MXS's Battle For Ironforge
March 2007 - Photos by Paul "Superman" Mulkey

MXS hit Florida again in full force to rev up the southeastern 2007 scenario season with The Battle for Iron Forge at Camp Blanding.

Camp Blanding, located near Starke, Florida is a Florida National Guard training facility with areas dedicated to everything from helicopter maneuvers and wooded combat to tank driving and urban battles.

The point of interest at the training facility as far as paintball is concerned is the MOUT site – Military Operations on Urban Terrain. Blanding's MOUT site is a small town with paved roads and buildings ranging from little more than a foundation and “ruin” walls to four stories tall with roof access. Accessible storm drains even allow the most daring to enter the underground tunnel system from a dry canal outside the city and pop up through manholes in a variety of downtown locations.

The game, was the fourth to be produced at the MOUT site by husband and wife production team Patrick “PacMan” McKinnon and Diane “Mother” McKinnon of MXS. Despite being a military base not usually set up for paintball games, air fills were available on site, with Jacck roberts of Paintball Event Air compressing and filling. The North American Woodsball League (NAWL) kept food on the grille so that everyone was fed through the weekend, and Team Code 5 and “Yogi” from Xtreme Fanatics were on standby for emergency medical services.

A small paintball village spring up just north of the MOUT facility, in the parking, camping and staging area, with vendors from Atomic Ordnance, Smokin' Products, Scenarioball.com, Knights Crossing Paintball, BT Paintball and Sonix Gear.

Held February 17th and 18th, and sponsored by KEE Action Sports (the company formed by the acquisition and merging of PMI and National Paintball Supply) the scenario was inspired by the Blizzard Entertainment's (publisher of World of WarCraft) online gaming worlds. In the game's story lines The Horde – a coalition of undead creatures, and general uglies like orcs and trolls - was faced against the Alliance – a group of humans, dwarves and gnomes - to fight over the Dwarven enclave in the land of Azaroth known as Iron Forge.

Serving as generals for the game were Davi “Coyote” Velasquez of Dead By Dawn and Rich Toth of the Black Berets. Toth lead the alliance players while Velasquez guide the Horde. Between the two teams a total of 10 paintball tanks were amassed to provide cover to groups of players advancing across open spaces, and have metal on metal showdowns.

Over the course of the game, both teams tied on the number of missions completed – 18, but The Horde completed more team missions that were further back into the Alliance territory, and gained a 50 point lead before the event's final battle. The Horde had an edge in role playing, completing 27 character missions compared to the Aliance's 25, and out of 5 special duels, the Alliance won three – but they gave up some points to The Horde by allowing Rich Toth to get eliminated once over the weekend.

In the game's final battle both teams fought to control the “Essence of Life,” a prop worth 10% of their scores to that point in the game. They were also able to assemble an additional prop for a 25 point bonus. In the end, The Horde was victorious with a score of 478 to 360.

Closing ceremonies included prize giveaways to the players and recognition of key players and teams:

Recognition Recipients for the Horde:

Most Valuable Player – “Red Hat” of Seek And Destroy

Most Valuable team – 1st Mercenary Group

Most Valuable Judge – Tommy “Magik” O’Connor

Sportsmanship – Mayberry Marauders

Young Gun – Jake Albury

Most Notorious Opponent- Xtreme Fanatics

Recognition Recipients for the Alliance:

Most Valuable Player: Jason and Melissa of the Doom Troopers

Most Valuable Team – Warriors 4 Christ

Most Valuable Judge – “Scorpio”

Sportsmanship – Team XGST

Young Gun – Macy Smith

Most Notorious Opponent – Pub Crawling

The Battle for Iron Forge marked the start of the 2007 season for MXSportz. From the MOUT site in Florida the production team heads next to Tomball, TX for a one day mini-scenario, followed by 8 more scenarios through the year in Virginia, Illinois, Georgia, Missouri, and Nevada.