The Wild World of TB!

So I have gotten a few of these in the mail in the last few months and I have been remiss not to review them. I’ll be honest, after reading them all, I am not a better scenario player. But that is just me to be sure. I will say this about them, they are a step in the right direction. However the problem with all of them is that none of them approach that someone needs more then these books provide. The deals that all of them sell is that you can pick up book X and become a scenario master and well that just isn’t the case. However this time out I will review two books by Don ‘Badger’ Grubish and next time out I will look at a few of the others.

I talked with Don a few months ago after he attended a game at Tactical Paintball here in Texas and he actually submitted a few articles to Paintball 2 Xtremes. He had mentioned to me that he had written a few books about scenario paintball and I was intrigued to see them. So I asked him to send them to me to review and he did. However I dropped the ball on reviewing them and I am sure he feels I have forgotten about them. Don, I apologize for not getting this up sooner, but here it is nonetheless.

The first book is Scenario Paintball: Tips, Tools and Tactics from the Trenches and to be honest it is a pretty decent read for self help. What he has done is try to bridge the gap of military tactics (which don’t work in scenario paintball) and the multiple books, magazine articles and such that try to teach people paintball. I can honestly say that if you have never played scenario paintball, then this book will be a boon to you and your friends. There is a storyline that runs through the book that tries to get you to relate to the person the story is about and puts some of the things he talks about in layman’s terms with the characters in the story.

It covers the beginning of paintball, it’s evolution and things like how to choose a paintball marker, goggles and gear. It doesn’t go much into air systems and other items that might be needed at a scenario event, but it does do a good coverage of the basics of paintball. Next he goes into tactics and while he didn’t copy the US Army Infantry manual like so many others have done, there is still more ‘real world’ tactics then there needs to be. He also talks about some exercises and training tips to try and move yourself more into the thought process that a good scenario paintball player must be in when they take the field and he discusses some exotic weaponry. The rest of the book is filled with games that he touts as scenario paintball events but most people would think of as glorified rec ball games. Things like airborne, where you put people on a rope and drop them in a field one at a time or Predator, where one player is the predator the rest are hunted by or hunting the predator.

All of these items make for a great book for that type of mindset and the book is well worth the $13.00 that they go for. But I must say that there are some things I didn’t like about the book. First and foremost there is no mention of how scenario paintball came about. There is a history of scenario paintball, one that should be told and retold so that the people who play this game know how and why it came about. There is no mention of the pioneers of this genre of paintball, no mention of Wayne Dollack, Kerry ‘Viper’ Rosenberry, Diane ‘Mother’ Howe, Spiro ‘Blackcat’ Mamligas, Ben Toricelli and others. No mentions of the powerhouse teams of the 90’s like Blitzkrieg, Joint Fury, Air Assault, or of the new decade like Psycho Clown Posse, Delta Paintball, Thunderstruck, 1st MG or others.

I am sure that a lot of that comes from the lack of experience of the author in playing in real scenario paintball events and that brings me to the second part of my biggest issue with the book. You cannot pick up this book, read it and show up at one of the MAJOR producers games and succeed with just that knowledge alone. There is no talk of missions, or scoring or even roles. Now he does talk about roles such as commander and medic but not in the capacity of a scenario paintball game that most people would think of. They are more for the type of games that he has in his book. What this shows is that the field owners and smaller promoters who have taken the term scenario paintball and attempted to redefine it have really done a disservice to the genre and the pioneers who started it and still are involved in it. I don’t blame Don, I blame the fact that he hasn’t gotten out and played the major circuits to really understand what goes on there.

Also there was no talk of strategy only tactics, and that is not anywhere close to what scenario paintball is about. Tactics may get you there but strategy tells you why you are there, how long you have to be there and what happens if you fail or succeed while you are there. Maybe someone should patent Strategical Paintball and start teaching people that strategy is how you win, not tactics. But that is the subject of another column, that’s for sure.

As I said before I would recommend you getting this book since it does offer quite a bit of information but to name it what it was named just seems to off to me because as someone who has played a lot of scenario paintball, this book just wasn’t there.

Now Don has written a ‘sequel’ if you will to the first book, called Advanced Scenario Paintball and while it moves a little further towards what scenario paintball is, it is still woefully lacking in integration into an actual 24 hour scenario paintball event. He does cover tanks, some offensive and defensive actions, squad tactics and goes a little more into the terrain, terrain analysis and such, but there is still never any mention of how to use any of this in a true 24 hour scenario format.

There are nice pictures and there are some really neat looks at advanced tactics but in the end it is simply more of the first book. It does seem like he was told to cut the book in half and make two volumes. Again, it is well worth the $10.00 that it is going for on Amazon but you have to realize that when you get this book that you need to just use it as a starting point. There is still no mention of the major circuits mostly just the big games that he has attended or the events that the field owners have called scenario paintball. Case in point he attended Oklahoma D-Day, Skirmish D-Day and a Tactical Paintball 12 hour event and says that those events are scenario paintball. No sir, they are not. If you cam here from a google search for this book, you need to realize that there is a whole world of scenario paintball beyond those three events. In fact Tactical is nowhere near as close to a scenario event that even Skirmish or Oklahoma D-Day is.

In the end, I have been considering writing a real book on scenario paintball, but what would be the point? Too many people wouldn’t buy it just because it was written by me, and do I really want to try and help this lemmings any more then I do? The people that know, have the Book of TB and that is all that is important. Well at least to me, stay tuned and next time I will be talking to you about 2 scenario paintball books that are really a waste of money, that is unless you truly subscribe to the ‘Mil-Sim’ way of doing things and then this will be must have’s!!! Might even make the Special ops best seller tactical commander’s reading list! What there isn’t one of those? Damn, Jayson you haven’t patented that? I mean come on, paintball warrior’s reading list, you could rip off the Marines now that the Army has been taken by Tippmann.

Want to buy the above books? Here are the links:

Scenario Paintball: Tips, Tools and Tactics from the Trenches

Advanced Scenario Paintball

Want to know more about Don ‘Badger’ Grubish? Then click here.