To Hell and Back- Paintball Charleston

Is this thing on? Can you hear me OK? Great.


Still being something of a new hand to living in the south, there are certain things you have to get used to. The random friendliness of total strangers...the average 11 year-old's ability to spit forty feet...and the "just-go-with-it" attitude you need when it's 82 degrees out and technically still winter. I had spent the last three days doing semi-forced hydration, along with an intense mental preparation regimen of every great movie speech I could find on Youtube.

Damned right Keanu. You send me out there to kill!

GET SOME!

Millennium Paintball Productions (www.mppgames.com) set up their latest in a series of simulated wartime role-playing games: To Hell and Back, depicting the actions of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of World War II. Murphy felt inclined to make up for his 5th grade education, and rejection from 3 branches of service by hopping on top of a burning tank destroyer and dealing hot, messy, .50 caliber death to an entire company of German infantry.

Paintball Charleston is a field made up of several different challenging areas. If you visit for a regular game, the ref will take you out one area at a time. In the case of a scenario situation, you'll have the run of the facility:

Scale: one inch = two enchiladas

For those of you rockin' back in the northeast leagues there are some minor similarities: think part JUNO Beach at ION, a little bit of Strategy Plus' castle, something like Hornet's Nest's Killhouse only outdoors, and nowhere in evidence the almost maternal-like cradle of West Point's terrain! Any one of these areas was designed to be attacked from multiple vectors...a nightmare to defend and yet an extreme cost in lives to assault. We were also looking at a player to ref ratio of about 15:1.
Playing on the American side, a selection dictated my my conscience, standards, and clean All-American way of living, I looked over our assets on our side:
-Lots of short people. Good. Harder to hit.
-A badass tank with a scuba tank of CO2, twin Tippmanns, 4,000 rounds and a drink holder.
-Lack of radios...uh, OK...hey, who wants all that mindless chatter for the first hour anyway: "I see a player over there! I see him! Or her! I think they're on our side though. Oh, wait...okay, I'm out. I'm leaving now...bye!"
-Cough syrup and Red Bull! Whee...this is the south!
-And a dedicated Medic, ready to answer all your emergency needs from map directions to severe bleeding! I felt good, baby...I had my comfy socks, black armor, my wife's good luck favor, and my padded underwear on! I looked fabulous! Plus I was doped to the gills on Powerbar gel, and antihistamines, which is like the equivalent of those tribesmen that drank a potion and believed they were bulletproof during the Boxer Rebellion!

Notable on the German side was team Pub Crawling who had come all the way from NH to play...huh...maybe they'll be tired from the flight- wait, was that the start horn?

In trying not to see this as an unfavorable omen to our endeavor, about 3/4ths of us were still stuck in mandatory chrono without radios when the game started. To compensate for this, our Command element spat on the ground, issued some hurried orders, racked his shotgun, and then set out to inspire the troops by kicking a little ass. The distant "foof" of rocket launchers told us that both sides had wasted no time in putting their armor out there in a frenzied land grab.

Missions that day included blue mission cards held by a supervising referee, detailing the parameters of the current mission. This could be anything from finding an object, rescuing a man-shaped dummy with a tape recorder around it's neck, or holding a position for a set period of time. Teamwork and problem-solving skills really had to come to the front here, as the refs were only there to ensure fair play, and not assist with hints or clues. Indeed, requests to play: "Hot or Cold", were stiffly refused.

Battle lines were quickly broken, and the majority of the day turned into a free-fire zone. Fire-teams were deployed on flanking runs but were either turned away or never heard from again. Areas once thought secure could not be trusted to stay that way, and players had to rely on each other to call out positioning. I sprang an ambush on a delicious-looking bunch of fat people, only to discover that their response was unusually swift and accurate when I began spraying into the squad.

Yours truly earned the rank of Medic, and was given a handful of cards along with instructions on game play: if hit, a player has to remain where they are and call for a Medic. The Medic has 60 seconds to arrive at that player's side, wipe off the hit and then record their player badge number on a card. If the player is hit in the head, they are immediately out. If the Medic is shot, they cannot be healed. A player also cannot move towards the Medic. When left alone without standing orders, the best thing I could think of to do was either insert with a mission team, or just head towards the sound of shooting.

My own personal frustration came in following a group into a wide-open area, clear of enemy presence, yet no one wanted to move forward. Any veteran player has been there...a group of players will either not move forward, or even turn and run when fired upon, even if they are numerically superior. To bring home the point, I walked to the center of the field, unarmed...certainly a move that would have gotten me a scolding from any team leader, and also my mother. Yet, no shots came. I tried enthusiastic exhortations, which quickly deteriorated into light cursing, and in the end I took off in search of another group...or perhaps a Border Collie to get them moving.Get back here! It's just one guy with a Goblin!

The second day held a lot more promise due to the mild weather, and we ran with a vengeance to one of the key points of interest in the game. We stomped into the two-story masterpiece/logistical nightmare that was the castle in the center of the field. Four sniper towers were manned and if anybody so much as saw a snake's ass twitch, it was called out. This was where everybody really went to town, as the other side hammered the living crap out of our emplacements, we held on with a rugged stubbornness despite casualties and dwindling ammo. I crawled up a flight of stairs to patch up one of our snipers only to see a brazen attack on the front gate. The fighting at that point was Danger Close, as people were shooting at very personal distances. Anybody that's been to Castle Conquest probably knows what kind of racket was being made, but we held that fort.

Damned salesmen!

With time running out, and more and more players bailing to get an early seat for the awards ceremony, (read: sissies), I stepped up my game, exhorting my team with the windmilling enthusiasm of a third-base coach waving a runner home. I did magnificent headfirst dives to reach people, by now my normally treasonous body had fooled itself into thinking it was fighting for its life! Firing came from everywhere as the shooting lines melded together. Men and boys alike cried out their allegiances to make themselves known...or perhaps the names of their wives or mothers. It was Godzilla versus Mothra out there! Orders were pointless...instead only murderous oaths and foul invectives steeled a players resolve! Sentences became words, and words then became monosyllabic grunts! Sweat and paint ran down our faces to form a thickening pool at our feet! Boots pounded in the South Carolina dirt to a rhythmic dance between the Attackers and Defenders and man, you know it was HOT!

Eventually all things must pass, and the final whistle sounded. We all blinked the frenzy out of our eyes and went to go grab a seat, handshakes along the way. You may have guessed that we didn't quite win the game that weekend...actually our points were about half of what the other team got. However, a few interesting things happened at that point in the adventure, and this is one of the reasons you pick a home field and make it yours:
-Nobody was a dick about winning
-Nobody was a dick about losing
-MPP Games was very cool about justifying the whole bummer of a score. No "everyone's a winner", or "you tried your best" crap to pacify the simple-minded, experimental glue huffers. If you went out there, you went there to play as a fighter. And our defiant heroics in holding the castle did not go unnoticed in their eyes.

I arrived at home in the slow grip of a stiffening lethargy to examine my bruises, while clutching my MVP award, which would be later posted on my fridge.

Best moment of the day: MVP! Hi Mom!
Worst moment of the day: Breaking up a fight between two oversensitive loudmouths who weren't doing a whole hell of a lot anyways.
Ugliest moment of the day: Seeing the after effects of a LAW rocket smashing through our tank window.
Something I didn't know until today: SC has several types of poisonous snakes.

Okay, that's all for now, 'ballers...video to come soon. Remember, if you need an experienced videographer for your game, or just someone to watch your Six as you play, we encourage you to reach out to our dedicated and professional staff here at SPBTV. No reasonable funding will be refused.