Saving Ryan's Privates IV
Organisers: BZ Paintball and Shoreline Events Ltd
Date: 8th November 2008
Venue: Skirmish Teeside, BattleZone, Yarm
Sat-Nav: TS15 0AA
Ticket Price: £40
Traditionally run by BZ Paintball, this year's event is a joint production with Shoreline Events Ltd. This game was designed to be an awesome end of the year BLAST as well as a thank you to all customers who have shown their support to both BZ and Shoreline over the past year.
Chrono limit is 280 FPS
No Full-auto
One shot and you're OUT
Dead men don't talk
Website: www.shorelineoutdoor.com/
Date: 8th November 2008
Venue: Skirmish Teeside, BattleZone, Yarm
Sat-Nav: TS15 0AA
Ticket Price: £40
Traditionally run by BZ Paintball, this year's event is a joint production with Shoreline Events Ltd. This game was designed to be an awesome end of the year BLAST as well as a thank you to all customers who have shown their support to both BZ and Shoreline over the past year.
Chrono limit is 280 FPS
No Full-auto
One shot and you're OUT
Dead men don't talk
Website: www.shorelineoutdoor.com/
Saving Ryan's Privates IV
The Scenario .......
Deep in the middle of World War II a small but critical battle is about to be fought. The port of Teesside holds a secret that could end the war very quickly in the favour of the Allies. So great is this secret that a new classification of secrecy has been made to describe it, this is above ‘most secret’ and has been classified ‘Ultra Secret’.
It is hidden aboard a wooden hulled fishing vessel and is known by the codename “Ultra”, the fishing boat carrying it is known as the “Capricorn”. The Capricorn is manned by a small crew of SigInt - Signals Intelligence Operatives, and protected by the American 101st Airborne.
Unfortunately the German Abwehr intercepted a transmission from Bletchley Park giving the location of the Capricorn. A Brandenburg unit are immediately dispatched for Teesside under the command of Captain Bierkönig. A massive German assault establishes a foothold in North East England centred around the Stockton Transporter Bridge. From here they will stage their attack on the Capricorn.
The Scenario .......
Deep in the middle of World War II a small but critical battle is about to be fought. The port of Teesside holds a secret that could end the war very quickly in the favour of the Allies. So great is this secret that a new classification of secrecy has been made to describe it, this is above ‘most secret’ and has been classified ‘Ultra Secret’.
It is hidden aboard a wooden hulled fishing vessel and is known by the codename “Ultra”, the fishing boat carrying it is known as the “Capricorn”. The Capricorn is manned by a small crew of SigInt - Signals Intelligence Operatives, and protected by the American 101st Airborne.
Unfortunately the German Abwehr intercepted a transmission from Bletchley Park giving the location of the Capricorn. A Brandenburg unit are immediately dispatched for Teesside under the command of Captain Bierkönig. A massive German assault establishes a foothold in North East England centred around the Stockton Transporter Bridge. From here they will stage their attack on the Capricorn.
SRP Event Report by Shoreline
(Taken from the SRP4 - Aftermath thread on UKScenario.com)
We usually allow a couple of days for the dust to settle, then post an honest report from our events. Here goes:
SRP is traditionally a game run by BZ as a way of them thanking the players for their support over the previous 12 months. We approached the event in a similar manner. We tried to ensure that any BZ or Shoreline customers who wanted to play this game could play it. A couple of people were missed off the invites by error, but by and large anyone who wanted to be there managed to get a ticket.
We were extremely chuffed to have the official UK launch of the new X7 Phenom from Tippmann at the event. Plenty of players managed to get their hands on and have a go. I'm sure that we'll be seeing plenty of reviews and reports from those players over the next few days.
The ticket processing systems worked fine and registration didn't seem to have any major drama's.
159 players played on the day, one less than the cap that we placed on the game - if only we could guess the lottery numbers so accurately!
There was just enough staging area. Had we gone over the cap then it may have been cosy. But as it was - staging was spot on.
The kitchen cranked out the food nice and fast and we didn't really see any major hold-ups there. Given that all 159 players and additional 30 odd staff on-site all needed feeding at the same time - it was an excellent effort from the catering crew. I've been at games where I've spent 45 minutes waiting for lunch.
The air seemed to work well. All bottles were checked and tagged and we didn't hear of any instances of the air falling off 3k all day. Hats off to WT Services. If anyone wants their number - just PM Timboy or Wickham. The in-field air was unfortunately late in arriving and for this we appologise, we hope it didn't inconvenience anyone too much and in future we will look at another system of providing in field air. We first introduced in-field fills at this years ThunderDome game and it's clear that it is a feature of Shoreline events that players have come to like.
Chrono'ing seemed fairly efficient. There was a bit of a queue before the start of the first game, but nothing worth worrying about. As at most of our events, each player provided a chrono reading that was marked against their name and player number. It's a much better system than just cable tying markers when they have chrono'd.
We did a fair amount of in-field chrono testing. Some players were found firing hot and were dealt with on a case by case basis.
The player briefing was on time and fairly self explanatory.
The coloured berets for each side worked well and were a nice added touch to the proceedings.
We usually allow a couple of days for the dust to settle, then post an honest report from our events. Here goes:
SRP is traditionally a game run by BZ as a way of them thanking the players for their support over the previous 12 months. We approached the event in a similar manner. We tried to ensure that any BZ or Shoreline customers who wanted to play this game could play it. A couple of people were missed off the invites by error, but by and large anyone who wanted to be there managed to get a ticket.
We were extremely chuffed to have the official UK launch of the new X7 Phenom from Tippmann at the event. Plenty of players managed to get their hands on and have a go. I'm sure that we'll be seeing plenty of reviews and reports from those players over the next few days.
The ticket processing systems worked fine and registration didn't seem to have any major drama's.
159 players played on the day, one less than the cap that we placed on the game - if only we could guess the lottery numbers so accurately!
There was just enough staging area. Had we gone over the cap then it may have been cosy. But as it was - staging was spot on.
The kitchen cranked out the food nice and fast and we didn't really see any major hold-ups there. Given that all 159 players and additional 30 odd staff on-site all needed feeding at the same time - it was an excellent effort from the catering crew. I've been at games where I've spent 45 minutes waiting for lunch.
The air seemed to work well. All bottles were checked and tagged and we didn't hear of any instances of the air falling off 3k all day. Hats off to WT Services. If anyone wants their number - just PM Timboy or Wickham. The in-field air was unfortunately late in arriving and for this we appologise, we hope it didn't inconvenience anyone too much and in future we will look at another system of providing in field air. We first introduced in-field fills at this years ThunderDome game and it's clear that it is a feature of Shoreline events that players have come to like.
Chrono'ing seemed fairly efficient. There was a bit of a queue before the start of the first game, but nothing worth worrying about. As at most of our events, each player provided a chrono reading that was marked against their name and player number. It's a much better system than just cable tying markers when they have chrono'd.
We did a fair amount of in-field chrono testing. Some players were found firing hot and were dealt with on a case by case basis.
The player briefing was on time and fairly self explanatory.
The coloured berets for each side worked well and were a nice added touch to the proceedings.
For the first time this year, we started our first game late. Game one started at 10:04 instead of 10:00. For that we apologise and we'll do better in the future. We're not usually late, but on Sunday we did slip behind by four minutes.
The second game started three minutes late. It's not something that we are overly happy about.
Just before 11:00, we stopped the game and on the stroke of the hour we signalled the start of the 2 minutes silence. It was impeccably observed by the players in the field and not something that we've ever experienced whilst playing paintball ever before. If ever anything should remind us all that the game we play is just a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously - then that silence did.
The first game saw the Germans attacking down the field with their skirmish line advancing steadily, if a little slowly, towards their objectives. Part of our game script called for surprise insertions behind enemy lines. This was to keep the Americans on their toes, to sow indecision in their defensive areas and force them to constantly watch their rear. From a game coordinators point of view, it also ensured that the game didn't bog down into two skirmish lines strung across the site. The insertions worked well we feel, whilst they didn't really effect the outcome of the game as the Germans were never able to keep a toe hold or link up with their inserted teams - it did keep the Americans honest and on their toes and made for some great scraps. The Germans committed a lot of players to the taking of the castle and it changed hands several times during the game with some great scraps. But ultimately, the Germans were unable to make much headway past the Castle once they had taken it and sadly they never managed to get very close to the Capricorn, much less the Ultra machine inside.
The Americans took the lions share of points in the first game.
The second game started three minutes late. It's not something that we are overly happy about.
Just before 11:00, we stopped the game and on the stroke of the hour we signalled the start of the 2 minutes silence. It was impeccably observed by the players in the field and not something that we've ever experienced whilst playing paintball ever before. If ever anything should remind us all that the game we play is just a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously - then that silence did.
The first game saw the Germans attacking down the field with their skirmish line advancing steadily, if a little slowly, towards their objectives. Part of our game script called for surprise insertions behind enemy lines. This was to keep the Americans on their toes, to sow indecision in their defensive areas and force them to constantly watch their rear. From a game coordinators point of view, it also ensured that the game didn't bog down into two skirmish lines strung across the site. The insertions worked well we feel, whilst they didn't really effect the outcome of the game as the Germans were never able to keep a toe hold or link up with their inserted teams - it did keep the Americans honest and on their toes and made for some great scraps. The Germans committed a lot of players to the taking of the castle and it changed hands several times during the game with some great scraps. But ultimately, the Germans were unable to make much headway past the Castle once they had taken it and sadly they never managed to get very close to the Capricorn, much less the Ultra machine inside.
The Americans took the lions share of points in the first game.
The second game was essentially a reverse of the first, but this time the Americans were attacking and the Germans defending, with the main objective being switched to the Bridge.
Again, insertions were used by the Americans as they had been by the Germans. Both Generals were fully involved in the process of where and when insertions were taking place.
The Americans skirmish line advanced up the field pretty quickly. Where they differed from the German approach was that they used the bulk of their forces to punch through up the left of the field leaving a much smaller force to fight over the castle. This approach paid dividends as within 25 minutes they had a toe hold on their side of the Bridge. This signalled the start of some epic battling over the infamous BZ Bridge with both Generals leading from the front.
The Americans advanced over the Bridge inch by slippery and brutal inch. Pretty much the last German defending one of the two guard rooms on the Bridge was no less than the German General Stella King. Eventually he was whacked, and the advancing Americans finally got some bodies into the two rooms and took full control of the Bridge. But it was a costly advance, and Tank's unique style of leadership saw him shooting his own men in the back of the head on occasion.....it was giddy stuff.
To be honest, once the Americans took the Bridge, as game coordinators we assumed that was that and they would hold it. But the Germans had other ideas and true to their reputation as the best counter attackers the world has seen, they rallied themselves and launched a fresh assault to retake the Bridge.
This wasn't sexy paintball, it was dirty, it was painful, it was slow but it was working. Room by room, yard by yard they they kept driving themselves on until they drove the Americans off the German side of the Bridge. They then continued to grind their way over the main Bridge structure, weeding out each defending Yank one at a time.
Some of it was close quarter stuff, some people got hurt and it took 5 marshalls on the Bridge itself to keep things under control as this was paintball at it's most brutal and not a place for the faint hearted or French.
By the end of the game, the Germans had retaken most of the Bridge leaving the Americans with just a toe hold on their side.
The majority of the points therefore went to the Americans for taking the Bridge, but kudos to the Germans for refusing to give up their Bridge when all appeared lost.
Epic game.
Those who attend Shoreline events regularly will know that we often have a non-scoring 'mess about' final last game.
The last game this time around saw both of us (Lee and Tim) in the ship defending against all 159 players. With no real respawn for us, it was a case of taking as much punishment as we could before ducking into one of the few spaces that offered respite for a few seconds, taking a deep breath and then coming back for more. We had four guns each, being constantly reloaded for us by a bewildered Matty Smith. It was great fun. More about the new Tippmann Phenom's that we were using later!
It was slightly surreal seeing guys standing up in the middle of the storm trying to signal codes using semaphore code, but most amusing.
Ultimately, the Germans gave the correct code first and took possession of the ship.
As we abandoned the ship and made for the American lines, we took plenty of German love into our backs - great fun. A couple of suicide charges by the Yanks to get to the ship were cut down without mercy by the Teutonic defenders. Extremely painful - but a proper giggle.
We trimmed the last game short to avoid finishing the event in the dark, and we beleive this was the right call.
For us, we had two goals for this event. Obviously, we wanted to ensure that all customers had value for money and a good day out. The fair play and great standard of play from the players ensured that happened and early feedback seems to indicate that we achieved that.
Our second objective was to raise as much money for our chosen charity for the event as we could. Given the date, naturally we chose the Royal British Legion. £604.93 was raised on the day via the raffle. This is an astonishing amount and our heartfelt thanks go not only to the players who all put their hands in their pockets in such a thoughtful manner - but also to the people who donated some outstanding prizes. So thank you to:
Euro Paintball Tours (Tony from the Scottish Warriors and Stella King from BT Rangers) for donating a free trip to the Big German Paintball game in 2010. It's a trip worth over £700 and full details can be found on this thread ( viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11023 ). Anyone wanting to play overseas should take a look at the thread and get in touch with the two organisers. Congratulations to TC for winning - now go and get your passport sorted!
BZ Paintball and Tippmann for donating one of the brand new Tippmann X7 Phenom's worth over £300! There are less than a dozen in the UK and to give away one at this event was another extraordinary feat of generosity. Take a look on the forums and internet for reviews of this impressive marker and contact BZ if you are interested in finding out more. Much envy to Coaxial from Team Fury. We're surprised you made it out of the car park without getting mugged!
Prozone for donating a free ticket to their excellent Scotland v England game in 2010 including holiday accommodation over night, evening meal, breakfast, box of paint and kit rental if required. It's a cracking weekend package which I'm sure Dave Thomson of Bad Company will enjoy next year. We'll see you there.
Campaign for giving away free entry to Time Wars 2010. It's one of the long standing fixtures in the calendar and always a favourite with the players.
Task Force Delta for donating a free ticket to their Takr Gahr game in 2010. A newer event on the calendar but one which received great reviews this year and is sure to be another cracker next year.
WWII Campaign Series donated a Campaign Ticket for 2010. This will give entry to four separate events next year all linked together as a series. Games will be run by Al Murray of Shotts, Asher of The Bunker and Shoreline Paintball. Prize worth £180.
The player of the day, Ed Holey won a Shoreline Season Ticket to all 9 of our events in 2010 worth over £400 for some truly outstanding play throughout the day including an obscene number of barrel tags. Outstanding!
For supporting our raffle and helping us raise over £600 we thank the above prize givers and encourage players to support those who put so much into our game.
Lastly, some thank you's:
To the two Generals. It's great for us when the Generals get so involved with banter in the lead up to the game via the forums and on game day itself. The uniforms were outstanding and it's fair to say that both Tank and Stella King drove their teams forward by example. Thank you gents.
To the players for some of the highest standards of play we've seen this year. SRP is a brutal game and not for the faint hearted and we make that clear in the pre-game literature. Admirable restraint was shown by players on both sides that you just don't see at other events. If there was no endemic overshooting problems at this game (of all games given it's up close and brutal nature) then there doesn't need to be at any other. It highlights the fact that it's the way that players approach and play a game that determines whether or not these problems crop up. The spirit that the weekend's game was played is a model of scenario paintball. Thank you all for making that the case.
The BZ marshalling team have to be considered the best in the country. Because it's a particularly tough game with some close quarter fighting, the marshalling has to be of the very highest order. Anyone playing on the Bridge will have been playing around, through and over some very brave marshalls who sat in the middle of the maelstrom taking a battering to ensure your safety. That level of selflessness if very hard to find and the team are a credit to the site that they represent.
Lastly, to both our wives. Their work behind the scenes goes unnoticed by most and the truth is that we couldn't do what we do without their help and support. They travel around the country and site in freezing site offices for hour after hour in order to ensure that all the behind the scenes stuff is working efficiently whilst we both dandy about pretending to be busy. They care as passionately as we do that all our customers have a good time after paying to attend our events. So thank you both!
That's it. As ever, if anyone has anything they'd like to bring up about the event, positive or negative then you can either PM or email either or both of us and you'll be guaranteed an answer.
We now go into hibernation until February when our next event will be WWII Campaign - Dunkirk (previously Against All Odds), but we'll see all those attending the UK Scenario Awards in a few weeks down in Brighton.
Thank you all for your support during 2009 - look out for some extremely exciting news over the coming weeks regarding Shoreline's plans for 2010! And we mean exciting!!!
Lee and Tim
_________________
Shoreline HQ
Again, insertions were used by the Americans as they had been by the Germans. Both Generals were fully involved in the process of where and when insertions were taking place.
The Americans skirmish line advanced up the field pretty quickly. Where they differed from the German approach was that they used the bulk of their forces to punch through up the left of the field leaving a much smaller force to fight over the castle. This approach paid dividends as within 25 minutes they had a toe hold on their side of the Bridge. This signalled the start of some epic battling over the infamous BZ Bridge with both Generals leading from the front.
The Americans advanced over the Bridge inch by slippery and brutal inch. Pretty much the last German defending one of the two guard rooms on the Bridge was no less than the German General Stella King. Eventually he was whacked, and the advancing Americans finally got some bodies into the two rooms and took full control of the Bridge. But it was a costly advance, and Tank's unique style of leadership saw him shooting his own men in the back of the head on occasion.....it was giddy stuff.
To be honest, once the Americans took the Bridge, as game coordinators we assumed that was that and they would hold it. But the Germans had other ideas and true to their reputation as the best counter attackers the world has seen, they rallied themselves and launched a fresh assault to retake the Bridge.
This wasn't sexy paintball, it was dirty, it was painful, it was slow but it was working. Room by room, yard by yard they they kept driving themselves on until they drove the Americans off the German side of the Bridge. They then continued to grind their way over the main Bridge structure, weeding out each defending Yank one at a time.
Some of it was close quarter stuff, some people got hurt and it took 5 marshalls on the Bridge itself to keep things under control as this was paintball at it's most brutal and not a place for the faint hearted or French.
By the end of the game, the Germans had retaken most of the Bridge leaving the Americans with just a toe hold on their side.
The majority of the points therefore went to the Americans for taking the Bridge, but kudos to the Germans for refusing to give up their Bridge when all appeared lost.
Epic game.
Those who attend Shoreline events regularly will know that we often have a non-scoring 'mess about' final last game.
The last game this time around saw both of us (Lee and Tim) in the ship defending against all 159 players. With no real respawn for us, it was a case of taking as much punishment as we could before ducking into one of the few spaces that offered respite for a few seconds, taking a deep breath and then coming back for more. We had four guns each, being constantly reloaded for us by a bewildered Matty Smith. It was great fun. More about the new Tippmann Phenom's that we were using later!
It was slightly surreal seeing guys standing up in the middle of the storm trying to signal codes using semaphore code, but most amusing.
Ultimately, the Germans gave the correct code first and took possession of the ship.
As we abandoned the ship and made for the American lines, we took plenty of German love into our backs - great fun. A couple of suicide charges by the Yanks to get to the ship were cut down without mercy by the Teutonic defenders. Extremely painful - but a proper giggle.
We trimmed the last game short to avoid finishing the event in the dark, and we beleive this was the right call.
For us, we had two goals for this event. Obviously, we wanted to ensure that all customers had value for money and a good day out. The fair play and great standard of play from the players ensured that happened and early feedback seems to indicate that we achieved that.
Our second objective was to raise as much money for our chosen charity for the event as we could. Given the date, naturally we chose the Royal British Legion. £604.93 was raised on the day via the raffle. This is an astonishing amount and our heartfelt thanks go not only to the players who all put their hands in their pockets in such a thoughtful manner - but also to the people who donated some outstanding prizes. So thank you to:
Euro Paintball Tours (Tony from the Scottish Warriors and Stella King from BT Rangers) for donating a free trip to the Big German Paintball game in 2010. It's a trip worth over £700 and full details can be found on this thread ( viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11023 ). Anyone wanting to play overseas should take a look at the thread and get in touch with the two organisers. Congratulations to TC for winning - now go and get your passport sorted!
BZ Paintball and Tippmann for donating one of the brand new Tippmann X7 Phenom's worth over £300! There are less than a dozen in the UK and to give away one at this event was another extraordinary feat of generosity. Take a look on the forums and internet for reviews of this impressive marker and contact BZ if you are interested in finding out more. Much envy to Coaxial from Team Fury. We're surprised you made it out of the car park without getting mugged!
Prozone for donating a free ticket to their excellent Scotland v England game in 2010 including holiday accommodation over night, evening meal, breakfast, box of paint and kit rental if required. It's a cracking weekend package which I'm sure Dave Thomson of Bad Company will enjoy next year. We'll see you there.
Campaign for giving away free entry to Time Wars 2010. It's one of the long standing fixtures in the calendar and always a favourite with the players.
Task Force Delta for donating a free ticket to their Takr Gahr game in 2010. A newer event on the calendar but one which received great reviews this year and is sure to be another cracker next year.
WWII Campaign Series donated a Campaign Ticket for 2010. This will give entry to four separate events next year all linked together as a series. Games will be run by Al Murray of Shotts, Asher of The Bunker and Shoreline Paintball. Prize worth £180.
The player of the day, Ed Holey won a Shoreline Season Ticket to all 9 of our events in 2010 worth over £400 for some truly outstanding play throughout the day including an obscene number of barrel tags. Outstanding!
For supporting our raffle and helping us raise over £600 we thank the above prize givers and encourage players to support those who put so much into our game.
Lastly, some thank you's:
To the two Generals. It's great for us when the Generals get so involved with banter in the lead up to the game via the forums and on game day itself. The uniforms were outstanding and it's fair to say that both Tank and Stella King drove their teams forward by example. Thank you gents.
To the players for some of the highest standards of play we've seen this year. SRP is a brutal game and not for the faint hearted and we make that clear in the pre-game literature. Admirable restraint was shown by players on both sides that you just don't see at other events. If there was no endemic overshooting problems at this game (of all games given it's up close and brutal nature) then there doesn't need to be at any other. It highlights the fact that it's the way that players approach and play a game that determines whether or not these problems crop up. The spirit that the weekend's game was played is a model of scenario paintball. Thank you all for making that the case.
The BZ marshalling team have to be considered the best in the country. Because it's a particularly tough game with some close quarter fighting, the marshalling has to be of the very highest order. Anyone playing on the Bridge will have been playing around, through and over some very brave marshalls who sat in the middle of the maelstrom taking a battering to ensure your safety. That level of selflessness if very hard to find and the team are a credit to the site that they represent.
Lastly, to both our wives. Their work behind the scenes goes unnoticed by most and the truth is that we couldn't do what we do without their help and support. They travel around the country and site in freezing site offices for hour after hour in order to ensure that all the behind the scenes stuff is working efficiently whilst we both dandy about pretending to be busy. They care as passionately as we do that all our customers have a good time after paying to attend our events. So thank you both!
That's it. As ever, if anyone has anything they'd like to bring up about the event, positive or negative then you can either PM or email either or both of us and you'll be guaranteed an answer.
We now go into hibernation until February when our next event will be WWII Campaign - Dunkirk (previously Against All Odds), but we'll see all those attending the UK Scenario Awards in a few weeks down in Brighton.
Thank you all for your support during 2009 - look out for some extremely exciting news over the coming weeks regarding Shoreline's plans for 2010! And we mean exciting!!!
Lee and Tim
_________________
Shoreline HQ