Operation: Burning Sky hosted by Boss Paintball demonstrated once again that Good can triumph over Evil, or at the very least, it can give it a wedgie. The one day mini-scenario pitted the Axis of Evil (Russia, Iran and Korea) against the U.S. and Allied forces in a simulated futuristic battle. In part one, Operation: Shining Shield, played in January, the Axis defeated the Allies, but payback is a what?

About 70-80 players attended the mini-scenario which had no pre-registration, but to Boss’ credit, the lines to sign-up, get paint and get chrono’d were non-existent. The price of admission was their regular $10 fee, which got you 7 hours of solid paintball play. And I mean solid. There was no scheduled lunch break and the battle continued straight through until 5 pm.

Who Shot J.R.?

The Allied forces (yellow armbands), lead by J.R., a jovial regular at Boss, soundly whipped the Axis forces (red armbands), but the score yoyo’d all day long. J.R truly has the right paintball attitude. At one point, he wanted to invite himself to “have tea” in the Axis commander’s Command Post. Several times during the day, I would be walking off the field, shot out in battle and J.R., also shot out, would join me and we would discuss the game, laughing about it (and we were opposite sides!) Winning or losing just didn’t matter to him. He was just happy to be out playing paintball. The Allied team included E.P.I.C. Unit, the field team at Boss Paintball, and a large number of walk-ons.

Axis of The Moderately Bad

The Hun, of Recon-1, was the commander of Axis of Evil which consisted of a few from Recon-1, a small contingency of Rogue Cell players led by the Rev, The Lost Boys, and a pretty good number of Team: Tango Alpha as well as a number of walk-ons. The game was a serious competition until about mid-afternoon, when it seemed as if most of the Axis walk-ons finished playing for the day and left. We don’t know if they ran out of paint, had other commitments or suddenly remembered a dentist appointment, but the yellow armbands magically outnumbered the red ones and from there it was a downhill battle. The change in numbers was only one reason the would be world conquerors lost. Part of it was were we outplayed, plain and simple. The Axis didn’t play badly, we just didn’t play as well as the Allies. We couldn’t seem to get regrouped. We spread our forces too thin trying to hold numerous bases while running missions and the allies would simply storm our bases en masse overwhelming us with superior firepower one base at a time. At times, I felt like Al Pacino in the final scene of Scarface, minus the big house, mountains of cocaine, and any semblance of acting talent.

The game ended in a final battle at Fort Defiance, where in a desperate attempt to pull victory out of the bag, the Axis needed to defend the base from the horde of yellow tape swarming all over it. We successfully repelled the attackers and lost very few players until the last few minutes of the game and then a thunderous series of bunker tags destroyed our dreams of world domination.

Overall, Operation: Burning Sky was a fun game and a big success. There were occasional issues with communication of timing and rules and some players using some non-field paint, but these are minor details to be expected in any scenario. I was pleasantly surprised to have an Ally shake my hand immediately upon bunker tagging my location at the end of the final battle. The comradery and good sportsmanship was very evident on both sides. There was no titles, or prizes or rivalries Saturday, there was just a lot of good paintball. Boss Paintball’s next event is Ghost Town on October 18th. See you there!

Photos courtesy of Melinda Metheney.