MTP’s 5th Birthday Bash

I recently went to Middle Tennessee Paintball’s 5th Birthday Bash.
And a bashing it was. Pummeled by heat, sun, and humidity…it was challenging just to keep hydrated. The level of sportsmanship and fun though, was on the opposite end of the spectrum. I met many “cool” folks, and had a blast.

Let’s go over some of the highlights, shall we?
Facilities: A great field is defined by the hard work that is put into creating it. MTP is no different than many others in the area. Places like Bearclaw Paintball’s expansive woodsball fields are a tribute to the Scenario Gamer’s dream, but MTP rivals Bearclaw…just on a smaller scale. MTP has two primary woodsball fields. Lovingly known as “big woods” and “small woods” by the local players, it provides a challenging bit of terrain for even newcomers like myself.

Interspersed with the local flora, you’ll find bunkers, barriers, and the usual “deer trails” that provide un-cluttered transportation venues between hot spots. And like most fields, you must be very careful when traversing these trails, lest the evil snipers ambush you.
I’m one of those snipers. What I love about this field is that there are plenty of places where the undergrowth is allowed to grow wild. No bushhogging it down so it resembles a speedball field with trees instead of bunkers. This is reason enough to keep me coming back for more.

Prepping for the day
The day started off well enough. I met up with my teammates of the Nashville Ridgerunners and shot the breeze while we waited for the call to orientation and chronographing. We talked about our markers. We chatted about our mutual interest in playing Battlefield 2 online. We talked about the olden-days (okay, I just listened to the stories…I’m a newbie to paintball and listened in slack-jawed silence while they swapped stories about the original days of the sport).
Once orientation gathering was announced, we kitted up and moseyed to the staging area. Bill (the field owner) gave everyone a run-down of how the event would proceed, and began splitting us into teams.
Lots of people gave me funny looks. Stands to reason, as I was testing out my newest creation…a ghillie suit made from the Special Ops Paintball Action Ghillie material. I’ve earned the nickname “Tree” due to my interests in blending in as much as possible. This event gave me the opportunity to try out my newest creation, and boy did it work.
The first mission was a Beach Landing. My team was slated for defense against the invading army of “Green” ribbons. The object was to get a large canister into the woods, and pound it against a specially marked base to end the game.

Round 1: Defense on Beach Landing
My “Orange” team did a phenominal job of holding off the invaders. They never once made it to the treeline where we crouched, laying down a horrid amount of fire into the Hyperball obstacles that they hid behind. In fact, the scenario seemed rather one-sided. I wasn’t looking forward to switching sides and trying to assault.
When the first round was called, it was a no-brainer. Not only did we dominate on defense, but we managed to capture the barrel…effectively preventing the Greens from having a chance to complete their objective.

A player has the red/yellow objective barrel (middle) and is moving up the field as teammates support him .

Afterwards, we walked back to fill up on air, paint, and lots of water. The first round of the Speedball Ace’s Tournament got under way, so me and the rest of the Ridgerunners cooled off in the shade. We’ve all agreed we’re not cut out for the Speedball scene.
After we’d all gotten a breather, it was time for the next Beach Landing…this time with Orange on the offense. Remembering the slaughter we handed out the first round, I was willing to give it a shot, but wasn’t looking forward to the anticipated number of trips I’d be making back to the respawn point to tag back in.

Round 2: Attack on Beach Landing
We had two divisions…the woodsballers, and speedballers. The speedballers had a nice pack lined up on the left flank, and the smaller contingent of woodsballers took the right flank.

I move up from the starting point…sticking out like a sore thumb in my new ghillie.

Things started out well, and only got better. With the amount of paint flying on the left flank from the speedball contingent, the Greens stacked up to oppose them. Little did they realize that their right flank was suffering. A number of early casualties on the defenders’ side from my team’s own assault up the right side gave us a narrow window to exploit.

Will has a great vault over a barrier captured on film. I’m hunkered down providing covering fire on the far left.

We not only exploited their weakness, we broke completely through. The woodsballers on the right flank made it to the treeline, and quickly piled in to our natural environment. Leaving the foreign territory of the hyperball obstacles in the clearing, our confidence soared as we began melting into the vegetation. We blasted up the tapeline and began to circle around…coming at the enemy forces from their rear.
After about 10 minutes, our barrel-toting hero thumped the objective…ending the game in a total victory.

Next up was another round of the Ace’s Tourney, and another break for the Ridgerunners. We were in high spirits after winning both rounds of the Beach Landing…and Capture the Flag would be coming up next. We began planning our strategy while guzzling down the fluids.

Round 3: Capture the Flag (1)
It was decided that an early flanking maneuver along the tape would be the key to a flag cap. We’d grab whatever fast runners we could find, and proceed as far into the opposing force’s backfield without firing a shot. The larger contingent of speedballers would zip up the middle and take positions in some cover…causing as much racket as possible to make the enemy think that it was our entire force.

It sounded good in theory. It even started out well. Breathless and weary (I’m a smoker, so the dash across the field was really hard on the ‘ole body), I followed the rest of the flanking force into the backfield of the enemy completely unopposed.
Hand signals flashed, and we fanned out…heading towards the flag. It looked like the coast was clear.
A couple brave souls moved up to the flag. As an Orange player reached out for the flag, a Green ambush sniper popped up from out of nowhere and took him out. A hail of fire returned the favor…eliminating the stealthy guy (I admire him…he waited until just the right moment to pop up). Will (a Ridgerunner teammate) ran up to grab the flag. With an hand on the flag, he had it! And then Déjà vu happened. Another sniper popped up and shot poor Will right in the forehead just above the goggles.

We avenged Will’s “death” and finally were able to snag the flag on our third attempt. The element of surprise was gone though. The Greens had heard the exchanges of fire and had begun to pull back to see what was happening. We had just sprinted from one side of the field…and the folks like me who were in no shape to go dashing back the other way decided to “Take one for the team” by staying behind to provide as much distraction as possible.
It worked. With flag in hand, a small group led by Will started picking their way back towards our own side. Not that I was able to keep up with him and the small pocket of defenders running interference for our flag carrier.
Nope…I stayed behind. And just like I’d planned…I took one for the team. Just one. One shot right in the goggles. I congratulated the Green who shot me on such a great shot, and began to make my run back across the field to the respawn point.

Highlight: Psychological Warfare
This is where the art of scenario/woodsball gaming gets really twisted and fun…I arrived at our respawn point, announcing loudly that I was a dead player and not to shoot me. I actually was in the out-of-bounds zone following a deer trail back to our main base. I arrived with a fellow teammate waving at me frantically. I couldn’t figure out what was going on until he pointed at our tag-in point for re-insertion.
A Green player was braced against the stack of barrels, marker leveled right at my chest. I laughed out loud and said “Gee…no point in tagging back in, then, eh?”

The Green player demanded to know where the flag was. In my peripheral vision, I could see our blue bandana flag sitting atop a rusted barrel not 4 feet to the Green player’s right side. It was time for some bluffing.

“I dunno man. I’m guessing that your own team pulled the same move we did…we ran right along the tape and grabbed your flag unopposed. I’m guessing your team probably did the same, so I bet one of your teammates already has the flag.”

“Oh, yeah…probably so.” Was his reply.

“Yeah, you probably ought to move on back to help support your guys.” I said.

“We’ll give you a 10-second head start.” My other “out” teammate chimed in.
“Okay…I’m leaving.” Said the Green player.

Priceless! He walked off back towards the middle of the field…completely oblivious to our own team’s flag being within arm’s reach of him the whole time he had his attention focused on me and my other Orange teammate.
Me and my crafty teammate stared at each other in wonder…not only had we fooled the poor Green player into thinking his team already had our flag, but we’d gotten him to leave our base! We both tagged back into the game (by touching the barrels the Green player had been using as cover), and had a good chuckle after the Green player was out of earshot.

My crafty buddy went back out to hunt some Green, and I decided that I’d better stick around just in case another Green player happened along. I found a nice little spot of concealment and crouched down to wait.

Rounding off the Round
About a minute or two later, I heard stealthy footsteps approaching. I readied my marker and hunkered down a little further to wait for them to expose themselves at the “Undefended” flag of our base.
Two players walked right past me…I could have reached out and touched them.

It was our flag runner and Will…returning safely to officially cap the flag and end the game. Once a ref yelled game over, I stood up from my hiding place and surprised the two guys. My ghillie suit had officially passed judgement. I was able to hide from Will, a vet of woodsball.
With the game over, we walked back to our staging are. By this point, we were all pretty tired. Mikey was beginning to show signs of dehydration, so we made sure he drank extra fluids and had a cool towel on his head. I myself was dragging. That run had really worn me out. An ambush sniper shouldn’t do that much running…but it was for the good of the team. I had done my part by keeping the Greens from being able to pursue our flag runner, then sprinted back for a respawn.
I got to tell my story about fooling the Green player…which drew a great deal of chuckles and congratulations. I felt great at having sprinted back to the respawn point. If I had walked as my body was wanting me to do, that Green player might have been able to eliminate our returning flag capturers.

We started strategy for the next round of Cap the Flag. I think we’d all decided that this wouldn’t work twice in a row. We were all feeling the effects of a full day of running around in 100+ degree heat in a glorious Tennessee summer.

Round 4: Capture the Flag (2)
It was agreed that we’d provide some mid-field defense, and let the speedball portion of our team go for the flag cap. We geared up and moved out. I stuck to the same side of the tape that we’d sprinted down the first time (but moved much slower this time).

The entire field turned into the more traditional skirmish. Both sides met at about mid-field, and neither gained, nor lost much ground. I was wary of how easily we’d run up the tapeline the first game, so I stayed close to it…watching for enemy players who might slip through.

Highlight: I’m still a newbie
I proved I was still a newbie. From my position, I could see and hear two players moving towards me. With their markers up and searching for targets while talking to each other about who was covering what firing lane, I assumed that they were enemies. I waited until they were both completely exposed and quickly took them both out with two well-placed shots at each person.
Needless to say, they were quite surprised to be hit. Especially by what turned out to be a teammate. Oh geez! I’d just eliminated two friendlies!

I apologized for the mix-up. Once they’d figured out they were hit by friendly fire, they were about to wipe and play on. I told them that it was against the rules, and that even though they were eliminated by friendly fire, they’d have to tag back in.

In hindsight, I wish I’d done more for those two guys. I stayed where I was and continued to look for more targets.
What I WISH I had done was walk with them to the respawn point, and then walk back with them to the action…helping them get back into the fight by adding another bit of firepower to help them have some fun. That would have been the more sportsmanlike thing to do. Lesson learned though, and if it ever happens again, I have promised myself to be a better team player. I still feel rotten about that.

A few minutes later, the two guys backtracked from the respawn point, calling out loudly “Sniper dude, we’re coming behind you…we’re friendlies.”
I tried waving at them, but it didn’t work at first…my concealment was just too good until they were right up on me. I waved again, and they finally saw me…exclaiming again at how well-hidden I was. Salvaging a little bit of honor, I moved up with them to the tape line and covered their advance into a copse of wooden spools.

Rounding off the Round
To make a long story short, the last match of the day ended in a draw. Time ran out before either team could make a flag capture. We all headed back to the rally point for final announcements and the grand prize giveaways.

The Day Draws To A Close…with a twist!
My relationship with Lady Luck has never been a good one when it comes to games of chance. I never win at cards, never win drawings, and fear the lottery for similar reasons. Today was a different day. The name of the winner for a brand-new Smart Parts SP8 marker was announced. It took a moment to sink in…they’d just called my name!

Standing up with a murmured exclamation of “Oh Me!” I made my aching legs walk over to Bill & the event crew to receive my prize. I was exhausted, but happily surprised by my luck. I was fortunate to have my photo taken with the rest of the Ridgerunners and my brand-new marker.

From left to right are my fellow Ridgerunners: Will, Mikey, myself, Chip, and Bill…owner of MTP. (Not pictured is R.J. who was also in attendance, but had left early)

Afterwards, we all packed up our gear and started heading home. Hot, Exhausted, and Happy…I drove back home. A great day…and happy 5th Birthday to the MTP field. I’ll be back!