The Game
As we move into the final few days, lets concentrate on the Super6 Sunday Big Game at the Tippmann Challenge.
The game has been deliberately designed to be a messy gunfight and at all times players will find themselves surrounded.
The Holmbush site is unique in that it's shaped like a polo mint, with the hole in the middle being the main staging area and the playing area surrounding it. That means that its next to impossible to know who is behind you at any given minute.
From the very start of the game, faction leaders will be unsure whether to stick or twist. Do they attack or will their faction be attacked? Nobody will be confident of what will happen at game on. Any one faction could be pincered by two other factions and quickly wiped out, but that would leave the attacking team light on the other side of the park.
The strategies that the Faction Leaders decide on will set the tone for the day. It'll be very very interesting to see how the start plays out.
The basic foundation for the game will revolve around four bases. Those who played last year will remember some epic battles around bases 1 and 3 (the Castle and the Church):
Some of the Black team was cocky enough to even pose for a photo during the game after capturing the Castle.
The TCUK will be played over a total of 13 game zones - the area is massive and without your map you'll almost certainly get lost. Don't worry about making your own map - Shoreline will provide a map for every single player.
The game zones offer different challenges. Zone A is overlooked by a grand stand so non-players can sit and watch the action. The zone itself is made up of trenches, hard cover, gun positions and two (yes....two!) churches, one at each end. The Northern boundary of the zone is thick woodland, offering perfect outflanking territory.
(The view overlooking Zone A - The Church field)
Zone J, The Village, is also quite exciting with a mass of huts and low level buildings as is Zone D.
For all the sneaky beaky types, the venue is like paradise. The cover is thick, the site is massive (one of the biggest in the UK) and the round nature of the game allows so much opportunity to flank and hit unsuspecting enemy from behind.
For those who like their paintball less subtle, capturing and then holding the bases promises to be quite a trip! .......... and every single minute you hold onto a base counts!
We've simplified the game this year from last year, but have introduced a delicious new twist. PYRO KILLS!!!
So capturing a Base maybe one thing, but holding on to it maybe a lot harder than you think. A couple of well aimed pyro's over the walls or through the windows can easily eliminate 20+ defenders, leaving the base wide open for the attackers to re-take. So expect a lot of counter attacks and watch out for those Grenadiers! We've already heard of teams buying up hundreds and hundreds of flashbangs by the box load - so it looks like things could get fruity and we're expecting the Bases to be hard to hold on to.
To add another level of spice to proceedings, hundreds of QR codes will be scattered around the site. Some will reveal Special Missions, some will reveal bonus points and some will be boobie prizes which will take points off your team. Your Command HQ will scan your codes to reveal the secrets. There is nothing stopping players scanning the codes 'in field' if you wish.....but personally I'd rather be running and gunning than fiddling around with my iPhone in the middle of a gunfight.
Each faction leader will also be given a 'special weapon' and it is up to them to choose when they deploy it. They may work together and deploy their weapons all at the same time, or spread them over the day......who knows?
One of the things that we all hate as players is long walks to respawn. So each team will have a central respawn corridor right in the middle of the venue at the main staging area and each team will also have two 'in field' respawn points. This means that no player will ever be more than a 1 minute walk from a respawn point - allowing you to get back into the game as quickly as possible.
One of the potential problems with scenario games is that fields are not perfectly even. So usually the team that loses always moans that they had a disadvantage on the ground. We've solved that problem at the Tippmann Challenge by fliping all the in-field respawn points and respawn corridors mid way through the game. This means that the field will be perfectly balanced for both teams. It also promises to shake things up a bit (as if they need shaking up any more!!!) at 1230 when the entire field will reverse and flip over. It'll make for a wonderful mess and some horrific gun fights. Woop!
As with all Shoreline games, the last hour is set up to be the mother of all scraps. We always like to finish on a high. The entire fight will be focused around Base 1. Expect the air to be thick with paint, expect bangs, tears and bruises. Expect a titanic struggle as both teams wrestle over the same objective, hundreds of thousands of paintballs flung in one condensed area. Players hurling themselves into the Base hoping to hang on. Expect smoke, pyro, thrills and spills. Legends and reputations will be made in that last hour and teams will write their names into scenario folklore. Its' going to be quite a 60 minutes!!!!!
Summary
- The biggest Super6 so far
- Hundreds of players from all over Europe
- An absolutely fantastic paintball site
- Zones to suit every player
- A real gunfight of a game, but with plenty to keep sneaky scenario die hards happy
- Quick respawn turn arounds
- Central staging area
- HPAC air to 4.5k
- The best marshalling team Shoreline have ever assembled
With the eyes of the paintball world on the Tippmann Challenge UK next weekend, all the ingredients are there for an epic game of British Big Game paintball.
Lets show them how we roll.
