Seeing paintball being played in other countries, in different terrains with exciting field features is always awesome. Here’s another writeup from our man on the ground, Ben Thompson in Sweden, on a paintball game that many of us would gladly give anything to check out.
In the doldrums of Swedish winter, paintball has been few and far between. -25 Celsius temperatures have kept even the hardiest people indoors. But last weekend, BattleForce Paintball captain and Uppsala AventyrCenter owner Rikard emailed me and asked if I would like to attend a private game in The Rock near Vasteras, Sweden. Trigger finger itchy and cabin-fever dangerously close to driving me insane, I of course jumped at the opportunity. So we piled into a couple of cars and drove for an hour out to the “The Rock”.
Originally, it was a railroad transformer station, built into a mountain to hide it from the Russians during the Cold War. It’s built to withstand aerial bombardment, burrowed deep into the side of a granite mountain. The playing area is a counter-strike players dream come true. Two symetric train halls lead into a series of small rooms and offices, which in turn each have a staircase to the lower levels, a series of dark tunnels and rooms flooded with about a foot of water. Flashlights were a must have.
We played a series of short games that sounded straight out of a video game, while the owner blasted music over the loudspeakers. The tunnels echoed with gunfire, epic Russian soundtracks, heavy metal, and hippie classics from the 70’s. Missions required teams to escort a VIP, protect/recover a hostage from the bus, or simply eliminate each other. The water took some getting used to. Its dark, smelly and exceptionally cold, but once I had played a few games, lurking in the dark, soaking tunnels became my M.O. With thick mountaineering boots and gators, Tomas from BFP and I took every opportunity to sneak through the dark underground levels.
Outnumbered for most of the games, BFP managed to come out on top or tie 
every single game. To protect ourselves, we would swing shut the large bunker doors and lean chairs or junk against them so that if anyone came from behind us, the loud clashing of falling chairs and metal helmets would alert us. We worked out a simple password system too, which saved us hesitation in the dark and saved us from many friendly fire mistakes. Defending the bus and our hostage from the SWAT team with their shield was one of the more intense matches. SWAT could respawn infinite times and had a police shield, but we were out for good if we got hit. We held the bus chamber for the entire 15 minutes and only lost two of our 6 players, slowly collapsing our perimeter and fiercely guarding the doors, using flashlights to blind the SWAT players stacked behind their shield so that other players could get angles. When we switched sides, we took full advantage of our respawn ability and in 4 minutes of suicide rushes we overwhelmed the terrorists and retrieved the hostage.
We took an hour break to eat some hot soup outside the bunker and then resumed for another few hours. Cold, wet, dark, the day was filled with adrenaline, sloshing through the lower tunnels or clearing the dark rooms upstairs one at time, ears straining to hear enemy players over the music and the echoing shouts and shooting.
It was a small game, maybe a dozen players total, but we made up for the lack of numbers with lots of games, and intense play. When the weather clears a bit, there is a second field on the top of mountain among the giant concrete bunkers that house the ventilation systems for the entire complex, so expect another action packed write up from the Rock come spring.
AC will be launching and updating a new website. Anyone who wants to be advertised, please email me @ thompson.benjamin15@gmail.com and I’ll ask Rikard to put a link up on the site. www.recpaintball.com
Best winterball wishes to all of you!
Great story and well written. Thanks for taking me there with you.