Intercepted Turks Comms Chatter!!

The Turks have been around for years, I mean YEARS !! Forming in 1987.

When Supair took over the scene the Turk sort of went into hibernation until the woodland scene started up again.

The Turks were a force to be reckoned with in the early days winning several big titles including Mayhem Master in 1992 and 3 Campaign Cup titles in 1991, 1992 and 1994 and staying at the top of there game for many years with their 'Unique' brand of Paintball. If you know them, you know.... Lets just say that they are called the Turks because they all used to drink in a pub called the Turks Head !

Anyway... Enough of that. We intercepted an internal team message that made us smile so we thought we would share with the World. This is a breakdown of the Turks (antics) at round 3 of the UK's Woodland Pro Tour:

Enjoy.


Written by: Ollie Widdowson

So in lieu of Mel’s usual next day debrief I have volunteered to write up this little report as to yesterday’s activities and I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I have large shoes to fill. So Mel, I hope I can at least match up to your literary genius.

Now as we are all aware the general team attitude towards round 3 of the Pro Tour was sceptical at best, unsurprising really considering the farce that was round 2. Following the revelation that the whole tournament was to be played on one field the attitude soured even more and there was talk of us not attending the event at all. However, Darron then phoned Matt and gave him 20 minutes of solid abuse and his response email was so appallingly apologetic that we felt honour bound to attend the event, you know, as we’re “true gents”.

Now I’m pleased to report that, despite our misgivings, the staff running the event actually pulled it out of the bag and put on a bloody good event. The games were run like clockwork and even though we had some long waits between games it went quickly and that was all down to the efficiency of the event crew and refs. The reffing, though fair, wasn’t particularly awe inspiring as some games only had 4 refs present and few of them had a proactive attitude and were late to react to potential contentious situations. More of that to follow later.

So I’ll set the scene and then break down each individual game and comment on things that went well and things that did not go well. We, as a team, played some very strong paintball at points and were also the masters of our own undoing at others but I’ll go into specifics in the game break downs. The morning was played on a speedball-esque field with large, open spaces and plenty of bunkers. One side had a deep, snake like trench and was the critical side to dominate if you were to win the game. The other tape line had a shallow gully but became stale quickly with two mirrored bunkers trading paint and holding the line. The afternoon was played on a much more interesting field that had two large mounds, multiple ruined buildings, industrial sized wooden spools and some good old fashioned woodland scrub. It was significantly larger than the morning field and allowed teams to have to sup-air style action on one side of the field and then some more old school, sneaky beaky play on the other. It was a very kinetic field and really good fun to play.

So, to the games:

Game 1: Turks vs Sad Tactical

We started off the game with the plan to form a baseline across the 30 yard line and use Strawberry and myself to dominate the centre and allow Dan and Darron to push the deep, snake like trench. The game started off really well with Darron dying almost immediately, Strawberry getting confused and joining me in my bunker and Dan looking very lonely out on the tape by himself. Strawberry and Allen made quick work of dominating the opposing team and I hopped over to snake side to support Dan. G2 came about very quickly and Dan pushed into the trench and set about mopping up 2 more whilst I shot the last guy on the far tape line. Overall, once the initial confusion subsided it was a quick, well played point with communication running well and disciplined team play.

Game 2: Turks vs Preds Masai

This game started with us on the opposite side to the first game with the same basic plan: get Dan into the trench and stack bodies. Unfortunately this was not to be. Everyone made their primary bunkers and the game slowed down to a grudge match with a lot of paint being slung across field. Dan got shot out mid game but the snake side was held well by Darron and Strawbs. Allen and I held the gulley side, dealing with their back right and centre players. Now I’ll hold up my hands and admit that I’m the reason this was the only game of the day that we outright lost. I was trading paint with my mirror in the back right bunker and then turned to send some paint over to their centre player who’d been left relatively untouched. This allowed the back right player, young George, to snap shoot Allen out and then take a leisurely stroll down the 3.5mm high, 30 metre long gulley, come round my bunker and put 3 in my back. All I can say is I’ve got the observational capabilities of Stevie Wonder. Strawbs quickly realised what had happened and went to mug young George out but paid the ultimate price and Darron, our last player, quickly followed. This gave the Preds the hang and us an embarrassing walk home. Our game started off well but communication broke down fairly quickly across the field with pairs of players talking but the messages not getting passed from one side to the other.

Game 3: Turks vs Preds Zulu

Following the schooling we’d just taken off the Preds second team we were more than a little nervous to play the Zulu squad and we aimed to lay as much paint down as we could, get the critical snake side kill and let Dan go to work. We started off from the same side as the previous match and hit the same bunkers as we had before. We all made it in alive and then Darron got shot in the face whilst arguing with a ref. Following this the game slowed right down and nobody really made any dramatic moves forward. Dan was lost mid game but, once again, that side was held stoically by Strawberry. Allen and I were holding gulley side and the time was left just to grind down. The 1 minute mark came and went and the Preds made their characteristic flag grab run, which they achieved but lost their player doing it. We should have been ready for this and we missed the opportunity to kill their flag runner before he got the flag. Allen was lost in the last 10 seconds and the game ended with Johan making a last ditch mug run and both me and Strawberry destroying him for it. The game ended with the Preds getting the grab and a final score of 38/12. Once again the communication wasn’t really there but the team play was still solid with everyone looking around and making themselves aware of what going and ensuring that we covered each other.

Game 4: Turks vs Outlanders

Having never played or heard of the Outlanders before I was willing to assume that these guys were a relatively new bunch and shouldn’t present too much of a problem. The game started out with us on the A side (the side we played from in our first match) and forming the same baseline that we had before. Dan got shot out so quickly I’m not even sure he started the game at all and the fate of snake side was left to me and Darron, who, it turned out had dropped 6 tramadol the night before and wasn’t even in the same dimension as us. We got a couple of Gs mid game from the centre and I pushed up a bunker or two to put some pressure on the snake side but got caught up in a gun battle with two of their players. Allen and Strawberry got taken out at some point and so the left hand tape was left uncontested. Darron had finally taken a leave of absence from TramLand and decided to join the game by shooting their two snake side players and screaming at me to get the flag. I just stood there like a mongoloid with my gun blaring at me that we only had 20 seconds to go and asking Darron where the flag was. It turned out it was 3ft to my left. Once again my inner Stevie showed himself to the world. I grabbed the flag and hurled down the field only to find out that our confident G5 call was actually only G4 and I ran through a stream of paint from their surviving player, taking two very lucky bounces off my leg and was able to hang the flag clean. The opposing player seem to have Alzheimers because as soon as he’d shot at me he then seemed to forget I was there at all and just sat there questioning the meaning of life. The game was a fortunate win but a lot went wrong with very little communication and us losing bodies fairly early on in the game. Our G call was off and that set the pattern for the afternoon. Without wishing to sound arrogant but we should have annihilated the Outlanders and we allowed them room to kill 3 of our players all through us rushing and not playing as a cohesive unit.

Lunch saw us seeded into Semi Pro along with Warped Tac Pro, Outlanders and Wildcards. Darron was still dribbling and it was a full time occupation just to hold a conversation with him. You had to say what you wanted to say, wait for 30 seconds whilst he buffered, and then he’d come online and the dead look would leave his eyes. It was like having a Skype conversation but with a Wi-Fi connection from Aleppo town centre. Strawberry pretty much water boarded him trying to flush the pills out of his system and eventually, towards the end of lunch we began to get some semblance of normal interaction with him. We went into the afternoon confident that we should beat all our opposing teams and that Darron probably wouldn’t die of an overdose.

Game 5: Turks vs Wildcards   

From our walking of the field we had decided that regardless of which end we started from the game plan would stay the same; Allen and I would hit the large centre mound, Strawberry would dominate our tape line in the wooded part of the field and Dan and Darron would focus on the more open, sup air style side. The first game started with us all hitting our primary bunkers and Strawberry getting G2 on our side of the field fairly quickly. I then bumped into their side of the field whilst simultaneously Darron got G3 from the opposite of the field. I shot G4 across the field and then Allen, like a true hero, decided to relieve me of my game participation by shooting me in the hand. Once again the G call went wrong and Allen, Strawberry and Dan all got shot out by the surviving player hidden in the back right corner. Fortunately Darron was able to shoot him out and hang the flag but we were horribly close to going from a 4 on 1 situation to losing the game. The problem seems to crop up when were up on bodies and go to push the field; we lose all discipline and its 4/5 guys charging up the field doing their own thing. This was not the last time this would happen to us.

Game 6: Turks vs Outlanders    

Once again we faced the Outlanders and we played exactly the same game plan as we had the previous game. Just as before things went really well in the opening half of the match, up until I got shot in the face like a punter and was dismissed from the field. The guys began to methodically kill off the opposing team in the minute or so it took me to get over my embarrassment and walk off the field. As I walked past Darron and Dan I heard G4 being called and, once again, the focus became on every man and his dog howling up the field with no real idea of why. It turned out that it wasn’t G4, it was G3 and we lost Darron, Dan and Allen all bunched up in the centre but who managed to shoot out one of the players. Strawberry then shot out the last player and with time running low came screaming back, collected the flag and got the hang. Thank God, Strawberry you are our savoir. You stopped us from an embarrassing defeat. Oh wait. No. That may not be entirely true. It turns out that even when a Turk grabs the flag and hangs it you cannot guarantee that as a win because as Strawberry was being checked he decided to mix things up a bit and shot himself in the leg. You know, f&%* it, why not? The referee decreed that as a self-elimination and thus concluded that we got a flag in transit and not the flag hang. Darron made the argument that as Strawberry had hung the flag and time had been stopped he was a neutral player and therefore could not be eliminated and that as the ref and seen him shoot himself that there was no evidence of a dirty hang. This fell on deaf ears and we were essentially told to suck it up and keep Strawbs booger hooks away from the trigger at all times. A somewhat amusing but very frustrating outcome to the game but something that is very easily fixed: Next time Strawberry gets to cheer from the side-lines and has his marker locked away.

Final Game: Turks vs Warped Tac Pro

So we entered the final game all a bit grumpy about the previous result and also aware that we needed a Flag in Transit as an absolute minimum to win the division. Once again the game started off really well with a G1 in the first minute or so. We lost Darron almost immediately after that but Allen went to work and took us up to G3 within the next couple of minutes so we were looking pretty good. I had one guy locked up on the right hand side and Allen went for the flag which he got but then fell on his face and lost his mask. Apparently the Warped guys thought that as Allen had no mask on that they should let him know and shot the fuck out of him for a bit. This pause in the game and the confusion that followed allowed the Warped centre player to grab the flag and as time was running low I went to mug out the player id been shooting at all match. Unfortunately I hadn’t realised that the centre player was where he was and I was shot out pretty much the second I exposed myself. Strawbs made a valiant effort to support me but fell victim to the centre player as well. The game ended with the Warped guys 2 up and with the flag meaning we got 2^nd place (7^th overall)

Overall guys the day was actually really good fun and we all enjoyed it. Like I said before the event was really well run and despite the frustrating inconsistencies of the refs decision in the 2^nd Outlander match the reffing was fair, if a little lazy. We showed some real promise as a team and always worked as a cohesive, disciplined unit in the first half of every match where we did most of our damage. Our downfall came in the last minute madness where all semblance of cohesion got thrown out the window and people tended to bunch up and charge down the field without any real direction. It just takes one guy to not lose his head and to reinstall the discipline within the squad. Get the guys to calm down, make a clear, simple plan to wrap the game up and ensure that we don’t waste bodies unnecessarily making silly charges down field. We were punished on two occasions for that and both of those could have turned a highly favourable situation for us into a loss. We got lucky this time. However, overall I think we did play some very good paintball and we need to take those positives into the next tournament as well as the work on points. All of our work on points are easily fixable and all revolve around us doing the basics well rather than us just being outclassed. We only truly lost one game the whole day and we were solid contenders in all of the others.

All in all another brilliant day being with the Turks and I cant wait for the next event.