The X point was the head gate of the Hamerský brook barrage. It was situated in a narrow, wooded valley, abundant with large boulders and fallen tree trunks; the valley floor was quite rugged indeed. The creek bulkhead the defenders were supposed to hold was the only crossing over the rivulet far and wide, ever since the Ratmírovský lake dyke master opened the floodgates and turned the brook into a racing river.

Coordinates: N 49°9'1.458", E 15°6'48.173"

Map of the gaming area can be displayed here.

Game rules for this year annual are available only in Czech here.

47 players from five Zálesák groups and four external paintball teams participated on the game.

Victory side of the 37th annual is defence unit.

Full photogallery can be downloaded zde [12 MB].

referees: Karel (Zaječice), Bohouš (Zaječice) a Jenda (Brno 326/Čáslav)

Photos and players feedback:

When we saw what are we supposed to defend, we considered renaming the game to Death valley. We were about to defend a barrage on Hamerský brook. There were hills on both sides. This was the only place when one can cross the brook far and wide. The weather started to get worse; cold and persistent rain through the day and night. Predominance of offence troops felt overwhelming.

Nevertheless our defence was stiff and well organised. We had several forward defensive positions which were regularly checked by sentries serving to gather the intel from those positions as well as mobile backup force wherever needed.

By the evening the situation looked favourably to us. We had only minimal casualties ourselves, but caused considerable damage to the enemy who didn’t even manage to get anywhere near to our flag.

By 20.00 the visibility in the wood was negligible in the rain, so we assigned night guards and went to sleep. Around the midnight Chrudim centre took their watch part. There were two alerts, one friendly-fire incident and fairly successful night raid of small group of attackers with few casualties caused.

Our night watch was the last one effective. The watch that replaced us went to fighting vehicles to have more comfort and sleep! By the early dawn they were all dead in their destroyed vehicles. We were told there were more groups of attackers moving around our base in the night, but they could’t find our exact position and flag. We were quite lucky.

The morning was severe - we had many fallen in the fighting vehicles, not only the single watch as we thought. Fierce toll for comfort indeed. Later in the morning our situation improved and even in our small numbers we managed to push off several raids. The coordination and communication among the groups of attackers was poor and this gave us a second chance. They even started to shoot at each other in one occasion! Just before high noon we decimated their last desperate assault, when they tried to sneak to our back through the brook basin. At 12.00 we were still holding the X point.