During the last two months I had two invitations to the Combat Center Lenti (CCL), Hungary, which is an old army base close to the Hungarian/Slovenian/Austrian border. An Austrian gentleman is renting the place now from the local government and the place is available for organizers to hold their own event or players can go to one of the events organized by CCL.

Some of the buildings are still in good working order where they have offices, rooms and a dining facility. The main building (HQ) is equipped with showers, beds and a bar if you don't prefer hardcore MilSim, but if you do they have several areas where tents or camps can be set up. Even food can be ordered: sandwiches for breakfast and warm meals for dinner or lunch. The food there is very decent and tasty, worth every penny you spend on it (4 Eurobucks for a plate). Meal tickets can be bought at the beginning of each game, but this is optional and you can bring your own MREs but preparing those will take about the same time as walking back to the HQ and enjoy a proper meal.

The property is HUGE --- full of buildings, open fields and forests and even in the forest you can find different areas like trenches for artillery or more dense bushy areas where an ambush can be launched from. Even the open fields have something to offer: log piles, huge piles of woodchips and peat, pallets, rocks, tall grass, and empty containers. Some buildings are not in play because they are used by a recycling business but it isn't a bother since they aren't there during the games and there are plenty of other buildings to choose from. The bigger buildings were used to house soldiers in the past so these are set up like any other barracks: long corridor with rooms to the left and more rooms to the right. Pretty boring for CQB but on the other hand these barracks are often three or four stories tall and clearing a building this size might be easy but keeping it isn't. Your enemy can always crawl back through basement doors or windows surprising even the more experienced players. A friend and myself were able to hold back a ten man assault team for about an hour only because we knew the place better than they did and had a couple of Tornado grenades as well.

OPERATION URGEN FURY 15-16 AUGUST 2014

The first event I've visited was the Urgent Fury on 14-15th of August and it was a CCL organized game with Austrian and Slovenian support. It was an all out war with very few rules (except the safety and game rules of course) which I liked a lot since I don't visit games with 200 players every month and I needed some scalps. The scenario was East (RED ALLIANCE) against West (BLUEWATER FORCE) with strict dress codes. Bluewater teams had to wear any Western camo plus helmet while RAL teams could wear any mixed camo, full green or Russian camo but no helmets (only Russian ones). This way target identification was quicker, no need to find that armband before you slay a whole squad of your own guys:) Bluewater was the offensive team with a tent city as HQ about a mile deep into the forest. I got assigned to Bluewater mainly because I was wearing ACU pajamas and because I knew the Blue general (JELEN of CAD Slovenia).

My mission was to spy on the enemy with a cool Austrian guy on my side. The "Don't Engage" part of our orders we did not take too seriously and probed the enemy defenses where we could. This mission was awesome to warm up and by noon I got assigned to the general's security detail. Jelen wanted some action himself plus some of the radio messages did not reach the advancing team leaders. Before lunch we managed to conquer more than we've planned. German, Austrian and Hungarian guys fought well on the other side but we quickly overwhelmed them or it looked like so.

Both teams had two "tanks" at their disposal with mounted MGs on top. These vehicles can only be killed with a paintball grenade, but sniping the gunners out of the turret proved to be fun as well. We almost conquered the entire base when Red Alliance launched a huge counter-offensive and one of these tanks killed our general (not under my watch of course). Bad guys have to win sometimes I guess.

Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the night game but I am sure it was awesome with 100 players on each side. I cannot say anything bad about the event except some fairplay issues but that's not the fault of the organizers and there are zombies are among us wherever we go. The whole event went down smooth, they even provided troop carrier trucks which went from the HQ to tent city at every hour and this saved us a lot of time during the day. People showed up here even from Germany and they weren't disappointed. My only suggestion for the organizers: get a PMR repeater and install it somewhere around the middle of the base. PMR radios are too weak for this big and complex terrain.

AUTUMN HARVEST 4

The second game at Lenti happened on the 11th to the 14th of September and it was called Autumn Harvest 4. Organized by CAD of Slovenia, this game was a LARP game rather than an all out war with a Mexican theme. There were four cartels facing each other and against the forces of Mexican Police/Army. The game was set in a town called "San Miguel" and like any other town in that country this one had civilians, police officers, druglords and DEA agents.

This game was all about money, each cartel started the game without their primary gun which were held at the armory with a nametag of their respective "user". In order to get your gun back you had to make money. Money could be earned by mining gold/silver, running dope, kidnapping city officials, robbing the bank or other players. This sounds simple but the game had so many hidden objectives that some players were often lost, this only lasted while we found out that there will be a dancer on the stage in San Miguel and admittance is only 500 Pesodollars. From that moment we all just wanted to make that 500. :)

By the time we managed to mine some gold, the bank clerk got kidnapped so we lined up a coke deal instead. When that deal went south, then we made a deal with a druglord to provide protection in return for our guns. By the end of the day we started to enjoy this role play thing but other cartels did way better jobs than us. Our cartel managed to kidnap/kill the head of the "Policia" twice and I think that says we had fun as well.

Inside San Miguel, the Police and the Army controlled the game by stopping and searching players, confiscating illegal stuff and murdering "innocent" cartel members in the woods. If they were in good mood they might gave you chocolate bar for your hungry kids or a ticket to the San Juan show. By afternoon most of the cartel guys felt the same way I did: I wanted to kill some "Federales". We got what we wanted when we all stormed the police station, and it was an awesome fight.

The night game started after a short chow break, but before the tracer show we all attended the local bar to watch the show and put our name in the hat before the raffle started. I did not win the rifle nor the handgun but I was happy because I was able to sell the last two remaining bags of coke I had (under the nose of a DEA agent). The light and tracer show started right after the dance show. This I enjoyed better because here I had my prize several times when I heard loud "HIT" yells after my shots. Not too many people had night vision and that's good. The only problem with night vision in an airsoft game is either everyone has one or no one. After two hours of fighting I've realized that I did not cover my reflective cat-eye, well that explains the number of head shots I suffered. :)

In the morning, the cartels launched an offensive against the combined forces of the police and army. Despite the rain this was a whole lot of fun as well.

This game was complex but no matter how hard I tried to complain, I still enjoyed it. The civilians did a great job just like the army, police and other staff members. Everything was well organized. Game money bought you coffee or tortillas in San Juan for example. Thanks to everyone at CAD, they are very nice team. Thanks to Team Lakota for not putting me in jail during the many times I deserved it.

Here are the results based on money deposited in the bank:

1. LOS ZETAS: 463,500.00
2. DEL GOLFO :423,800.00
3. BELTRAN LEYVA: 387,100.00
4. TIJUANA -Arellano-Féli: 302,800.00
5. DE DINALOA: 218,100.00

A huge amount of money was spent on other stuff, like bribing the police, purchasing black market grenades, and buying information.

Please take a moment and read how all this was seen from a different perspective. This was written by the Major of San Miguel.

Greetings my friend,

I am sorry to have left so fast, but things were kind of urgent. 

As you know, situation in Mexico is quite complicated at the moment. Ever since I got elected as mayor after the police operations in 2010 things looked quite calm and peaceful. I imagined a very peaceful life for me and my fellow villagers.  

It seemed very true for a while, but unfortunately things turned around. We barely managed to setup the infrastructure and repair the damage from the anti-cartel operations when floods took away a big part of the village. The mud flows were so large that some of the houses were moved for about 10 meters. Thankfully, the foundations held and we were able to still use them.

Maybe you have watched the news: on 13th September the village was approached by several armed groups. As I learned later, they were cartel members, the remains of larger groups, upset by military operations in the western regions.

The city was luckily patrolled by Police and Military forces, so we thought, that everything will be OK. Cartel members also seemed to lack serious firepower. They obviously got roughed up by the government forces pretty bad.

They approached us cautiously and with some distance. I thought they were actually friendly at the beginning, they caused no problems. Some of them seemed really shy and they were apparently struggling with cash.

They were asking for some small jobs and tasks, so we gladly helped them. But it wasn't long before things turned ugly. They became more and more pushy, trying to get as much from us, as possible. But as you know, our village can barely support our people, let alone tens of newcomers. They also figured this out pretty soon and started to get really pushy. I heard complaints from the people at the Jose's Tortiteria & Caffe that things were getting heated up, when different members were there at the same time.

Due to the presence of such a big number of criminals, we felt more unsafe with every passing hour. It wasn't long before I was a target of an assassination attempt by Sinaloa cartel. Thankfully, they hit my steel money clip. so the shot just grazed my right butt cheek. After that, one of our guards was arrested for the crime, but police found out that the witness was lying. So another cartel man was taken away, along with our guard, who returned afterward without one finger which was cut off in a freak accident during torture. We called that guard Pinky after that.

As soon as I thought the situation was getting normal with the arrival of stronger police patrol, the expected happened. I was approached by one of the DEA operatives and asked to step aside. He wanted to know, what is happening. I said that situation was getting dangerous and that we felt unsafe and threatened. This was not what he wanted so he kept drilling into me. I could only say, what I knew was happening in the village, but he threatened me and said that I have to work for him or we are all f**ked. He said that I have to arrange a hit on a high ranking member of the Beltran Levya cartel or there would be consequences. He promised me 6000$ for the hit.

I knew I had to do something, so I carefully approached some members from the Gulf cartel. They seemed from the start, very quiet and polite towards our village folk. I told them, that I need a favor and that I have $5000 available. They took the job and I gave them a rough description that the DEA agent gave me before that. Together with that, I told them, that there was a foreign reporter in the area, so they had to be careful.

I was shaking with fear as they came back and told me, behind the tent, that they were successful. A big weight was taken off my chest as I knew that this would probably get that DEA guy off my back. I was ready to stroll peacefully into the courtyard in front of the Tortiteria when their member pulled my sleeve and said, "Señor mayor, we need your help".

Dios mio, they kidnapped a reporter. Jesus, Christ! They met him on their way back and probably fearing that he saw them kill rival commander, took him with them.

They asked if I could just carry the message over to police that they want ransom. It seemed they were a bit lost about the ransom amount, so I told them they could probably ask for $25000.

They agreed and I had no choice than to take a walk to the police station. Going there, I started thinking about all the troubles that came after us. We thought we were on our way to sort out our lives, when all the troubles came after us. As I was walked, I decided that this was getting too far and that we have to think about ourselves too. The price for release went up, to $30000. I also have to take care of the village.

As I reached the police, they were under attack from the cartels. It seemed that they were under quite some pressure. Good opportunity to get what we wanted without too many questions.

As I found the DEA operative, I gave him the message about the successful assassination and the kidnapping. He paid me for the assassination and also agreed to pay full price for kidnapped reporter. As I was leaving the Police station with a bag full of drugs and police money I felt that this was going to work. I met my new friends from Gulf cartel on the way and paid them for assassination. My commission paid for some pancakes and coffee in the Tortiteria for members of other cartels. It is interesting how food and drinks open doors, even better than a shotgun.

It wasn't too long when my neighbor in the village met some men who wanted to sell some drugs. At first he was hesitant, but then he made a purchase. We had a little chat about it. It happens, drugs are everywhere, but why should we be poor, while everyone, including the police were stuffing their pockets? Since we knew where things stood and we had the advantage of being local, we setup a plan. We would try to get as much drugs as possible, to sell them on and make a good living for all of us.

We needed of course, the support of other people. We had some local armed guards, that were trying to secure the most vulnerable locations in the village. We had them guard the laboratory that was used to process drugs. We convinced the DEA operative to join in on our little business, as well as a black market dealer.

With our new connections and money, we could place hits on cartels that do have our favor, as well as purchased stock of unprocessed drugs and paid the cartels to have it processed and brought back to us. Soon, our storage was starting to look like a drug lair. Thankfully, police avoided us. No wonder...

As night came, plans were made to cause a large war between cartels, but curfew and fighting forced us to wait a bit. We also had some lucky encounters, where cartels could rob us blind while we carried bought drugs and cash to our hideout. Close encounters were too close to talk about, so I will skip this part, my friend.

Last Sunday was one of the scariest days in my life. During the evening fighting, most of t he Police were destroyed, so we woke up into a morning with a sense of danger.

Despite everything, we opened our shops at 5 AM, to use the day as much as possible. Some of our guards were awake and ever ready. We were expecting that the army will crack down on the village, so we had to make as much profit as possible, as soon as possible. There were threats from the army commander that we will get deported until the village was cleared, so I made everything possible to ensure that army wasn't attacked.

Cartel members were still groggy from the night ops, so everything was calm until almost 7:30. After that, all hell broke loose.

With the police gone, the cartel robbed with impunity. I spent a great deal of money to make sure no clan felt the need to find out what we were up to. But unfortunately, some of our money reserves were discovered, so we had to move the money to the bank. It appeared that information was leaked to some of the clans, which forced me to pay off two clans to guard me and the village, while a third clan transported the safe containing some of our money to the bank.

Getting safe to the bank was another great achievement, made possible by combined effort of our guards and members of three cooperating clans. When we left the village it was getting so hot, that people started dropping the moment we left the village. Close call indeed my friend.

The end result was we got the money to the bank, but kept only 25% of the $300000$. We shared everything else with the clans that protected the transfer. But that was enough, our coffers were full of cocaine and materials to even make more. When we put together everything, we were the ones to carry home the profits with minimal troubles.

It was hard to get it all out of the village, but we used a truck with empty beer barrels. No one bothered to look so we got it out safely.

I am sorry to be so secretive, but I think our communications are monitored. Rest assured, we are all fine and enjoying ourselves, far away from Mexico and troubles.

Say hi to all the others and see you later my friend,

Alejandro Ortiz
Former mayor of San Miguel