So Call of Duty has gone down in the record books. For those of you who have never played a theme day at Line-of-Fire in western NC, it’s a great experience, inexpensive, and one you should book on your or your team’s scenario calendar. The props and missions that the staff of Line-of-Fire put together are often more creative and fun than those put together by much larger-scale producers. Expect a game that kicks off around noon (or before) and ends by six, and the field gives away a nice set of prizes - this time that package included shirts, hoodies, cases of paint, a sweet NXe gear bag, and an Sim-5 marker.

In this theme day the SAS took on a terrorist faction bent on using nuclear weapons to further their agenda. In a set of missions based heavily on the popular Call of Duty 4 video game, the SAS rescued hostages, disarmed bombs, bugged computers, retrieved secret codes, and eventually defended two missiles on a launch pad. What makes these theme days stand out for me is the details. On a mission to assassinate a political target, the SAS soldier had to retrieve a sniper rifle along with 20 rounds of special blue paint, then shoot from one window, through another window, and hit a mannequin.

At the same time the terrorists had a mission of their own, to interrogate a hostage and capture the evidence on film. They not only had to secure the hostage, but they also had to get the pistol, an excellent Tiberius 8, and the camera, then put it all together to get the mission points. Simple to understand - hard to execute and fits with the storyline, those are the ingredients of an excellent scenario mission.

I had the honor of leading part of the first mission of the day for the SAS. We had to learn the location of a hostage, find a stretcher, then put two and two together and get the hostage back to our base. I located the stretcher on the airball field and led a charge to retrieve it. Not only did my crew have to deal with defenders on the airball field, but we also took shots from the second story of the enemy base, making finding good cover a difficult task. I pushed up the tapeline, got the stretcher, and passed it back to my man David who ran through fire, snatched it up, and delivered it to our base.

At the end of the first half, SAS and terrorist side had tied in points, but the second half didn’t go so well. While I ran wild during the opening set of missions, I might have well have brought a folding chair out to the deadbox for the second set of missions and just parked my butt in the insertion zone. That’s how much time I spent there. Good job terrorists - you shut me and the rest of the SAS down pretty darn effectively.

The final mission of the day, worth double points, forced the terrorists to kick over a hornets’ nest, figuratively speaking. To score the points they had to take the Spankr (double barreled rocket launcher) and hit the side of the new missile silo building. Then their leader could enter with his briefcase containing the launch codes and set off the two smoking nuclear missiles. To score points for the SAS, all our team had to do was keep the terrorists out. The mission started with a bad omen - our .50 cal mounted machine gun went down about .4 seconds into the half hour time period. Fortunately for the SAS, the terrorists had a similar problem with their rocket launcher. Turns out that dropping it isn’t so good for its reliable operation. The terrorists got one of the mortars instead, but even with the defenders firing the last balls in their hoppers at the end of the time period, the terrorists never made the final push to get inside the bunker.

The SAS scored 300 points in the end and saved the world, but the terrorist team still came out as the victors with a score of 1100 to 1000. Hats off to the Owens who scripted and ran the event and all the good folks at Line-of-Fire who do what they do to make that one of the best places to play paintball.