Events

Documenting what events I have played in with links to information and pictures. I try to wear something that stands out so I can find myself in the pictures later - look for the Urban Camo in most of the shots and you will find me.

The 2012 EVENTS- 8 days

April 14, Black River Rec day.  Just went to the local field to try out the new DM9 I purchased.  I ended up filming most of the games with my camera while I played.  About halfway thru the day the DM9 died due to battery.  I just switched over to the Ego.

March 18, Black River Rec day

March 10 Black River Rec Day

February 26, Black River Rec day Bachelor party for Mars.  A good day of pump play.  I ended up forgetting a bunch of my gear/guns as I grabbed the wrong bag leaving the house.  Mars and I shot our CCM guns and had a blast.  The new fort structures on the field changed up play a bit.  My green chipley S6b performed perfectly.

February 4, Black River Rec Day - playing with Mr. Ken and his group.  I tried out my new G3 - which failed on me.  I tried out my new Ion and I really didn't like the feel of it.  I switched over to the older blue Chipley pump and the spring was really worn out.  I was struggling to get over 200 FPS.  Ego - I twisted off the HPR and ripped the o-ring.  I ended up having to play with the BobLong Marq, which is still set on full auto.  Not a good day for guns.

January 24 Black River Paintball - The Glorious Cause, First big game of the season. British forces lost the game yesterday. Score 800 to 500 in favor of the Americans. Team turn out is getting humorous. Rats were there with 2 players, Black Knights had one player, Wolverines had one player for the British and the largest group, winning MVT was Forlorn Hope with 8?. Americans had about 10 turn out for Tango2 Alpha and 10 turn out for Carolina Cardinals.
I would guess overall turn out was about 200 players or more. It was hard to gauge, but I had to park pretty far away this time.

The 2011 EVENTS- 18 days of play

Events Played:

December 10, Black River Big game.  Jeff flew in and joined up.  We had to switch to the other team halfway thru the day to make sides more even.  I tried using my autocockers, but neither one worked correctly.  I snapped the battery connector off my drone board - must resolder that at some point.

November 30 Black River?

November 23 Black River?

November Fulda Gap The only large team turn out of 2011.  We had a really good showing at the event.  Times were fun.

September Black River Republic of Pirates I joined Blackbeard's team

July 9 Black River Rec Day.

June 18 Black River Rec Day.

June 11 Black river rec Day.

May 14 Black River rec Day

April 15-17 Splatbrothers 24, Supporting Otto and german side. We actually had a large group attending this game. Weather was great up to Saturday night, when the clouds dumped inches of rain within a 3 hour period. Night play was cancelled, then back into great weather for the final day of play. I purchased a very nice Axe at the field that I used all weekend.

March 19/20 Paintball Charleston, Charleston SC. Me, Ares, Maximus and Severe headed to this 24 hour game. Weather was perfect. Camping was great. MPP depended too much on the PBJunkie site for getting their info out. Now that it is gone, it seems it may be affecting his business. Attendance was lower than the last time I was there, but still a great field to play. I alternated between the DM7 and the SP1 with the Havok mounted on it. With unlimited rockets, the Havok really cleaned house on several sections of the field. I would shoot everything I had to clear a path, then advance and collect the used rockets for re-use. The final hours I got to try out Ares' G3 - it is a fun gun, but I could not get used tot he on/off buttons on the gun.

Feb 26 Call of Duty - at PB Central Park. Another fun event run by Omen. The refs were good and the players were decent. I started the day with the Ego, which was again crushing paint. From there over to pump, and then to Cyborg for the final hour to use up paint. The field at PBC has been expanded and the low side base moved back a good distance. The only problem was that this still left the main battle lines in the exact same postion - at the tower and large fallen logs in the middle of the field, by the chornograph area. Not sure why this happened, but it made the game play just like all the other events at that field. The only bad thing of the game was the lack of consistant chronographing during the day. Ares and I commented that the speed of the guns was generally increasing during the day. At final battle I saw a few players reaching out a good 30-40 feet more than I was able to shoot. End of day - Rats win the most feared opponent role.

Feb 12th Boss Paintball Battle of Bastogne. I was in no rush that morning, so I showed up late, about 10 minutes after game start. I am not sure if it was my late start or how things were being run, but I walked right up to registration, paint, air and Chrono with no one in front of me. I got all my stuff squared away and was ready to shoot paint about 20 minutes after arriving. Probably one of my most impressive starts ever. I can barely do this in Rec play. Attendance was rather high at this event. I had to park at the entranceway to the field, as the entire speedball field, house parking and everything around there was packed with cars. Since I missed the morning start it was hard for me to gauge attendance numbers, but I would guess about 200+. Air fills were a solid 4k all day. With 3 fill stations it occasionally had some lines, but no more than 5-6 people in front of you. The referee's we in abundance. I think it was a little excessive. They must have had about one ref on the field for every 5 players. I never saw them gather in clusters, but they were always in the middle of the fights. I had to hold a few shots back for fear of hitting some ref running across the field. I mean this is awesome that they devoted this much effort to policing the players, but I just wish other fields could create this kind of support and field this many staff members for a big game. Anyway, the field was fun to play at. There were a few too many targets for me, so I shot a whole case by about 3pm and decided to head home at that point and skip the awards. Start late and end early, and I still had a great time. I hadn't played with the DM7 this year, so I went back to it for this game. I guess that is why I shot the whole case in just a part of the day. I ran into a new problem with this gun. After a few shots, it would just turn off. After some examination, I found that the board in the grip was not sitting properly to line up with the on/off button. A quick adjustment to the screw that holds the board in place and never encountered that problem again.

Jan 29 Xtreme Kombat field - Rec day: . So after working it last weekend, I was invited to come back and play with some of the Rogue Cell players. I had a good time. Now that I have played it, I can make some commentary on the field itself. The red clay covers the whole field, but is really bad in the parking lot area. Things were slick most of the day. Also the parking lot area is very small. Every on a small open day, people were forced to park out on the main road and hike in. Dio the owner was very nice, but overwhlemed with keeping up with everything. He really needs to hire a few more staff workers. Most of the day there were no refs in the games. Players just organized themselves and marched off to play an area. Most of the players there were first timers or limited experience players. Only about 10 % of the players had their own guns. Also, airsoft was going on while paintball was being played. I had large amounts of safety concerns. Overall, the field is nice, the people are freindly and I will most likely be going back there for something different from BR often

Jan 22 Xtreme Kombat field - Werewolf's Red Dawn game: . Although I did not get to play, I at least made it out for a day to help Werewolf run his first ever game. I worked the chrono range for the morning and then spent the afternoon following the American General around the field giving out the mission cards and calling in points. It was cold, but a fun day. As usual I think I got more exercise reffing than playing. The field has lots of room for improvement on the next game.

The 2010 EVENTS- 16days of play

Dec 11 BR Big Game: . The weather was cold with rain through most of the day. Paint was unable to cope with the weather conditions and it was real hard to get paint to shoot correctly. The new game producer stepped in to try his hand at the BR field and had some new and creative ideas. Once again, I was the only player from my team to show up. I played along side the Wolverines, which fielded three players. We faced off against the Black Knights who had an amazing showing of 12 players. They dominated the field for most of the day and easily won the game.

Nov 5-6 Fulda Gap at Command Decisions. I was still afraid of the cold, so I drove out Sat morning and stayed in a hotel for the night. It sure made the trip easier. The rules class was painfully long at 30 minutes and only allowed about 30 players at a time to watch. I started in lines at 7:30 Saturday morning and went from registration (I was pre-registered) to rules class, to paint line to air line to chromo line in about 3 hours. It was painful. The field was great, I had a good time. There were two types of paint. Cheap paint was crap and the good paint was, well good. Air fills were again an issue. I think attendance was about 1000 players and the field can hold it. I am not sure the owners can support those numbers. I shot the Ego-8 on day one and played green pump day 2 and then switched over to dm7 to dump paint in the afternoon.

Oct 15-16 Splat brothers Fall 24hr game. A cold reunion with many familiar players. I had just picked up my Ego-08 and used that for most of the weekend. It shot fine for the weekend. Nice and lightweight and good on air. It makes a good big game gun. Each night was pretty cold. Sat night I went to bed early hoping to get into a deep sleep before the chill came. I had some good firefights - mostly with other Ronn Stern Campers who I knew. This was probably the smallest attendance I have seen for a splatbrothers event. They only had about 100-150 players at the event. Lines were thin. The new online paintball magazine Paintballx3.com got a good picture of me with the new green ego.

Sept 11 Private Army event at Command Decisions. This was one of the best events put together in a long time. Greenman from team ODX? held a private invitation only event. Teams ranged from 3-8 players per side. I think almost everyone had 5 players. There were 10 teams on the field and each one had their own special missions to complete. The game had three phases, each 1 hour long for each team to complete it's mission. Each mission would allow one other team to work with your team in a similar mission, while two teams were in direct opposition to your goals. Also Boss Company had about 10 players who would roam the field and attack anyone. The game was interesting in that we spent more time wandering around trying to decide if we needed to fight. After the first mission we realized it was best of focus on the goal of completing the mission - do that as quick as possible and then go out and fight. WE successfully completed 2 out of 3 missions and felt good about our playing ability. We definitely make a good woods ball team. For our five we had me, Severe, Focus, Hotshot and Viper.

August 21 BT Big game at Black River. Another game just like the rest. Teams were about 40+ per side giving lots of room to maneuver. No major teams present. I showed up to play and Otto came along. I shot the dm7 all day, while Otto used the blue chipley pump. I shot up my remaining paint from the last event and shot thru a whole case before final battle - which I skipped. I guess our team won. A few good pics turned up from this event. I spent a good portion of the day attacking the fort field pushing on their base.

July 24 Big game at Black River. Hot, hot hot. I left early. I could not take the heat. Maybe 60 players made it out to this event and went smoothly. My team started on the fort field end and we seemed to have the more experienced players. I played the whole day with the DM7 and failed to shoot thru a case. Strange days.

June 19 Open play at Black River. All four Hoffman Brothers, Focus family and Ken and I attend. In the end of the day events, Rats outnumbered regular players. I sure enjoyed playing against some of the BR Wolverines. They play fast and aggressive and very clean.

June 12 An-Naksah at Boss Paintball - hot, very hot. I was very pleased with some of the events that happened and disturbed by others. Overall the field attempted some new and interesting styles of play and pulled it off well. Reffing was ok, better that I would have expected. I got my first building hit with the Havok launcher.

May 22 Open play at Black River - Day of the pumps. We had three pumps and one electro playing in most of the games that day. It was interesting. I used Vicious's Mini for a game or two. I played with some older guns, but most of the day I used the Green ccmS6.

April 16-18 Splatbrothers 24, Operation Onslaught : My new tent is so awesome. I kept a work table in next to my cot. I skipped night play as usual. It got pretty cold, which caused the DM7, Dm9 and havok to break down. Next time I have to remember to keep the guns warm at night. Day 1 I used the DM9 and day two was the DM7. I got some good film footage with the camera.

April 3 Paintball Central Modern Warfare: Another great game at PBC. The field layout worked well for what they were attempting.

March 21 Open Play at Black River

March 7 Gotchas Big Game First time to a big game and did not win anything. Crazy times. It was the standard field and play. Had some good firefights, but nothing significant. Ran into George, ref from the old Tagg days.

The 2009 EVENTS- 25 days of play

December 5-6 Waynes World Grand Finale: The worst Wayne game I have been too. "Yeah, the field is cool and the players are great, but the customer service at the field has sunk to a new low. I vow to skip this game for a few years until it improves.

November 15 Open Play at Black River

November 6-8 Fulda Gap at Command Decisions: Need to write....

September 20 Gotcha Big Game: Ken and I again made it as the only Rats present for the North Raleigh Gotcha big game. Turn out was even lower than normal, I would say about 50 to 60 players total. Still the game was lots of fun. I got double tapped in the lens, which shattered on the Vholdr. I just wish I would have had the camera on at that moment. I was just too focused on playing. I saw an opportunity and had to take it with no time to wait on turning on the camera. I also used my new pedometer, which showed even on this small field I walked close to 4 miles. I am starting to assume that any event is equal to about 4 miles walking per day. Ken and I walked away with a large collection of hats and t-shirts.

September 19 Rec day at BR: Ares and I ditched the Wolf Creek and Splatbrothers games to turn our focus on just having some fun at the local field. We got in plenty of games from 11am to 3:30. I tried to break out the old mag, but ran into problems. Instead I pulled the Action marker Sentiel off the way to use for a few rounds. I also played some with the Etek and also the Blue Chipley Pump. I got some footage with the Vholdr camera, but learned my lesson that I should constantly clean the lens. During game one, I got a slight speck of paint on the lens, which blurred the image for the rest of the day. Highlights of the day include: playing speedball with a mechanical marker, watching the playback of the pump in action, hearing some wierd sound distortions from Ares scepter barrel kit.

September 5 Adventure Beach Army of Darkness Big Game: Day two of the Vholdr camera and got some better footage. I am still learning how to make the films enjoyable. I played half day with the Chipley-Eblade until the battery ran dry, then switched back to the old faithful dm7. Two cases shot in a full day of play.

August 22 Splatbrothers 3 Musketeers Big Game: I tried my best to run thru 2 cases in this one day game with the DM7, but was limited to 1.5. This was also the first event I was filming with the new Vholdr Camera. I mounted it to the side of my goggles and had limited success. Storms swept in and game was ended early. The final battle lasted only 14 minutes, but it was better to end early and be safe. The Wolverines set up near us in the parking lot and there were some interesting discussions going on. Our Mascot was hijacked at one point for their team photo.

July 15-19 Ronn Stern Paintball Camp and Skirmish Invasion of Normandy Event: 2 days of training, then 2 days of paintball. I made a point to stick to 1 case of paint per day. I could have shot much more. Day one was with the 'Borg, then it rained so I switched to the Etek, then over to the S6 to conserve paint. More poor little Etek got hammered. I used it as a shield most days.

June 27 Paintball Virginia BigOne. Bart planned for a two day big game format in the likes of Michigan BigOne and other mid-western favorites. What Bart got was a hot, hot day with average attendance. We had about 70 players at the peak of the day, but heat took its toll and the average field was about 20 vs 20. It was bring your own paint, so I shot at anything that moved. Of course I used my DM7. Three cases and I still have left overs. I need more of these events. Case count now stands at 17 shot this year.

The field layout changed a bit from the last time I played. The airball field and hyper-pipe field were in play and had two flag stations. This made it so upon insertion you could take the long way around the field and get to the big points, or go for small points and quick battles on the airball field. It really allowed for many different types of playing styles.

Bart adapted play as needed over the course of Saturday. If this was another field, I think I would have been upset by the numbers. Even with the small amount of players on the field at any given time, I was always able to find a fight. The field has some key areas and the Rats nest is damn hard to penetrate.

Bart had a two hour break in the middle of the day. I think this was a good idea for this event, but might not work well in the future. I used the time to rest and rehydrate and felt great after two hours in the shade. With only one hour I am not sure I would have gotten my gear together and had enough rest to go at the battle for another couple of hours. Once the heat dies down, I think this could be shifted back to one hour.

Bart had excellent food. Then he had to top it with bringing the Ice Cream truck out. This was an excellent addition.

I found several ticks that told me they wanted to be in NC, so they hitched a ride back with me. I think they would now preferred to stay in VA.

Bart ran this like a true mid-west big game. Points/scores were posted in a central area that all could see. Scores were based on holding certain positions at times. Easy to figure out and even easier to see where we stood. For example, we saw at one time that the opposing team got points for several of the flag stations on the back line. Focus and I then inserted and went right for them. See - you know where the battles should be even before you enter the field. Why can't anyone else run games like this?

June 20 Splatbrothers Paintball. Severe's bachelor party or something like that. We were in almost full attendance with almost 20 players from our group. We played, then camped for the night at the field, which made things much easier. I played with the newer Blue 'Borg, which had some air issues (in that the main reg was not properly set. 150PSI input is good for not breaking paint, but goes thru lots of air quickly.) I did spend a good chunk of the day using the Green Chipley pump. Two cases eliminated from my inventory of leftover splatbrothers paint. The missions were good and Rats walked away with the MVT for our side. I really think another team deserved it, but I don't get to make the call. After the day of play, camp got a bit crazy, as we had no paintball for the next day. Severe got in some good pictures. Overall a hot day, but lots of fun. The humidity made many paintball rounds go rubbery, so it got painfull towards the end of the day.

April 18 Paintball Central Game - Wild West. This was an interesting game. Goblin from Omen was a general of one side, so me and Focus headed out to help him. The game field can be narrow at times. I played the day with the Ego again and walked about 4 miles. My full write up on this game can be found here.

April 4-5 Paintball Charleston 24 hour game. This takes care of one of my new field adventures for the year, only 3 more to go. I had a few issues, as discussed in this link.

March 22 Gotcha Big Game. Wow - another fun game at Gotcha. It was wet, muddy and not very crowded. Weather was good. I figured the mud was going to get bad, so yet again I grabbed the Ego for some dirty conditions. It help up just fine, but late in the day I switched over to the Blue s-6. I recovered a large amount of the balls/tickets in the first half of the day, but did not do so good in the afternoon. I walked away with several prizes - mainly the 2nd place item of a Halo loader. I shot 1.5 cases and walked over 4 miles. Four miles is a big deal considering the size of the field. I died often and did the sprints back and forth to reinsert to make sure I got my share of prizes. Overall not many players,I would guess about 50 on 50 tops. The players were very good and honest. The Refs were really spread out and doing a great job. I think they had about 30 refs there, and made things very fun.

March 14 Splatbrothers Robin Hood Game. Weather was supposed to be really bad, but it held out with no rain until 2pm, then just a light rain for the rest of the day. We had about 6 Rats at the game. Splatbrothers had some really good changes to the rules and insertion methods. This really puts those guys ahead in my book. They are always thinking what can we do to improve, not just adopting other fields ideas, but creating new solutions to the problems and bottlenecks in the process. I used my CCM-5 Mech for the first part of the day then switched over to the Ego. I ended up shooting 1.75 cases and walking 3.75 miles. Player numbers were low, meaning, if you wanted to walk around the backside of the field and go straight for their base, you could do it. Overall, I felt our general/leadership was inexperienced and lacked the view of the big picture. They bogged down players at the main base for too long waiting for missions. They did not manage the final battle properly. They failed to follow-up on the destruction of the enemy CP by capturing supplies. I was just there to shoot people, so they did better than me managing the team.

February 21 Black River Rec- Day. We decided to join Otto for a day of Rec play at BR. Crowd was over 200, but no sign of Otto. Ken, Focus, Ares and some other tag alongs played. I set up the DM7 for play, but ended up trading guns many times during the day. I played a few games with Focus' SP1, then on to the Tippmann 98 from Doc, then over to Ares G3. By rotating guns, it became a very different experience for each game. I was surprised how capable the SP1 and G3 are compared to other sub-$500 guns. Both of these guns are well worth the money. The 98 is just plain fun to play with. I had a real hard time trying to get one shot at a time out of it. The RT trigger gets very excited at times. In the end I shot my one case of paint and went home early.

February 7 Adventure Beach. So far the best game I have played this year. Kevin the owner is a good business person. This event was the most expensive to get into, but Kevin charged a premium and gave a premium service. Fee included lunch both days, entry both weekend days. Also, the item that won the most respect from me was the water jugs at the rest areas on the field. Sometimes the little things mean the most. The field is flat, just long and narrow. It turns into a lot of walking. Instead of different grades of paint, they had one color for each team. This created some fun moments when I picked up unbroken paint that was shot at me and shot them back at enemy players. I know this field and thought I could easily shoot two cases, so I went conservative and shot the new green chipley pump. It worked great and I shot just shy of one case thru in the day play, then switched to the Silver Borg and shot a quarter case for night play. Night play was interesting, in that he had us limited to the town area and wearing glowing rings around our necks. Rats won the MVT on the winning team.

January 31st Black River BOBIII. Ehh- I shot some paint. I walked away from this event generally not thrilled, but not unhappy. It was just kind of bland. With over 400 players present it turned into the same static lines of fighting. Not too cold. I had two halo's fail, causing many crushed balls. I thought it was the Ego chopping balls, but then when I switch to the Cyborg it did the same thing. Once I got a new loader, no more broken paint. We had a larger than expected turn out of Rats and even Krisis made an almost full team appearance - giving Grendal MVP and the team MVT. I guess the only thing decent to say is I got a Maxx55 paintball marker for the wall and a new sweatshirt with the BR logo on it. I shot about a case and a quarter of paint. I later dicovered I made it into Fooleybear's documentary on how to play Front - as seen on YouTube. Another magic moment - wait for him to actually hit the front lines and you will see him discuss tactics with me (wearing Blue mask and Blue pants) then wander off to do his killing.

January 17th Splatbrothers Last of the Mohicans. Temperature never got above 30 the whole day. The paint had plenty of issues, but we all survived. Some minor changes have taken place to the SB field, but overall the same playing areas were dominant. 7 Rats played. I shot 1.25 cases with the Ego, which was bleeding paint from the eyes by the end of the day. The temp and paint were brutal on all the guns. I figured the Ego did an excellent job of shooting thru the cold paint.

January 3 Black River Rec ball day - It was about 6 of the RATS total at this regular day of play. Sunny and about 60 degrees, it brought out a record attendance of over 200 people. This is larger than many Big games they host. Lines were long, but tolerable. The games were good and turn around was quick. I shot only left over paint, but still got about two cases out. I used the Etek all day. It was acceptable, not too quick, but fast enough for Rec play.

The 2008 EVENTS- 24 days of play

December 5-7 Waynes World Grand Finale - A smaller group than prior years, both on our team attendance and total attendance. I would guess there were about 1200 players total, down from about 1500 the year before. The road trip was fun. We had 7 RATS, with Joe and Jeff, then about 9 more with the Klein family in the site next to us. We again played Southside, in year two of the Warhammer 40K themed game. South side was Imperial Marine and North base being Chaos again. The game was completely dominated by our side. We spent most of the weekend in an assault on their base. There was very little action elsewhere on the field. I think I shot only about a case and half the whole weekend. I played most of the weekend with the DM7, but switched to the new Green S6 for the final battle. Jeff used various Borgs, and Joe used the Etek most of the weekend.

October 18 Paintball Virginia Blood Right - more of a Purdue reunion than a big game. I met up with Paul Eiff and Pat O'donnel from my old days with the Purdue Paintball team. Since Bart, the owner is an EX-AKA tech, there was a huge amount of AKA guns at this event. The field is amazing. I really enjoyed the layout. Since the weather was bad, there was only about 30 people playing the game. I plan on going back to more of these games in '09. I shot just shy of two cases of paint with the DM7. I got a cool shirt from Paul - one of the Team Purdue X-ball uniforms. I look forward to hanging this on the wall of the museum.

October 11 Black River Rec day - all alone. I shot the DM7 some more and also switched over to playing with the blue S6 for part of the day.

October 4 Paintball Central Fuel of War - With just days before the event Otto took the general of one side and Severe took the general of the other side. We had a very large attendance of RATS at this game, so we thought it would be an easy victory. Within the first 30 minutes we were pinned in our base camp. We fought over and over again to get control of more than our 1/3 of the field. The change finally happened at noon and from then on we had them pinned in their base. We continued to collect points and finally overcame their lead from the morning. Again I shot the DM7 at this event.

September 27 Rec play at Black River

September 14th Gotcha Big game- Ken and I walked away with no significant prizes. He at least got a halo loader - which he sold. The field there has had some major improvements. The center of the woods field is dominated by a fort of significant size. It was a good time. Only about 60 people came to play, most with limited experience.

August 16 Black River Fayetteville - Valor Vs Venom a nice field but can barely handle the crowd in attendance. I got some new camo's, but ripped thru them before he day was over. I traveled to this game with Paintslinger99/Daniel - hopefully another Purdue paintballer.

July 19th Wolf Creek paintball Heat - Hot and Wet. It rained for a large chunk of the afternoon. Nothing like being 90+ degrees and raining. My ability to see more than a few feet was limited. The vegetation was very thick, so games were intense.

June 28 Black River Rec day after helping Severe relocate. I wanted more tigger time with the DM7. We (ken and Ares) got there about 2pm and just mowed thru paint. At one point Areas and I went head to head on the speedball field and shot about 1 case of paint between us in one game. I should mention he just acquired his new E-mag for this event. A bright green monster that is amazing.

June 22 Black River Rec day with Slammy and Focus - first day with the DM7

June 7 Paintball Central Omen production of FEAR - Damn hot!!

May 31 Black River Bebop game Dead Force Arise

April 19 Bebop productions Battle of Wilmington at Black River

April 4-5 Splatbrothers 24 hour game, day of the Immortals

March 29th Rec day at BR

March 1 Splatbrothers Big Game. Lines and boredom. I got there about 9:45 and walked on the field at 1:00 due to the registration lines. Paint was bad and the teams were very, very lopsided. When I found a target I shot everything I could, because it could be hours before I found another good opportunity. I shot the AM Diadem the whole day and still was able to rip thru a case in half a day, due to the final battle.

February 16/17 Camp Blanding Florida 24 hour game. Not as bad a drive as Waynes World, but still a haul to get to Florida. This was my first time playing this facility, and I had some doubts. I hate building combat, so I stayed in the woods around the site and had a blast. My urban camo worked amazingly. I think this is a site every player has to experience once. I am not sure about how many times I will head back, but once sure was fun. Oh, also our team got MVT while we were there. I used the AM Diadem and CCM Series 6 for the most part. I did pull out the Tac-Mag for night play.

February 9th Black River Battle of the Bulge part II. Yeah, I got to be XO under General Allen of the American forces. I faced off against the Germans lead by XO Otto. We won, more details here.

February 2 Rec day at Paintball Central. I played out there with Badger and Goblin from Team Omen. They have really improved the woods sites at PBC and the management was very interested in expanding this. I shot my case of paint using the Chipley5 Cocker and got my first use of the Diadem. Both shot great during the day.

January 5/6 Local Rec games at BR. Some of the first warm weather days of the year, and I had nothing to do but play paintball. I shot just about 1 case each day. On Saturday the paint did not work well in any gun, so I ended up using the Viking. On Sunday, the same paint shot great and I ended up swapping between Chipley S5-#5 and Cyborg. Game turn around was fast and I got plenty of good playing in. I really need to spend about one whole weekend just cleaning gear. I saw some photographers there on Sunday. I wonder if I can track down some pictures.

The 2007 EVENTS -20 days of play

December 1-2 Waynes World Grand Finale. Another great end of year event. We were able to really spread out this year, as only about 1200 players participated this year. It seemed to be just the right size to play on that field. They changed some of the layout and some of the rules, but overall it was the same good weather and fun as the prior years. I ended up playing the whole 2 days with my Chipley S6. Jeff used the Viking and Joe used the Tac-Mag.

November 10 Operation Last Word Vital Paintball. Vital is a nice field and a good change of scenery for me. There were only about 20 people in attendance and we split up Rats and Bebop players for the day to even things out and have some fun. The field should be perfect for about 50-80 players. At 20 players it was a lot of hiking looking for a fight. They have some hilly terrain, but a well built field. I look forward to playing there again. I did get to utilize Decker's A-5, which was very entertaining to shoot.

October 28 Boss Pro Shops Freddie vs Ghostbusters. Jet was generally one side and asked for volunteers. The field was ok, but the paint prices were great. We had some issues with the other teams integrity and insertion areas. I found some good pump players on the other team that made my day interesting. Otherwise I doubt I will return to this field for any other events.

October 20 BR Big Game. Angels vs Demons. It was time to dump some of the BR paint that had been gathering in my bag. Many of the Rats-Krisis-Bebop group were there and we played together against WereWolf and Rouge cell. Saint was our general and did very little during the day, as we controlled 90% of the field for hours on end. The horse play got out of hand at times. It appears we cannot take games at BR seriously anymore.

October 13-14 SplatBrothers 24 hour game. MXS event. I walked away from this event with the impression of same old SplatBrothers game. I think it was the largest group of players together at one time from all our various teams. We got our asses kicked both days, but had lots of fun. I enjoyed TP-ing the enemy base on Friday night. I also enjoyed seeing Booyah's massive explosion on Sunday morning as he continued to get clobbered with the rest of us and didn't enjoy it as much as us. The night play was pretty lame. It was the first use of Captain Searcheye, the 20 million candle power light.

October 6 12Monkeys game at Adventure Beach Paintball. I was the only player from the Rats group to attend. I enjoyed the field last spring and thought coming back would be a great idea. The field is now under new management and this was their first big game. With all the other games going on at the time, they had very low attendance. Maybe 40 or 50 players tops. The new guys running it did an amazing job of adapting the play to fit the attendance numbers. I walked away thinking this was some of the best play time I had all year. This game made it in the APG magazine with pictures of me and also direct mention of me in the text.

September 15 SplatBrothers Final RAW game. Committed to Mars and the American Side. It was fun, but nothing special.

August 19, 2007 BR open Rec day. Joined Webby and Bob at Black River. Bob has some amazing vintage guns that still work great. Webby used the Chipley-5 pump and I used the Chipley-6 pump. With only about 30 players out there that day, about 8 were playing with pumps, an amazing turn out. Nothing like playing 5 on 5 speedball with 2 pump players per team. I still shot about a case of paint, with a pump, in about 3 hours. Weather was amazingly hot, so I played in shorts/t-shirt.

June 30, Black River, Big Game We Were Soldiers (turned into We Were Roosters)run by Bebop with Saint from Krisis as our team leader. The new expanded field worked out great, but turned into much walking. I had blisters all over my feet. It was a good photo event for the latest Team Rooster shirts. We only sold a few, but we stood out. I played the whole day with the CCM-series 6 pump. Some other pictures here.

June 16, SplatBrothers - Battle for Okinawa Big Game. Otto of Krisis was the general for the American side. This was the premier of the new Team Rooster t-shirts with Myself, Otto, and Lurker playing with visiable shirts. I tried my hand at playing a role and took up the position of Engineer. I figured it would give me a job with little or no responsibility. It was fun. I fixed a few buildings, got some extra points for the team and pelted several times in the process. My first lesson was that Engineers get to be immortal when they are removing the tape on buildings. Overall the game was fun, but we lost badly. Our base was overrun several times. I switched throughout the day from CCM-6 to CCM-5-auto. I did try the cyborg for a few rounds, but the change in paint from tube to tube was making it very unhappy. I am starting to understand that it and my DM5 both work best on the premium paint. More Pictures of the event can be found here.

May 12, SplatBrothers game - Operation Starlight. 8 hour big game format. 5 Rats signed up with the American side and fought a battle on all sides while trying to survive the heat and humidity. I got 3/4 of a case through my new Chipley S-6 and it has proved to be super reliable. I traveled to VA with Mars and Vicious of Bebop, D-Prodigy of Krisis and Severe. The Wolverines made another tremendous showing achieving both MVT and MVP. The game got called short due to weather problems, but we still got in plenty of fighting to make it a worth while day.

May 6, Gotcha Big Game. About 50 players in attendance. About 400 raffle tickets were given out and at the end of the day, Ken and I had a combined 55. Ken walked away with the grand prize, an Evil Minion marker. My body is now cover with welts from 2 days of play with hard breaking paint.

May 5, Black River Big Game by Bebop - Fast Food Wars. Otto, once Bebop player now renegade back suited somewhat Krisis player was captain of our team - Burger King. We faced off against the clowns, which included some of the SplatBrothers mainstay of Trapper, Coyote, Dan/Twister and Ron Stern. It was the best game yet at that field. About 150 players with high integrity were there. Again, the Stinger paint was very painful, but the higher brands shot great. I used my new Chipley S6 pump and S5 autococker.

April 22, played in the BR Pick 3 tournament. Played with 2 people I didn't know, but had a great time. We tied for 4th, but got bumped out the finals, due to our previous loss to Doc's team, who tied us for 4th. I played with my Cyborg the whole day. I did not use the PSP 1-2-3- full auto mode. I left the Cyborg in the ramping mode that I normally play with. I ended up shooting as fast as I needed to and only shot about 1/2 a case of paint. I am now super stock piled with BR paint and ready for the May 5 Big game.

March 17th, open Recball day at Black River. I met up with many of the regulars at the local field to go waste some paint. I spent the day playing with the Tac-1 automag, which I haven't used in years for day play. I kept paint consumption down with it and still had some fun.

March 10, Adventure Beach Paintball 12 hour big game run by Jet. I drove down to the SC border and played at this new field. It appears that Adventure beach has historically been a speedball field with some very nice courses, but is now trying to break into the Scenario players market. The game brought in about 100 players. Lufen from Bebop played with me, the only RAT present. Too many Rats had been burned in prior years by bad games at the field and had chosen not to return. This game was run very well. I had no complaints, except the long walks to tag back into the game. The field is long and narrow, with a center road running down it, to make tanks the ultimate weapon. I ended up leaving after about 6 hours, as the drive back home was going to be long and painful in my busted-radio Jeep.

February 24th, SplatBrothers in Hopewell VA 8 hour game, Chosin Reservoir. Just a day trip to SplatBrothers. At times it seemed it was Raleigh teams vs. the locals, as again Bebop, Krisis, Rats and Wolverines were on the same team. Bebop had just acquired their sponsorship by Smart Parts and were utilizing the new SP8 guns. Overall another great day at SplatBrothers, with me winning a Tippmann 98 as the grand prize.

January 27th, First Big game of the year at Black River paintball. Run by Jet of Bebop with the two owners of the field playing the generals. The RATS split on this one going on both teams. It was fun playing with and against RATS. This was the first time I brought a camera on the field, and overall the pictures were real bad. The new software I'm trying created this page to view of the images. Pictures.

The 2006 EVENTS

December 17th Black River 3v3 Tournament. I normally stay away from Tourney play, but BR added a nice twist - they randomly pick the teams based on the players that show up. We had a good group of RATS show up and play on most of the teams. 30 players attended, making 10 teams. Severe's team nabbed 3rd place, and mine placed just behind at 4th. The RATS had a huge support group and filmed and photographed most of the event. Some great videos now exist on You-Tube. Thanks for the support guys.

December 3-5 Waynes World Grand Finale 2006. Same basic scenario and rules as all the prior years. Abundant tanks and role players. Night play was better than ever this year. Some pictures here.

October 13-15 Splatbrothers, Western Front. Produced by MXS. The RATS, Krisis and Bebop fielded a coalition of about 20 players, representing a large force in the game. This field is laid out very well and supports about 500 players perfectly.

September 2006 Black River presents Clear and Present Danger, produced by Jet from Bebop. We once again played under a Bebop general, MARS. Very similar to the prior BR game, but we really dominated the points by running missions. Team Krisis was present with their new tank.

At some point I traveled to Command Decisions Paintball....

June 3, 2006 the first ever, Black River Paintball Big Game. About 150 players showed up with Jet from Bebop running the event. The Rats and Team Krisis joined up with Otto from Team Bebop to play the German team. It was a fun day, a little wet in the morning. More on this event here....

April 2006 BlackCat Paintball GI JOE event at Skyline Paintball Virginia. This was a great event. I tried out my new Rino GPS communications gear. They were fun to play with, but didn't actually help out much. The field was not huge, maybe 40 acres at best, but very easy to find your way. The RATS teamed up with Bebop and Krisis and seemed to dominate the event. Several times we had them pinned in their starting/staging area. Overall the weather was real bad and rain storms plagued us most of the weekend. When it cleared the weather was great and we played on.

December 2005 Waynes World Paintball Last Blast: Revenge of the Sith. Another Drive to Florida to play in the annual WW big game. The first night turned into a hard core drinking night with only one fight between drunks and non-drunks. I think the Rat got the worst of it.

July 2005 D-Day Skirmish PA About 20 of the Rats drove up from Raleigh and met with Team Bebop to share a camping spot. The tent city at Skirmish seemed to extend for miles. We survived crazy rain storms and mod bogs in the parking lot. The paint sucked and was very expensive. The shopping deals were great and the Poconos are one of the best places to play in the summer months. No bugs and nice and cool. I think we might head back this year. Yeah, I don't take many of my own pictures, but Severe took many for the group. It is hard to see on this left picture, but the woods line was covered in smoke and created some amazing firefights and some amazing pictures.

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