Here’s another enjoyable writeup courtesy of our man on the ground in Sweden, Mr. Ben Thompson. The paintball enthusiasts in this fair country are having a real blast every weekend all over the Swedish countryside.
Crunch…. Crunch…. Crunch…. silence…. I am being hunted… so I must be careful… and my trigger-finger is frozen to the point I can’t use it, so I must be extra careful…
The trees are laden heavy with snow, which helps, because my dark green sweater is also coated with a clinging layer of white, which means if I don’t move, I’ll be near-impossible to spot. The temp is a biting -12 C.
Last year, my season kicked off at Strategy Plus in February, playing third entity with Ambush Alpha on the frigid hills. After that I logged a game nearly every two weeks until the end of August. Here in Sweden, play has been more sparse, but this has given rise to the habit of never during down an opportunity, even if the temperatures are well below freezing.
I stop and switch the maverick to my left hand. I roll the fingers on my right into a ball inside the glove and wait for the blood to return. It’s been a rough morning.
Rikard plowed parts of the field, there are avenues to run down, but the majority of the city at AC is covered in several feet of snow, making running impossible. I learned this the hard way trying to make it to one of the forts. My leg got caught in a heavy drift and I was hung out to dry as two of the Swedes on the other team layed into me with IONS. I probably took over a dozen rounds to the chest. None of them broke, bouncing off due to the range and my soft sweater, but in the bitter cold, I still felt them. I stood trapped while they hammered me until they finally got a break on my gun and I called myself out. Similar attempts to move around in the city met with equal results. Pulling up a flag, I took one in the wrist from a meter away. It started bleeding immediately. After that I decided to leave the town for the foolhardy and stick to the woods. If I could draw some of their players away from the city, it would make capturing the flags easier for the rest of the team. But playing the sneak means I am not running… which means I am getting colder by the second.
They spotted me twice as I circled behind their base. They are on edge. I hear 
the muffled swedish voices discussing what to do. One of the players stops 10 feet from the pinebough where I have stopped to rest. “He is in there! I know it!” he shouts to two of his teammates. They get on line and begin firing randomly into the woods. “There’s no one there, you’re crazy,” The two men leave. The third sticks around, waiting, listening. I know his mask is probably so fogged he won’t spot me unless I move. He fires off another burst, arcing them back and forth. “You’re right, it’s all calm,” he says, and turns. His back is wide open. I slip my index finger back into my glove. The trigger guard on the maverick is too small to accommodate a glove without pulling the trigger, but the maverick’s autotrigger means that’s okay. I stand up and pump once. The round hits him between the shoulder blades. “OUT! #$!$*” He storms off swearing vengeance and I move on, lurking in the trees, pausing every ten minutes to hide and rewarm my hands, drifting through the snow as quietly and smoothly as I can manage.
Winterball at the AC turns out to be one of the most fun winter games I’ve ever played. By the end of the day, all of the expensive markers have gone down in the cold and everyone is reduced to using rental 98C, leveling the playing field for me and the two first-timers I have brought. I worry that they will have a miserable day, playing with rental gear in subzero temps against high-end markers, but they have a blast. “I got that guy with the mock-M16!” says Ed, the Australian. He and Max both tally a significant number of hits, giving as good as they receive. At the end we huddle around a grill and a burn barrel, disposing of the empty paint boxes and trying to warm our hands, feasting on thick swedish sausages and sipping tea. All the soda, gatorade and water froze long ago.
I start my fieldwork on Monday, so this will be the last game for two months. But the guys are already talking about taking a Swedish contingent to the EuroBigGame in Mahlwinkel, Germany, and they ask if I would like to attend. My brother, Josh and I, already have plans to hit up the Veckring Big Game, in France, the weekend before, but if I manage my finances, I can hit the French game and then leg it over to Germany in time for the 4 day event. Two big games in one week at stellar fields, should be awesome… and besides…it will be warmer then… which right now is really the only thing I can think about.
Rikard’s pics http://www.acpaintball.se/Bilder%20g…2010/index.htm
Swedish write-up/High res pics:
http://www.lundmarker.com/coloured-snow
