Paintball is a game of angles.  We all know the most satisfying kills are when you bunker someone or manage to shoot someone in the side or back when they are unaware you are even there.  The challenge as a player is that the pressure and intensity of being in a gunfight gives us tunnel vision and even tunnel thinking. Too often we push a bad position or are unaware of threats or unaware of opportunities opening up elsewhere because we are so focused on trading paint with the immediate opponent.

In order to be a rounded tactical player you should constantly be thinking on three levels. Level four is only for big games.

1.    Gunfighting thinking: is thinking about the immediate opponent or opponents. This is primarily a solo skill where you are focused on eliminating players by trading paint.  While this is not the best way to win a match or battle it is an essential skill that especially at the start of a game has to happen before other opportunities open up. Gun fighting thinking is staying tight, using your cover to its best advantage, shooting from different positions out of your cover,  snap shooting, your accuracy and rate of fire etc.

2.    Angle thinking: is much more team orientated, at this level you are thinking about movement both yours and theirs. You are thinking about the angles and positions that will give you and your team mates an advantage over your opponents and also what angles and positions they could move to get an advantage on you or your team mates, few pieces of cover offer 180o protection. This is a complex skill, which requires chess-like tactics; thinking in advance eg: “If I move right will I get a better shot on him? Are any other enemies who could threaten me once I get to that position? Where will I go next if I get him out? When I get there I will have a superior spot controlling the right flank but who is protecting my left?” And so on.  Especially as most people usually think tunnel vision and mainly focus on one opponent, thinking and working as a team, threatening opponents from multiple angles give you a tremendous advantage. Team work and communication are very important at this level, obviously you can’t get multiple angles as a solo player. You will need to give cover fire, control lanes to limit enemy movement, communicate enemy positions, move aggressively etc

3.    Battlefield thinking: is being aware of what is happening everywhere on the field.  Regularly I see players focused on pushing the flank they are on engaging in tough fire fights when the enemy have lost key positions on the other flank allowing them to surround the enemy with ease but they are unaware of the opportunity. Likewise I have seen teams unaware their other flank needs reinforcing or worse has fallen and the enemy circle around behind them.  At walk-ons my goal is almost always to make it to the enemies back corner and clean them out from behind. As a result I am always looking for the weak flank and as a result sometimes I notice it’s not their flank that is weak it is ours. The point is you must always be watching. On fields where vision is not great listen for fire, but most importantly communicate with your team mates,  I have been known to fall back and run to the other side of the field to get reinforcements rather than struggle with not enough players to do the job.

4.    Commander thinking.  This level is for big games especially if you want to lead a squad. At big games there tends to be herd thinking; people are looking for a gun fight and they mass towards them. A leader needs to think out of the box and think “is there a better position to attack from? Can my squad hike 100m around the fight and flank or better still attack from behind? Can we cut off or weaken their reinforcement supply line giving our forces in a main battle the advantage?”  In a big game half a dozen more players in a frontal assault make little difference but with flanking, penetrative moves they can be devastating or at least provide a major distraction and thorn in the side of the enemy force. Of course the number one question to ask is what is the most productive thing we can do to to get our teams scenario objective or to stop the enemy getting theirs.

It is all about presence of mind, to check all the levels of thinking even though you may be in a gun fight.

After our victorious campaign in NVS 2009 winning best Squad, warped sports contacted us to ask if either Chuck or myself (Jason) were up for taking on the roll of general. We said hell yes! After careful deliberation Chuck generously gave me the roll of general (due to my organisational skills) in favour of leading the Hostiles in the field where Chuck is at his best, streaming paint at the unsuspecting enemy and leading us to get the job done.

This is obviously a very big honour and responsibility but one I know the Hostiles and myself are up for.

The Web site for NvS is up, complete and full operational NOW www.northvsouth.com Check it out.
This years game scenario is a follow on from last year concept of Consription. To coincide with the real general election this year the game will be based on elections. There will be polling stations and they are also going to be issuing ballot cards to players. This screams more fights in and around buildings (which is what we love)

I will be posting up more details of our involvement up on the forum, we also get a couple of small consession for our efforts. Most importantly I will need everyones ideas and advice about tactics, whether that is tips for our squad or ideas for managing the 750 players we will have under our command.

IF YOU THOUGHT WE ROCKED AT NVS LAST YEAR YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET.

It is 1951 the UN reinforced South Korean forces are reeling back after the devastating loss of Seoul. Realising the Chinese supported North Korean army are at the full extension of their supply line the US commander Lieutenant-General Ridgeway plans an ambitious counter offensive: operation “round-up” starting with reconnaissance missions.

Recruiting the “Hostile Intentions” GREEN berets coupled with elite South Korean soldiers they plan a daring night parachute drop deep in the enemy occupied Hoengsong. The mission dubbed “arrows in the wind” would be one of the most notorious in the war. Their objective was simple collect Intel regarding the North Korean supply lines and numbers of reinforcements, disrupt enemy supply lines and destroy ammunition dumps and then get out. What they encountered was far more important than they could have imagined.

While it was no secret this Korean “civil” war was really a proxy war with the north being supplied by communist China and the south supported by UN but mostly US forces. The USSR’s involvement was a covert operation which if discovered could turn the cold war into a very real all in super power conflict.

Russian General Chuckski has been operating in the Hoengsong province distributing Russian weapons and ammunition but most notably co-ordinating the use of Russian mobile missile units and attacks made by Russain piloted jet fighters against the air superior US forces.

General Chuckski is furious to discover the arrows in the wind mission have compromised his operations. He quickly orders to both the North Korean Army and his own BLACK legion Russian special forces to swarm the area to eliminate Hostile intentions and their South Korean cohorts before they can cause any damage or return with incriminating evidence of Russian involvement in the war.

Teams
US GREEN berets and South Korean Elite- Hostiles Intentions, Dirty Half Dozen and company
Russian BLACK legion and North Korean Army – Chuck and the paintball extreme walk-ons.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!!!!

The Hostiles lead a impressive charge on the first game, winning the game, at one point securing all 5 flag posts. Unfortunately this victory would be their last for the day. With the taste the last Arrows defeat on their lips and defeat looming over them after the first game Chuck from extreme pulled out victory after victory winning the remaining games.

The good news is an exciting day of paintball was had by all.  And most importantly TACTICS reigned supreme with battles being fought in every corner of every field.  Both sides at one point took all five flag posts in each of the two flag post games. The action never stopped as intense firefights pushed fronts back and forth all day while flanking squads made sure that teams had to have adaptive, reactive defences.

Hats off to Bill (our demoltion expert) who went all spinter cell, penetrating the enemy line WITHOUT A MARKER to destroy two of their engines in the second research and destroy game.  And also congratuations to Rich Widlake who when, all else was lost in the last game patiently waited in the undergrowth while the enemy were almost on top of him and took out Chuck the enemy special character preventing them from achieveing their objective.  Well Done to you champions and all who were there.

Watch out for ARROWS IN THE WIND 3 most likely some time in September.

Thank you to all involved in making this such an awesome event.

So start saving your pennies,  BUY YOUR TICKETS BEFORE 14th of FEB for £50 – or £55 before 1st of April.

So clear your calendar for the 2-3 of MAY. We want to have a big presence this year.  Last year we did some great things but one thing that let us down a little was not all of us were in uniform so we didn’t look like a team. So in spite of the fact we were one of the biggest and most effective teams there nobody knew it.  So our  goal this year is to get everyone in multicam, myself and some of the other players have offered to lend out sets if you haven’t invested in some yet. MULTICAM!! GET SOME!!!!!

Seondly the site is pretty big about a mile across and finding the rest of your team at big game is not an easy task. Communication is the big key to success in a big game playing as a team we can achieve so much more and have more fun too. As we are primarily an American team we are going for American Walkie Talkies.  This has two distinct advantages: ONE they are cheaper. TWO they use a different frequency so we don’t need to worry about other people listening in or using our frequency. NO OTHER LARGE TEAM HAS ALL OF ITS MEMBERS WITH WALKIES.  This big game we can have some serious fun, working together and flanking instalations.

Obviously don’t forget OUR scenario day arrows in the wind two on the 22nd of feb.

The Hostiles played great as a team even though we had a small contigent of only 10 of us and a hand full of ring-ins we did great with some really memorable battles. Espeically in and around the fort we had some amazing team play which saw us hammer those reds (the baddies).   Early on in the day we pulled off a great pincer move out flanking reds attacking the fort. It was glorious and we racked up a very serious kill count attacking the reds line from behind.

The combination of some great terrain and some good cover and instalations made it a great field to play,  but the scenario crowd the game drew was what made the event special.  Scenario ballers just tend to be loads more friendly and relaxed.

I didn’t hang around for the presentations at the end of the day but I think it was pretty obvious that we kicked serious ass, hammering the reds in both elimination (even though no points were scored for kills) and in scenario points, we, the blues were victorious.

Our next big scenario event is the battle of the bulge.  Keep watching for more details.

PS thanks to Olly for organising the paint discounts.  Even though he couldn’t make it on the day as he was “busy” or getting busy or something.