10-Man Mech Hyperball Draft Tourney at Central Alabama Paintball Park, Oct. 23rd

[MrBarraclough]

After the success of the 7-man event in July, CAPP has announced a 10-man version for October. The July event was an absolute blast despite being very, very hot. The 10-man event will be Sunday, October 23rd.

They've more than doubled the registration fee from the last event, to $250.00*, though that does come with a move to an all-paint-included scheme. Not really sure how that will work, exactly. For the last event they had a specially-ordered pallet of Empire Evil that shot really well, along with some Empire Premium and HK level 3 available. Registration opened on Friday, August 19th. The last event sold out within a few days. Here's the field's site: Central Alabama Paintball Park

CAPP is located in Calera, Alabama, a short distance south of Birmingham. The field is on US 31, which runs parallel to I-65, and sits roughly a mile or so east of the Shelby County Airport.

This event is capped at 60 players, 5 teams with 12 person rosters. Games will be 9 minutes long. Number of games in the prelim round haven't been announced yet. Like the previous event, this is a draft tournament in which players register individually and are assigned to teams. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE ON A TEAM ALREADY TO PLAY. I presume the selection will be like it was before, where the designated team captains draft a certain number of players and then the undrafted ones are randomly sorted onto teams. That appeared to result in a fairly balanced mix of skill level on each team. Or they might just randomly sort everyone this time, I don't know. This is a pretty casual, local event not affiliated with any league or tournament series. No APPA/PBLI numbers are required to register. It's a great opportunity to come play some classic 10-man hyperball without the hassle of finding a team, committing to practices, etc.

I originally posted this in the Southeast games forum last week, before remembering that we actually have a dedicated tournament forum.

*When I registered online, with taxes and fees the total came to $275.00.

[MrBarraclough]

Some photos from the July event. These were taken by the Paintball Widow (wife of Mike Bianca, who coaches the New Orleans Hurricanes). I took several photos myself, but MCB says they exceed the maximum image size and won't let me upload them.

[MrBarraclough]

I'm the doofus playing speedball in surplus issue camo pants, looking every bit like a woodsballer who got lost and wandered in. My buddy Liam did me one better by playing in Carhartt bib overalls and a Grateful Dead tshirt, and using his mid-90s classic Automag. His team took 1st.

[Criticalhammer]

I chuckled from the guy wearing the overalls. I absolutely see myself doing that in the near future.

[Tippster]

Hmmm, pump players welcome? 😁

[MrBarraclough]

No rule against it. Certainly qualifies as mech.

[zinger565]

Sounds like an amazing tourney concept, wish I wasn't a 16hr drove away! Hopefully it goes well for you folks, I'd love to run something similar up here.

[Sottyman]

How's the field these days? I remember when they opened, and went there a few times before i moved (back) to Colorado. Nice spot, albeit on the small side. Paintball Quest (now P.I.G.) out in McCalla, AAA (closed over a decade ago) out in Chelsea, and Fort Red Rocks in Bessemer (also been closed for a while) seemed to put on events fairly regularly. Not sure how CAPP is doing, but I hope it's doing well since they're assumingly one of the only guys in the area.

[MrBarraclough]

CAPP appears to be doing a steady business in first time experiences for renters. They're really into the .50 cal low impact stuff. They also offer gellyball and Nerf for little kids. They do .68 cal open play for self-equipped players something like one weekend a month, but have talked about expanding that to two weekends or possibly every Sunday, depending on demand. My only first hand experience with them has been the July mech tournament, which I think may have been their first competitive event. It's not my home field as I'm down by Mobile.

Facilities-wise, it's nice but not huge. Indoor, air conditioned shop and bathrooms. Air stations at each field. Something like 5 or 6 fields, most of which are about the size of an airball field or slightly smaller. A couple of the fields are small enough that they're probably for low impact play only. The one large field is the hyperball field where they are having the tournament. It's about 145' wide and 200' long. Tall netting all the way around, and there are bleachers in the spectator area under a set of huge sun shade sails. Currently, they have no woodsball but there is significant wooded acreage adjacent to the property, and I have heard talk that they may be negotiating a lease or purchase of some of that land to add some woodsball options.

[Sottyman]

Ah gotcha, so for more "regular" players I guess PIG is the game in town...

[MrBarraclough]

That is the impression I get. One of the owners of CAPP plays on an ICPL team that practices at PIG.

[Lotus]

this seems like a ton of fun and I don't have a team to play. Might be the only kind of tournament ball I can do. What's the average skill level, and what happens if I sign up and just play like garbage?

Edit: I notice you have to pick a "start time" in 30 minute increments. Does this mean anything? I thought it'd be you sign up for the day, not a singular game.

[MrBarraclough]

The start time is just an artefact of their scheduling software. It's the same system they use for scheduling private rental groups at the field. You can pick something arbitrary like 9:00am and create your own "group." Or you might be able to just add yourself to an existing reservation, at least one of which is named 10 man or something like that. I was the first person to sign up, so I just added my name and picked a morning time. Doesn't really matter, the system knows you're signing up for the tournament.

At the 7 man event, the skill level was all over the place. The team I got sorted onto had everyone from a local teenager who had only played .50 cal before (he's a regular at that field) to Cody Szmik who played on Dynasty way back in the day. Then you had me, a 40 year old rec woodsballer who had never played competitively a day in his life. If you sign up and play like garbage, you still play a full day of paintball and no one really cares how you did anyway. Trust me I know that from experience. There's no prizes on the line or league standings or anything.

[Lotus]

Well, I've gone ahead and signed up. They said that it's now a 5-man event instead of a 10-man though.

[MrBarraclough]

Yep. Sorry, just realized that I failed to update my post when they announced the format change. I must've updated Reddit but not MCB. They just published the player list. With those names plus the previously announced captains, it looks like we'll probably be running 5 teams with 6-man rosters.

If you're on FB, join The Alabama Paintball Club or the Alabama Regional Paintball groups (or both). A lot of event-specific info gets posted there.

[MrBarraclough]

Team rosters were published this morning.

[Lotus]

Same. Looks like I'll see you there

[MrBarraclough]

Are you in the group chat, or one of the two guys we couldn't locate on Facebook?

[Lotus]

No, I'm not connected in the group chat on facebook and no one has reached out to me. I tend to make minimal connections on social media, and I don't live in Alabama so I am not a part of any of those facebook groups.

[zinger565]

How did it go? Everyone show up?

[MrBarraclough]

Great. Weather was perfect. The original captain for the team Lotus and I were assigned to was unable to come due to a back injury, so another member of the Tribe Savages, Addison Cornelius, stepped in as captain. We finished 3rd out of 4, but at least fought our way back from a point deficit after the initial round. With only 4 teams, we played a double round robin preliminary round and then a single round robin "semi-final" round with all 4 teams. The semis were seeded by the standings after the prelims, with the better ranked team picking which end of the field to start from. The finals were a two game match between the top 2. They ended up with a tied score, so it went to a best-of-3 series of 1v1s, which Bruce Devnew's team won with 2 straight victories. All prelims and semis games were 6 minute 5-man center flag. For the finals, the teams agreed to play 7-man so their whole rosters could play. We also paired off the teams and played two exhibition 10-man games with the captains allowed to coach from the sidelines.

Everybody had a blast. There were no prizes or league points or anything on the line, so it was very casual. No one took it too seriously and everyone seemed to be there just for the joy of playing paintball.

The all-paint-included system actually worked pretty well. The field owner and several of the participants (including at least half the team captains) play on the Tribe Savages ICPL team, who loaned the use of their team pods. A few volunteers kept the pods filled and you'd just go load up your pack before your next game. We shot a ton of Empire Evil that was super brittle with a very thick bright pink fill.