How many times can these guys be involved in a World War in one month? The beginning of the November saw the Russians as part of the Axis of Evil at Fulda Gap, then the end of the month witnessed them fighting off World War II Nazis at MPP’s Stalingrad: Blood and Iron at Paintball Charleston on Nov 22-23rd. (I know! I know! it’s taken me a month to get around to this article. What can I say? I’m a busy guy!) How like art to imitate life. Can you say “Allies/Cold War/Detente”? I think you can. Now repeat it ten times. If the Russians are somewhat bi-polar when it comes to allies; their latest foes, World War II Nazis, are pretty much the universal poster children for bad manners.

You Bet Your Babushka!

Millennium Paintball Productions put on a helluva game in Charleston SC. They were even kind enough to import sub-freezing, Russian temperatures to give the players the full Russian Front experience. I’m not sure if Ben Toricelli did it to make the scenario more authentic or to just wear that funky fur hat. Either way, it was worth the price of admission. As I walked around before the game started at the crack of 0-Cold-Thirty, Saturday morning, wandering from camp fire to camp fire. The players seemed to be in good spirits even though the temperatures were in the teens. A few guys were even wearing kilts! 14 degrees! (I don’t want to say that the Port City Militia guys are nuts, but it doesn’t take a year for the light from Planet Crazy to reach them.)

I had a chance to talk to a number of teams before the game (MPP’s games don’t normally start till about 11am or noon) and spoke with The Gun Kings; These Little Girls Mafia (it’s 8am and Nixx is hitting on a girl while trying to “teach her how to shoot a marker”, my kind of guy!); Carolina Sabers (frequent players with against Team: Tango); and Team OmniForce (who has a nice write up in January 2009 Paintball Sports magazine).

Celebs in the House!

MPP also managed to get Ben Tippman of BT Paintball to act as the co-commander of teh German forces along with Paul Bollenback, the regional marketing director of Kee Action Sports and Scott “Death By Daddy” Bolden (AssassiNation). The Russian general was Evan Estrate, inventor of the Pinokio Hopper and Will “Kurb” Burke (Port City Militia). Evan briefed me on the benefits of the Pinokio and I have to say, it looks pretty cool. Lightweight and carries almost double the load. Bring it!

Paintball Charleston

I will admit I am not a big fan of the Charleston area. I have nothing against it, but I tend to lean toward more metropolitan areas. However… I’m in love. Paintball Charleston is my new favorite field. This thing has trenches and earthen bunkers dug everywhere. Plenty of trees, relatively flat spaces (sorry CDWC!), two story forts, wooden sim cities, an area that is nothing but trenches and tunnels, big machinery and semis to hide behind, and all of it relatively centrally located so a dead zone is not a mile away! Foolybear said I would love this field and he was once again correct!

Stalingrad

The scenario itself was your typical paintball scenario. MPP had drawn about 450 players (about 60 teams) and Ben started the safety briefing off with a really engaging historical background of the original battle of Stalingrad. It put the whole thing in context for the players. The battles were intense. Some differences I noticed from most scenarios were the high quantity of brightly colored speedball type uniforms (Gun Kings and These Little Girls seemed to be everywhere!) and the lack of radio usage by the teams. Orders were screamed or relayed by runners, but I saw very few radios on the field. I guess with a bright red and black jersey, you don’t worry about stealth all that much. The Nazis actually won the Battle of Stalingrad this time around, but everyone went home happy from two solid days of serious paintball.

2009

You can see more photos and reviews of this game in upcoming issues of Paintball.com and Action Pursuit Games magazines (sorry guys, that’s where the good pictures went because THEY PAY MONEY!) In 2009, MPP’s theme is Brothers In Arms VI, The 38th Parallel (and for those of you who aren’t smarter tahn a fifth grader, that’s Korea!) MPP’s next event at PB Charleston is NPKA Attack: The Battle for Seoul on March 7th and 8th, 2009. See you there!