Scenario Paintball TV: Winter is Coming SPECIAL: A pic-tourial of The Rock, Sweden.

Here is a review I wrote a year back about Sweden's THE ROCK field, near Västeras. A must-play if you are ever in Sverige.

THE ROCK

Dare to enter? Hell Yes. Also it's f***ing cold outside! I'm sure it will be better inside....

In the doldrums of Swedish winter, paintball has been few and far between. -25 Celsius temperatures have kept even the hardiest people indoors. But last weekend, BattleForce Paintball captain and Uppsala AventyrCenter owner Rikard emailed me and asked if I would like to attend a private game in The Rock near Vasteras, Sweden. Trigger finger itchy and cabin-fever dangerously close to driving me insane, I of course jumped at the opportunity, so Sunday we piled into a couple of cars and drove for an hour out to the The Rock.

A Counter Strike player's wet dream.

Originally, it was a railroad transformer station, built into a mountain to hide it from the Russians during the Cold War. It’s built to withstand ariel bombardment, burrowed into a granite mountain. The playing area is a counter-strike players dream come true. Two symetric train halls lead into a series of small rooms and offices, which in turn each have a staircase to the lower levels, a series of dark tunnels and rooms flooded with about a foot of water. Flashlights were a must have.

I can graphix!?

We played a series of short games that sounded straight out of a video game, while the owner blasted music over the loudspeakers. The tunnels echoed with gunfire, epic Russian soundtracks, heavy metal, and hippie classics from the 70’s. Missions required teams to escort a VIP, protect/recover a hostage from the bus, or simply eliminate each other. The water took some getting used to. Its dark, smelly and exceptionally cold, but once I had played a few games, lurking in the dark, soaking tunnels was became my M.O. With thick mountaineering boots and gators, Tomas from BFP and I took every opportunity to sneak through the dark underground levels. Outnumbered for most of the games, BFP managed to come out on top or tie every single game. To protect ourselves, we would swing shut the large bunker doors and lean chairs or junk against them so that if anyone came from behind us, the loud clashing of falling chairs and metal helmets would alert us. We worked out a simple password system too, which saved us hesitation in the dark and saved us from many friendly fire mistakes.

With Flash...

Without...

Rooms & water

Gettin' wet... and hence... cold.

If you aren't salivating... check your pulse.

Old office/barracks quarters, just as they were during the cold war... ie... cold.

More interior

Bus

We had more intense matches. SWAT could respawn infinite times and had a police shield, but we were out for good if we got hit. We held the bus chamber for the entire 15 minutes and only lost two of our 6 players, slowly collapsing our perimeter and fiercely guarding the doors, using flashlights to blind the SWAT players stacked behind their shield so that other players could get angles. When we switched sides, we took full advantage of our respawn ability and in 4 minutes of suicide rushes we overwhelmed the terrorists and retrieved the hostage.

Munchies

We took an hour break to eat some hot soup outside the bunker and then resumed for another few hours. Cold, wet, dark, the day was filled with adrenaline, sloshing through the lower tunnels or clearing the dark rooms upstairs one at time, ears straining to hear enemy players over the music and the echoing shouts and shooting.

BFP action pose

It was a small game, maybe a dozen players total, but we made up for the lack of numbers with lots of games, and intense play. When the weather clears a bit, there is a second field on the top of mountain among the giant concrete bunkers that house the ventilation systems for the entire complex, so expect another action packed write-up from the Rock come spring.