The Teams

The teams were chosen by randomly splitting the four veteran battlers into two groups (Blue Team = Frank/Joe and Red Team = Steve/John) and then assigning Paul and Brian to each team, respectively. Since only a single supply vehicle was present a game scenario was devised that would allow Mike's services to be used by both sides.

Specifically, Mike would start the battle hauling supplies for the Blue Team between their home base and a forward base on the side of the field that was an equal distance from both home bases. Whenever the U.N. support vehicle was destroyed, Mike would switch teams and begin hauling supplies for the other side. The team that currently had control of the supply vehicle was allowed to re-supply one vehicle at a time in the forward base. That is, a team would have the advantage of being able to re-supply two vehicles at the same time (one at the home base and one at the forward base) if they were in position of the support vehicle.

This variation on the basic game made the battle quite interesting, as each team bore down on the forward base and relentlessly pursued the supply vehicle everywhere on the field.

Battle Summary

It didn't take long into the battle before the T-34 nailed the U.N. support vehicle with a long range shot, giving them control of the supply vehicle and the forward base. That caused the Blue Team to throw their full force into the forward base area to drive off the Red Team and attempt to get back control of the support vehicle.

As the center of focus, Mike spent a lot of time trying to move around the field in "stealth mode". Unfortunately, the U.N. vehicle and trailer are painted white, making them easily visible from anywhere on the battlefield. Nonetheless, Mike drove well and the vehicle negotiated the terrain with good power and mobility. (At the end of the day, Mike actually pulled himself along while standing in the trailer to show the power provided by the 4 wheel KCM drive system.)

While the rough terrain caused problems for the other two support vehicles during the previous battles, the U.N. vehicle had plenty of ground clearance, as long as it didn't try to go over anything too rough. Overall, considering the simplicity of the design, it performed very well, but it could benefit from some more speed to prevent tanks from catching it. Most of the tanks were traveling as fast or faster than the supply vehicles over the rough terrain and, quite realistically, there were places that only the tracked vehicles could go.

There were plenty of armed vehicles being destroyed in addition to the U.N. support vehicle, with the following official scores:

Ironically, even though the Red Team scored one more kill than the Blue Team, since Joe's Hetzer is only worth 750 points, the scores came out exactly equal at 7,000 points.

Near the end of the battle, Steve's T-34 ran out of ammo and was forced to wait outside of his home base while another vehicle was being reloaded. Seeing this, Joe and Frank went after the T-34 without delay, which immediately started backing towards the 10 foot berm behind the Red Team's home base, in order to protect himself from paintball fire. Then, the T-34 proceeded to go up the 30 degree, straw covered incline in reverse. Steve stop his vehicle at the top and smiled from ear-to-ear at the power of his drive system. His facial expression soon changed, however, when the Hetzer started clawing its way up the same hill. After a little bit of slipping on the straw covered hill, the Hetzer crested the ridge, at which point the T-34 immediately took off down the slope like a skier coming out of the gates. The T-34 raced down the hill and passed within a few feet of the Tiger which was waiting at the bottom. As the T-34 sped by, Frank swung the turret around in a 90 degree arc and fired as fast as he could. At least 4 shots hit the T-34, one of which blew apart one of the external gas tanks, causing quite an impressive looking hole. (The tanks are made of cardboard.)