwartz advises. Then, when some of your opponent’s forces have gravitated to the left or the right, “pull everyone back to the middle and run up that way.” The final charge is a kind of blitzkrieg, attacking with a strong force in the heart of the enemy territory. Gulp.

Playing Dead

When you get shot in a typical paintballing match, you have to call out “dead man walking” and walk off the field. Schwartz uses this rule to his advantage. He’s concocted a simple trick play designed to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. “You can get up any time in a tournament game and pretend like you’re dead,” he explains. “You can’t actually say it, because then it’s a penalty. But you can just get up and pretend to walk off the field like you’re dead and then just start shooting people.” Whatever works, right?

Trading One for One

To use this paintball strategy effectively, all you need to do is abandon your own hopes for survival and run out into enemy territory, guns blazing. The theory is, “It’s OK if I get shot as long as I take somebody with me,” explains Schwartz. Both teams might each be down one player, but by being the aggressor, you might even take some extra enemies down with you.