World at War 2

On April 18th Battlefront Paintball and ARC Troopers Paintball welcomed a record 470 people and paintball legend Greg Hastings to the 2nd annual World At War. The game pitted 4 separate armies randomly allied in an all out fight for domination of the "Oil Island" and the survival of their represented nations. The Australians, the Japanese, the Chinese and the Russians were all represented in full force by such teams as Total Resistance, The Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, BioHazard, Lightning, their Tank and many others, not to mention the nasty presence of Battlefronts Mercenary squad the 13th Demi-Brigade this year represented by 1st Strike and Greg Hastings. With over 1 Million paintballs fired throughout the day it was a game for all to remember.

Months of planning and smack talk finally came to a head on a beautiful spring day, the sun shined all day and reached a gorgeous 60 degrees, a perfect day for paintball. The team generals were gathered for their briefing and much to every teams despise the Australian and the returning Japanese champs were allied together, months of animosity made this quite a pairing. This also left the Russians and Chinese allied together for the first half of the day. After the Safety and Game briefing the game kicked off promptly at 10 am.

The teams were separated, half starting at the command HQ's located in the woods and the other half from the new parking lot respawn entrances. At the sound of the horn everybody took off like a shot straight for the city in an attempt to establish early dominance and flag positions...where they all ran smack dab into the 13th who had already occupied the city and began fighting tooth and nail to keep the other armies out for as long as possible. Eventually the 13th left the city to the occupying armies and moved to their fortress on "Omaha Beach". The Generals made their way to the command tents and became more organized after the initial landings, except the Russian General who abandoned his duties in order to fight like a common soldier.  His position was replaced by "Corey Jurgle", Battlefront's first female General.

The initial fighting for control of the city was intense, but basically a stale mate, control of flags was established but neither allied army seemed to be able to cross the center of town and take control, armies moved into the woods and clashed in an attempt to outflank each other. Eventually the Aus\Jap team managed to push the Chi\Rus teams out of the city and establish control, however it didn't last long and they regrouped and pushed the Aus\Japs back across the city and began taking ground. The fighting remained intense all day in the city and the surrounding woods, which was made even worse by the 13th Demi who under General Hastings and Colonel "Hannibal" Brandau kept randomly attacking positions through the whole morning when they weren't being hired by an army.  At the end of the morning the Australians were ahead, with the Russians nipping closely at their heels. The Chinese were third and the Japs bringing up the rear.

At the start of the second half the teams were switched up with the Chinese and the Australians versus the Japs and Russians. The armies again started from the two positions at the parking lot and the HQs, and nobody was sure where exactly the 13th had disappeared to. At the sound of the horn the teams once again rushed forward to try and claim the early flag count, all was going well until they ran into the 13th playing their own game of Reichstag. With all four armies attacking from all sides the 13th managed to hold the Reichstag against all comers, opening a wide and impassable hole in the middle of town and disrupting  all the armies plans. Finally after about 25 minutes the Reichstag was abandoned by the 13th, not because they were fought out of it but because they were hired for duty and simply walked away from it. The battle continued to rage much as it had during the morning, intense fighting in the woods and even more intense fighting in the city, the armies pushing each other from one side of the city to the other. The Chinese decided they were to far out to win the whole thing and instead pull themselves fully into protecting the assets held by their Australian allies. The Japs and Ruskies were still fighting for their own glory and their flag count was split more evenly.

Throught the day, the Lightning Force Tank and the Total Resistance Tank rolled through town making troops scatter until a rocket launcher could be brought up to stop them. The Japanese Kamakazi plane smashed into buildings and eliminated mass amounts of players huddled within their walls.   Under anybody who would pay them the 13th smashed headlong into their opponents and cleared entire areas for their allies to occupy, but on more than one occasion the allies were left hanging in the wind when time ran out and the Mercenaries walked away.

The last half hour of the day brought upon the final battle, only 2 flags were worth anything, the center flag and the thunderdome flag. For the last half hour the 4 armies charged each other back and forth in an epic struggle to control the flags for as long as possible. The flags went up and down several times for the whole half hour until finally with 1 million paintballs fired, the horn sounded and the game ended.

At the end of the day, Greg Hastings awarded R7 pod packs to people who returned his special rockets to him and thanked everybody for a great game. In the end the Australians were victorious, the Russians under the command of a Lady General who replaced the guy who was supposed to be general took second, the Japanese struggled from a losing first half to come close to the second place Russians and the Chinese believing the Australians were the key to victory sacrificed their own chances to support them and came in 4th.

We heard nothing but compliments about both the game and the players involved, and witnessed great sportsmanship and camaraderie when teams came together to help stomp out the occasional brush fire. All in All it was an excellent day and we would like to thank everybody who participated and hope to see you all back next year for The World at War 3: The Irregulars.