Saturday
So on Friday night I had gone to see an old favorite band of mine; Alkaline Trio. As I wasn't driving I had a couple ciders and as I make poor decisions when I'm properly cydrated I ended up attending my local pub and not getting to sleep until stupid o'clock in the morning.
My alarm clock went off at stupid o'clock+3 hours and after I had spend the latter part of the evening drinking water I decydrated and rehydrated and set off to Parkey & Kayleigh's place to pick up the 20 cases of training paint we bought from #TheCribb. Joined by Shayne and Dave we then met the rest at The Cribb so that we could share car space yadda yadda drive to the venue bla bla same old long car journeys that every paintballer has to endure. I've found there's only two ways to keep myself awake on a paintball car journey - the first is to have someone to chat with and engage my brain. The second is to sing music loudly.
Unfortunately for Harry he is of a chatty disposition and so he had to put up with my conversation as opposed to my stunning set of vocal chords.
Anyway.. back to the paintball.
We rock up at CPPS juuuuust in time for our 10-12 slot for training. We were mainly playing against London Fearless and we were trying to work out how was best to play the field. We did start over-complicating our game plans and devoting players to defensive roles to try and stop the other teams attackers - however this led to me struggling to get past the first teabag without any edging support. Our standard break was to have me go to teabag 1, Apple & Orange crossed up to prevent the snake / teabag pushes and 2 players to push the snake side. Every now and then we would commit the 5th player to switch to teabag side instead, but what we found was that whenever we were trying to attack we were getting shot making the moves and we would either lose the point or the last 2-3 players would win the point down bodies out of skill alone. Individual skills win points but well executed game plans and team play win games and therefore tournaments.
Fearless to be fair gave us quite a wake up call. We were turning up to this event expecting to get back into the Elite division with the ease that we had during the prelims/semis last event, yet here we were getting served by the team that just got relegated from where we wanted to be. So we had two different game plans that both included crossing the Apple and Orange - both of those players were shooting a ton of paint and not always getting their containing job done, the only difference in the plans was to move that 5th player snake or teabag side. After our slot was over we moved onto the free-for-all training field.
Again we lost more points than we would want to and whilst we won a fair few of the points, again, down to individual skills and not good team play. We left the field pretty beat up and weren't sure how to adjust the game plans. We went back to the hotel rooms, showered up and did what any team lacking inspiration would do. We went to Nando's.
Full of chicken and with spicy bellies after playing some wing roulette, we sat down in one of the rooms and decided to break down the field again. My argument towards playing this field was that without any width on the teabag side, it was a struggle to move past Orange's crossfield lockdown in order to start getting some G's and real estate. I would often have two guns on me. Therefore I suggested keep everything the same, however put someone out into the corner and then move the Apple player into teabag 1, that way we had the option to bully Orange to get some movement up the field. I still felt that Orange should stay locking the bags and we should keep 2 players on the snake side. Liam going to snake 1 (or god if getting shot on the break) and Shayne backing him up either in God, Soho or the corner.
Shayne however had a different plan, he felt that we weren't getting the job done with the Orange locking down the bags and we would be better off using that player to attack. Shayne's plan was to stack 3 players Teabag side, with me breaking out to the corner (or teabag one before moving out to the corner if I was getting shot on the break), Andy getting into Apple and shooting teabag side before looking to move into the teabag 1 after I made my move, a 2nd Apple player would then shoot a snake side lane then switch to lock down the bags once Andy had moved out. The snake side was still the same, Shayne delaying behind Orange to shoot a lane before moving to Soho or the back corner to mirror the other team.
We decided to roll out with Shayne's plan and see what happened - we called it "The Shayne Plan".
Me and Dave stayed in a room with a double bed and two extra single beds. We shared the double.
Sunday
So after a good 8 hour sleep I felt fresh as a daisy after making up for the lack of sleep the night before. We got to the site and found our pits, got some paint and got ready for..
Game 1: Lethal Bizzle
So we got out on the field and executed the Shayne plan. I went straight out to the corner and Andy moved out to the teabag 1 quite quickly. They kept running a guy to Soho, the snake side can, which can easily be eliminated from teabag 2. With the two of us on that side we were able to get an early G on the teabag side, move up the field and win our first 2 points quite convincingly. The next point we changed ends and I don't know what was going on in our pits because I was straight out to the start gate and only had 2 guys come out and join me. We lost the point because we're not consistently great at winning 3v5's. I was pretty pissed off because I don't understand how the rest of the guys dropped the ball so hard. I was told to calm down and we refreshed ourselves for the next point. We won it making it 3-1 however they then came up to make it 3-2, I was shot off the break (unlucky) and shot soon after getting into my primary (like a helmet) in those points however we then wrapped it up to win 4-2. It was a tough game, they didn't give it over easily, but thanks to the scheduling gods we had no time to break it down and reassess what was going on as our next game was literally the very next set!
Game 2: Reloaded Naughty Bullets
We played these guys a couple times in training and they gave us some good points - again we haven't played them before so I was wondering how we would fare. I was shot on the break trying the corner and Andy thought he saw an opportunity to make a middle move after shooting my mirror, however I watched Apple catch him on the pack which he didn't notice and he got a 1-4-1 penalty which we couldn't fight back from.
I can't recall if it was due to a penalty but I know that for some reason we played the second point with 4 players. It turns out we can win 4v5's as we put an equalizer on the board. I had stopped breaking to corner as I was getting shot and started moving to the first teabag before either moving up the bags and letting Andy follow, or bumping into the corner to get some width.
The 3rd game we won playing our game making it 2-1.
We then won another point, where I had moved up the bags and got a lot of cross-field kills before mugging out the back corner. I still have no idea why he did it but Andy was following me and also decided to shoot the corner guy after I had already eliminated him, I think he must have decided he was going to get the kill and couldn't handle being second to the mark so decided to do it anyway. He was running so fast that he nearly ran out of bounds so I grabbed him by the jersey and pulled him back infield.
The score was 3-1 so we had changed ends. I moved out to the teabag 1 before shortly making a bump into teabag 2 as no guns were on me. I heard "OUUUUUUT!" and the nearby ref running towards me, then "OUUUUUT!" as he ran to Andy and eliminated him.. and then again to another player, and then another! Our snake player was already shot out so the field was empty and I believe Andy asked the ref what the hell was going on - where he then gave us another penalty, meaning we started the next point with 4 players again. I had no idea what was going on - I didn't feel any paint coming at me at any point in the game hence bumping to the secondary so early, however Dave spoke to the head ref who said the 3 for 1 was called on the teabag player for wiping. I have 2 theories on this; either I had a hit on me somewhere that I didn't notice and the ref perceived me sliding into the bunker as an attempt to wipe - or the ref wasn't too keen on the double mugging in the last point and so wanted to teach us a lesson. I heard a couple people in the division making jokes about the towel-head ref 'striking again' so I guess he had been pretty harsh on his calls.
Everyone on the team was pissed at me and I don't know whether or not they believed me at the time but I claimed innocence. The ironic thing was the past few points I was taking bounces and having to ask for paint checks. I would have held my hands up if I was trying to lose a hit. One of the guys (Dave or Andy I can't remember) told me to sit the next point but then they made the call that Me, Andy, Shayne and Dave would play the penalty point. I was giving the ref no excuses this time and I had a chip on my shoulder. I got to teabag 1, we lost a body and they made it into their teabag 2, Orange was on me most of the game and so I was soaking up paint and posted waiting on this other guy. It became G2 and I heard the call "Teabag 2, Apple, Orange has moved to snake corner" and with that I moved to take out their player in the bags and give us back some real estate. Instead of running past I got into the same teabag and shot him over the top, before shooting left to catch their corner player out and then we pinched Apple out of the bunker to wrap it up 4-2.
2 very scrappy games but we had won them. Certainly not the 4-0's we had been dishing out last round - the field layout being a patient one and the penalties were really hurting us.
We had a huuuge ass break before game 3 so we watched some Elite games - it was good to see London Samurai were holding their own, they weren't winning games but they got a draw and didn't get 4-0'd by any of the teams - which when breaking into the elite division is hard enough in itself as we found out last year!
Game 3: Stoke Quest AD
I played the first 2 points and we won them quite easily, after that I sat the last two points for Adam to get some spins. I can't remember too much of this game as I believe it was just quite a methodical paintball game where we moved up the field on them, then I started helping out in the pits - it didn't seem as difficult as the others.
We won it 4-0. We figured we would have a big break before our semi's as we did last round so we were all mooching around.. until one of the guys from Snatch came up to me telling me we were on field and panic set in.. I got back to the pits to see Parkey (coach for the day) was in his paintball gear ready to jump on with the guys who hung around by the pits! But everyone got back in time and we put our starting 5 out for our Semi final game. As we ranked 1st in the prelims we were against the 4th seed who just so happened to be:
Semi finals: Lethal Bizzle; back with a vengeance
We went out to play our first point against the team we beat 4-2 earlier. Andy did say no matter what we did before, that game means nothing and it's all about this next game. We went out there and we lost the first point.. I got shot on the break testing to see if I could make the corner - their shooters had evidently dialed in their lanes as the day had gone on!
2nd point and I got into the teabag 1 and got shot straight out of my bunker by my mirror like a helmet. The game tied up though with a double elimination so it was a no-point - we played it again.
2nd point mk II and we tied it up 1-1.
3rd point and we took another win to make it 2-1. It was getting close to time with only a minute or so left on the clock, we knew they were going to come at us so I planned to get to teabag 1 then look infield to shoot anyone making any midfield moves, by the time I got into my bunker I saw the THREE MIDDLE players on my team walking off!! I was in disbelief and there was just me and whoever was left out near the snake, they came down the teabags and the centre of the field and I was the last guy left. Their bag player went to mug me down the tape so I started shooting to try and catch him first, he switched and ran round the inside of the bunker just as someone else was moving down the snake side and just as another player came round the tape side of my bunker. I was covered in paint in my face and my back and my gun. I believe they got a penalty for over-aggressive shooting but it didn't matter as they had 4 guys on the field. They tied the game up 2-2 and there was about 45 seconds left on the clock. The next game was explosive, I can't even tell you what happened but I know I got to teabag 1, shot at my mirror after checking for infield runners and whilst I hit my mirror, teabag 3 had come out and blasted me in the face. It was carnage and panned out to be a 1v1, however both Andy and the Lethal Bizzle player ran for the buzzer. Andy got to their buzzer just before the Lethal player, but he went over the top of the buzzer as he did it with so much momentum. There was an argument but I thought it was over. I went over to see Dave chatting to the head ref who said - if the game time was over, it's an overtime point. I had to run back and put my pack back on and sort my **** out. As I was airing my gun I realized I was bleeding on my sleeve from my mouth. We took to the field. I looked at my guys and I could see that we all wanted it. As far as we were concerned, we thought we had lost the game and therefore were walking home. However we had been given another chance. I was pretty dazed after the last point but somehow I entered a bit of a zen-mode and was calmer than I had been all day. I got to teabag 1, Andy got a G off the break and I bumped out to the corner and shot Orange out before moving up and shooting Apple. The last player was left in the snake 1 and I kept my gun on him whilst our other 3 guys were moving up on him. We won the point that we thought we had lost.
I felt bad for Lethal Bizzle in a way, they had definitely come out with high hopes and they had really upped their game against us! I suppose the paintball gods were with us and gave us some karma back from last event. Fair play to them too for being good sports, I was being a bit of a retard at the fill station as my head was no longer with me, I was exhausted and feeling pretty beat up, one of the guys came up and helped me detach my gun and bleed the bottle out. It takes real character to be a gent to the team that just beat you out of the tournament and I wont forget that. If any of those guys are reading this, particularly the guy who came round and mugged me out, I want to apologize as when you said sorry for the overshooting, I straight up blanked you intentionally. I'm sure you can understand why I didn't want to hear it, but I do understand it's all in good sport.
We packed up our **** and moved on to the Elite field where we watched the Tigers v Nexus final.
Finals: Lucky 15s Mustangs
So we made it to the most important game of the tournament: The promotion game. It had been a brawl to get to this stage and I was still unsure about this next one. Yeah we 4-0'd this team last time, but that was in the semi's where they seeded 4th in the prelims. These guys convincingly topped their group and looked pretty good on the field when I saw them in the prelims. Parkey had been watching their games and said they had been consistently hitting the teabag corner runner on the break, so I decided just to play safe into bag 1 for this game.
They were more aggressive down the bags than us and also took the snake. It went down to a 2v3 in their favour however Andy managed to G their bag player and also traded out with the snake player after I had bumped into the teabag corner. I didn't know the snake was out though so I started shooting towards the snake and asked Dave who was coaching what I had. Dave just said snake's a G, it's a 1v1, he's in the snake corner. I just stayed still for a moment looking over the top of my bunker in case he was moving about. Dave reconfirmed he was still in the corner and I edged out slowly towards the bags until I could see the top of the corner can rising above the God bunker. I was low and I shot some paint over God to see if I could get a cheap kill. "OUUUUTT!!" I hear as a ref ran towards him pointing. I was ecstatic with that blind shot, I honestly had no idea if it would hit him or not so I rolled the dice and it turned out to become the easiest 1v1 I've ever had to win in a tournament situation. Even so, that was a scrappy game and could have gone either way. We shouldn't be relying on those individual skills to win these points!
They came back and won a slow point against us. I got sloppy as I shot at my mirror in Teabag 1, putting him in before wrapping to try and dominate Orange and move, however my mirror just came straight back out and hit me. The rest of the game was slow but they wittled us down. They got the dominance on the bags and beat us methodically.
1-1 we then came out, got some G's off the break, one of their players came down the tape to mug me however Dave just happened to switch from the snake side to catch him out and I had tucked right into my bunker just about surviving. We made it a quick point to make it 2-1. The next game I moved out to teabag 1 and then bumped out to the corner, it was a slow point and Andy had ****ed up his bump to the teabag 1 by tripping, dropping his hopper in the mud, scrambling into the bunker, diving out to grab his hopper and then spent a long time trying to clean it out and sort his shooter. They had bumped into the teabag 2 but fortunately our Apple player was shooting at him so he dived quite wide and I put my paint on his pack before getting some real estate. There were 3 of us left and they just had 1 guy in the snake corner. I said "G4, lock it down, run the time" and I just shot to the left of his bunker so that he couldn't bump but so that I wasn't going to hit him. Eventually though he was either shot or they threw the towel in making it 3-1 with 35 seconds on the clock.
We knew they were going to come for us and so we decided to lock it down, I didn't even bother going to teabag 1, we doubled up both the back bunkers and I was shooting for the wide teabag player, after seeing him walk off (me and Dave were both rolling on that lane) I saw a ref crouched down in front of the M and it looked like he was checking a player out so I launched to try and shoot him, just as Andy also left the same bunker to make moves down the middle. I got past the M and found the ref was actually looking at a guy in the Meduza on the snake side, so I shot him just as I got shot by their snake player. My boys made short work of him as he was shooting me off the field and we scored the last point to make it 4-1.
It was a tough game - the 4-1 score didn't give the 15's credit for how hard they made it for us. But we did it. After the game was called I was elated and I'm pretty sure I did a girly jump in joy. But no-one saw that.
The 15's guys whilst understandably not happy with the result were good enough to congratulate us and shake hands on a good game. Parkey who was watching and coaching the game said the 15's did look really good on the field and to be honest it was only small mistakes which we took advantage of. Had I missed that 1v1 shot and had the fast 35 second point not gone in our favor but theirs, we could have been looking at a completely different result.
We did the whole podium thing and I had no idea what I was talking about and gave a speech that was basically just drivel that I thought I should say off the top of my head. It was like the Smart Parts Ion of podium speeches. You could argue that it got the job done but in reality it was pretty **** and you would take any other gun over it. But nevermind.. we were happy.
To wrap it up / the extra bits
We're back to where we want to be and we do need to thank Cribbs Pro Paintball Centre for helping us get to the level we're at with their awesome training field. Do come and see us sometime and if you have been there before, you should see how much it's improved in recent months - air station in the pits next to the field, good grass, brand new 2014 mills field and as always, decent toilets and hot food / drinks available.
A big shout out to Ainsley and the crew who have been putting in the hard work and putting up with us. The ref's seemed to be making the right calls and were being reasonable (except that guy that 3-4-1'd me.. but psh whatever, benefit of the doubt..). Everyone appeared to be having fun and the scheduling seemed to run like clockwork.. nothing to complain about here!
Good work to my friend Kayleigh and her Ultraviolets who placed 6th in their division and a big thanks to everyone that helped us in the pits as well as those that came up to ask how we were getting on throughout the day.
So at training I played pretty much every point and the team of 6 shot 16 boxes. I'm going to say I shot 3 of them adding an extra 6,000 to the tally.. The team played 30 points on Sunday in total including no-points and I played 28 of those.. as we opened 27 cases in total (a couple boxes are in pots and bags waiting to be used next training session) It would work out about 5 cases, however playing at the front, shooting less and getting shot on the break some points I would I'm going to say I shot about 3.5 cases making it
6,000 + 7,000 = 13,000 all weekend so the running total is 80,000 at the end of April. Will I hit 100k in May? Who knows?.. Who cares?
