Recap of CPPS 2017 Round 1

The weekend before last saw the unofficial “official start to the season” again with the first round of tournament paintball at the UK’s biggest and best team training and tournament venue, the CPPS site at Penkridge. CPPS (Central Premier Paintball Series) has been running now for a fair few years and each year it gets bigger and better. Over the course of one weekend, over 120 teams battle it out in their respective divisions to become the series champion. With 5 rounds making up the 2017 season, round one is always an exciting round as many of the teams are meeting head-to-head for the first time. Here are where the rivalries for the season will be formed and continue throughout the rounds that take place most months from March to September.

The CPPS is split into 8 divisions with the lower divisions (Break In, Break Out, Div 5) playing on the Saturday and the higher divisions (Divs 1 to 4 and ELITE) playing on the Sunday. There’s a sup’air (inflatable) field for each division with the Elite teams playing on the segregated astro turf which has a raised bank for viewing and really makes for a great day of entertainment as the Elite games are always fast-paced and exciting to watch.

Just Paintball always attend the CPPS events with a small trade stand and a wagon load of paintballs to supply the many teams that we support in the different divisions. We have a good selection of teams playing at each level and we supply them with discounted playing equipment and the essential item, Valken paintballs. There are a few different grades of Valken paintballs specifically designed to be accurate and fragile for tournament paintball. We keep the paintballs at the right temperature in a temperature-controlled truck and supply teams as and when they need a top up. Unlike at a regular paintball site, players can expect to easily go through 2000 to 4000 paintballs each as they’re all firing semi-automatic electronic paintball markers with a firing rate of up to 30bps (although they’re not allowed to fire that fast at the tournament).

Last weekend’s event was the biggest we’ve ever seen at CPPS with more teams playing than ever before. There were full rostas in all of the higher level divisions and more teams than ever in the entry-level divisions (Break In and Break Out) which is great to see. It’s really important having these entry-level divisions as the rate of fire is capped and new players to the sport are able to experience this style of paintball without receiving a cool 30 balls to the back of the head before they’ve even lifted their paintball marker.

The weather was not great. When the rain stopped, the wind picked up and it made playing conditions very difficult. Regardless of how fast the paintball markers are firing, the balls are still being swayed by the wind so remaining accurate in such conditions is quite hard and it did have an impact on the games. All of the teams are in the same boat, however, and everyone had to battle the elements over the weekend.

We had some fantastic results in all divisions however with some podium prizes for many of our own sponsored teams.

Marvel took 3rd place in Division 2
Harrogate Wraiths took 3rd in Division 3

We had a clean sweep in the Break Out division with our teams taking all three spots on the podium:
1st - Morning Wood

2nd - Army of Fools

3rd - A1 Evolution

And we took a 3rd place in Break In division for our Northern Blackouts’ second team.

All in all it was a tremendous weekend and a really great start to the season. The next round is the final weekend in April where we have even more teams playing!