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Taliban Canyon This time we played in a small canyon near Santa Clara (now we call it Taliban Canyon) working through part of a larger scenario that I've been thinking about for some time. We only had 7 players (sure wish we'd had some more), and had some trouble getting started, but once we kicked off things went extremely well. I think it was the most exciting paintball I've ever played. The backstory was a Special Forces team—the blue team—pursuing Taliban fighters—the red team—in the wilds of Afghanistan. The 4 blue players were on offense the whole time, pushing up the canyon about a mile or two towards a fixed objective (a fenceline representing the border with Pakistan). The 3 red players were basically setting up 'rolling ambushes' trying to delay the blue team. The blue team had 3 fairly experienced players, and one noobie. I played red, with two other experienced players. I brought a couple of radios w earpieces, and we used those on the red team to coordinate. Worked pretty well, but we could improve. As for rules, one hit on body, gun or hopper was a kill. At the start we said when blue was hit, they were supposed to fall back behind the action and stay out of the fight for 10 minutes. When red was hit, they were to just pull back out of line of sight, and then regenerate. This really didn't come into play though, since we basically had two engagements—each about 45 minutes with a rest/reload break in between. After each one, we were pretty beat and needed a rest. The combination of tension and exertion wore me out by the end. My intent was to have as few physical boundaries as possible—leaving the teams free to use the terrain however they wanted. The setting of an objective, and a time to reach it in, would naturally constrain the area we played in. To me that's more realistic than artificial boundaries. We played that way for the first engagement (except for one stretch of ground I kept off limits because it led to a dead end). But in the second one, where the canyon widened out, we limited the 'field' to the upper rim on each side. With just 7 players, that worked well, but I'd rather keep it as open as possible. While there wasn't as much shooting as a normal 'elimination' game, there was much more maneuver, team coordination and using our heads to get into good positions. In each of the two engagements, the red team set up an ambush and waited for the blue team to come up the canyon at them. Then, after initiating the firefight and pinning them down, we'd fall back in coordinated fashion to new positions. Our challenge was to disengage without getting shot, and the blue team's challenge was to keep pressing us aggressively. Lots of the shootouts didn't result in kills, but pinned the blue team down. The first engagement ended with the elimination of the red team (we could have regenerated but it was a good stopping point), and two kills on blue—one coming back in the game after getting hit in the first firefight. I got hit as I tried to climb out of the canyon. A blue player had pushed up on the opposite rim, and fired me up from behind as I was scrambling up. The second engagement was outstanding. We gave blue 45 minutes to reach the 'border' to keep a "high value target" from slipping away, and went ahead to set up. The canyon was widening out, and we set boundaries to the lip of each side. No one could get up on the 'flats'. Both sides were much more coordinated this time, and the way it evolved was a slow, steady push by blue. They stayed under cover, and would gradually work around to firing positions that forced us back. We kept pinning them down w max range fire, then withdrawing to the next good cover. High ground became really important. Mike and I started using the radios more effectively, mainly just telling each other where blue was. Still lots to learn on that account. We managed to keep blue in front of us, gradually running out the clock. At the end, the canyon opened up to maybe 200-250 yards across, with sparse cover on the canyon floor. I went high along one side, to get commanding shots on the wash at the bottom. The other two red team guys stayed in the Mesquite bushes below. I got shot again, after sniping at two blue players down in the wash. I ran out of air, and had to run but got tracked by long-range A-5 fire and was out. Then I watched as the 3 remaining blue guys pushed our last two red players towards the fenceline. I yelled down "three more minutes and 100 yards!" and things started to heat up. Another red player went out, and a blue player ran out of air. That left a two on one in the final minute. They pinned down the last Taliban "bodyguard", and eliminated him—but, it was too late. It was 1148 when they reached the border, three minutes after the 1145 objective time. The HVT had slipped away into Pakistan. There were quite a few 'lessons learned', (see below) the biggest ones from red's perspective being: fall back in coordinated fashion; take advantage of chances to go offensive and eliminate blue players (we missed some); don't take such long-range shots, wait till they get closer. Lots more lessons to recap, but this is too long already. Bottom line: We had a blast. Hope you can make it the next time we do a Rangerball scenario! -- Ajax Lessons Learned Summary Tactical:
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