PE go behind the scenes in Germany

Paintball.De have been part of the Eclipse family for over a year now, since we acquired them and merged certain operational parts of our businesses to form a beautiful, multi-cultural partnership. So we decided it was time to send a few of us over there to have some high-powered business meetings; talk about the present, the future and most importantly drink German beer with a giant serving of German sausage.

Firstly, who are Paintball.De?

Paintball.De have been operating in Germany for over 25 years and have been a major Eclipse dealer for a good chunk of that time. They have a fantastic warehouse and operational set-up with a vast range of products and paintball brands all delivered by outstanding customer service, which as we all know is massively important when you're parting with your hard-earned-cash. They also boast a very strong tech support service and are now officially THE largest stockist of Planet Eclipse spares in the World. Which is pretty awesome for us and for the customer.

They recognised their strengths and recently decided to spread their wings by offering their services beyond the boundaries of Germany so Paintball.De now sell, deliver and support their entire product range throughout Europe. By simply choosing the European version of their website from Paintball.De you have access to every you'd ever need.

Which is a pretty awesome thing for European paintballers; to have a trustworthy, experienced and well-stocked dealer in one place is pretty sweet.

This all sounds good so we decided to hop over to Germany to see them for the first time (excluding Ledz, who's been there lots) to check out the place, meet the team and see what they have to offer. The people are super-friendly and knowledgeable; they play the game and they love the game, which is exactly what you want from a paintball dealer.

They also have on-site store which has everything you'd need, from inexpensive site gear right through to the very, very high-end stuff. Which is Eclipse gear, obviously, and includes some very sweet limited run CS1 annos.

After a tour of their facilities, their systems and the offices we decided to have more meetings. Blah, blah, blah, then Stephan Wildemann (CEO Paintball.De) challenged us to play his arcade machine. Which he destroyed us at, because it was HIS machine. We're pretty sure he cheated but house always wins, right?

Stephan absolutely destroying the Eclipse boys (cheat)

The Paintball.De team

A nice retro touch

I think we'd all like to have one of these

Ledz is more than addicted to Escape Rooms, so he made certain that we did a local one while we were in town so we dragged the team along to a cool Escape Room near Paintball.De HQ which was a riot. Although we're pretty sure Butch (who is very, very tall) broke a lock rather than completed the puzzle.

Of course we did it

And then it was time for the good stuff. We hit the old town in Düsseldorf for beers, sausage and more sausage. It is 100% true that Germans love their sausage. And raw mincemeat with raw onion too, which was surprisingly delicious. To top this off we took on the Killepitsch experience, which we were pretty stoked about. Killepitsch is an old liquer that has a quirky tradition surrounding it. The traditional pub we visited had large Georgian style windows (lots of small windows) and one had a Killepitsch sticker on it. You tap on the window and the bar person opens the little window then takes your Killepitsch order. You hand over the Euros and your Killepitsch order is served, through the little window. While you are stood outside in the freezing cold. Which is neat. And the drink? Well, you kinda welcome it when stood in the cold, but it's a strong liquer similar in taste to Jagemeister. Very medicinal and heart warming... or do we mean burning? Either way if you're ever in Düsseldorf's old town you MUST try it.

Plate full of meat? Yes please!

Ledz ready to do battle

Ledz... the savage

Al eating some raw meat

Stephan, Ledz and Al getting excited about the Killepitsch

And if you're based in Germany, or anywhere in Europe and are looking online for paintball gear, to be delivered efficiently and with great care then why not try Paintball.De out?

Our trip to Germany was a blast and we can't thank Paintball.De enough for their hospitality. We'll be trying to make up some random excuse to head back over as soon as we can to eat more, drink more and maybe do more work. Maybe. If the boss is with us.

Check out the links below for the German and European websites.