By Kirkd I’m writing this up now while I still have it pretty fresh in my mind so its bound to be full of gaffs.
Today was spent in a muddy, rainy Essex woodland shooting paintballs at people who paid for this experience. I was invited along to help celebrate the birthday of a friend/excoworker from the days of the Odeon. I’ve kept in touch with him and his partner (also an Odeon escapee) and she dropped me a message a few months back about this and would I be interested. How she managed to keep it a secret I will never know, as his reaction as we drove into the grounds was fantastic. A general exclamation of colourful metaphors spewed out, meaning he had not expected this in the slightest.
There was seven in total for our little birthday group and, after being handed camouflage patterned boilersuits (which made us all look like mass murderers), we clambered aboard a huge tractor trailer with about 20+ other people who would help make up the two teams for the day.
After more kit (masks, padded coifs, ammo belts) a briefing (‘wear you mask at all times or you will lose an eye’ and ‘if you get shot you’re out’) we got handed paint and guns (markers in paintball lingo), taken to a muddy wood and told to shoot people who didn’t wear orange arm bands AKA the ‘yellow team’.
1) Warming up began with my rather lame start of being shot early as I tried to shuffle up the left flank of the first map. It was at the bottom of a hill and we had a slight disadvantage in that the other team was over looking our advance. #myexcuse
Death: Shot 2″ to the left of the… well the man bits OK? I ended up in the game over section near the other teams startup area to watch them sit around and fire paint down the hill. The highlight came when the birthday boy grew a bit bored and scream “COME AND F**KING HAVE SOME” (or words to that effect) and did a suicide run down the hill. Less than 2 minutes later he came back to the game over area covered in paint 🙂
2) Getting to grips with the moves now. Ignore the damp muddy ground, infact slide through it when possible. Forget the rain, its there to wash the mud off. Move up with other people and cover each other. I ended up on a bridge with another guy behind me and one in front. We pelted a couple of the other team, but the guy in front got shot and as I tried to shift to better cover… BAM
Death: Right in the heart
3) Ruined village ahoy. I managed to play cat and mouse with a yellow guy pushing his way along the side towards us as we advanced on a flag. I kept screaming at two guys to my left that he was there but they just ignored me and kept shooting forwards. I managed to hit the guy as he ducked out and two of us moved up to the flag. I spent ages trying to untangle it and but managed to get it up (as they say) and then took cover at the foot of a dummy ruined church.
Death: Shot in the upper chest by someone in the church tower over looking the ruins. The assassin turned out to be birthday chap. Git.
4) This was when I hit my stride. I found a nice spot behind a wooden panel and could see up a path that the yellows came along. Two went down to my camping routine and I even managed to grab a red flag by running out, snatching it and belting back into cover. Sadly, my greed got the better of me when I thought I could get a second one. I manged to move into a spot near the flag by scooting behind different bits of cover and was about to go for it when…
Death: Didn’t see the shooter but it was a kidney shot just as I was plucking up nerve for the second flag
5) The final map before lunch was a large open field with random shapes scattered around it. A straight leggit up the right flank brought me to about half way and spent a while trading shots with someone. I got him then took one for the team.
Death: Right shoulder as I tried to aim right handed. The curse of being a lefty.
6) Trying not to feel sick while running with a gut full of chili we went back to the first map we played but it was switched round with us coming down the hill. I managed to skid and slide between several bits of cover and ended up about 10 feet away from a yellow player who didn’t seem to know where I was. I went running towards his cover, cleared the corner and fired several times.
Death: Lower right leg as I came round the barricade and clipped the guy twice. One on his chest and once on his hand. Poor bloke did look in pain as we shuffled off together.
7) Back to the ruined village and not a very action filled game as most people seemed to be flagging a bit. I trotted forward hampered by misty goggles and took cover.
Death: Crouched down behind the same barricade I got shot before. This one came through a gap in the wood planks and slapped my side.
8) Concept map again. This time I managed to draw a hell of a lot of fire simply by popping my head around the corner of my cover and was praying the shooters would run out of ammo.
Death: Right leg. Splat.
9) Last map. This one was defending a scud launcher and in a nice twist we got to respawn if hit in the first seven minutes but so did the other side. A good way to burn through the paint left. While I managed to hit a few nutters who ran at us over and over I also got clobbered right in the faceplate when aiming at a yellow team player. The howl of delight as i tried to smear the paint off my mask was strangely recognisable. Could someone have had an extra birthday treat? As it was only a headshot I could carry on and watched as my team was picked off one by one by the evil yellow teams advance. After the seven minute respawn rule had passed it became clear that we had a problem. The yellow team managed to whittle us down by getting close and picking us off. We ended up being spread thin trying to cover their advance but it wasn’t good enough.
Death: Back and hand while sliding around the side of the scud launcher to try and head off an attacker.
I somehow managed to work my way through all nine games played and it was damn good laugh overall, but we all seemed to walk away with some reminders. For my part I now seem to have a large red welt on my leg but its not half as bad as some injuries that others suffered. Anyway I managed to die on each map but much fun was had by all.
I’ve tracked down the location on Google maps as well.
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