Left Ball Grins Slyly As Right Ball Winces (Paintball in General)

Member Name: Muffin_the_Mule

Product:	Paintball in General
Date:	02/06/02 (840 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: How we laughed when I got shot

Disadvantages: How we laughed when I got shot

Children have always had an insane infatuation with war-games, insisting on picking up big sticks and charging around fields arguing over whether or not you were shot, before agreeing that you were shot in the leg a little bit, so you?ll be ok.
There were always a few kids whose dads had kindly nailed together two pieces of wood, and therefore they had a real ?gun?. These children also tended to be able to make the best Gun-firing noises, ranging from the mundane

?rat-tat-tat-tat-at-at-at??

Through to the complex but fulfilling

?ah-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu???BOOM!?

Now wind forward ten years and a few days, to the middle of some woods, just outside Knutsford in Cheshire.
The pieces of broken tree and semi-professional carpentry have been left at home, and fewer people trade self-produced sound effects.
Welcome to Paintball.

My lovely brother dearest had got some discount tickets to go to Delta Force Paintball, just 3 minutes outside of Knutsford Town centre, although you wouldn?t know that from the way we drove there. We visited some gloriously pointless places on our way, getting spectacularly lost due to the lack of sign posting.
Eventually you?ll notice the A4 sized sign, next to the Huge barrel with an Arrow and ?Paintball? sprayed onto it, directing you down a country lane, and into the woods that are the setting for your full day of charging around and aggression-regression.

Relishing the prospect of firing balls of paint at over 140 mph at me, my dad had also come along for the ride.
My family are the paintball equivalents of Cleopatra ?comin? ?atchya? only we?re armed. And not girls. But we can sing.

For the entry fee of £40, you get all the equipment:

Gun
?pop-pop? not ?ratatata? you are all supplied with the same standard of automatic paintball gun, to prevent anyone from bringing in some sort of mortar bomb and making it unfair.

Facemask
Essential
for those who value sight as a privilege we?d rather hold onto. And for those who actually want to be allowed to play.
The Protective, smelly, facemask. Think sweaty carpets. Think the smelly man who sits next to you on the bus. Think of all this only centimetres from your nose. Think that once it?s on, you can?t take it off for at least 20 minutes. Don?t think of breakfast.

Overalls
The really tall people only get ones that cover to halfway down their knees, whereas the really small people get ones that have to be rolled up at the waist to prevent a running-tripping-running-tripping scenario.

100 paintballs.
You are helpfully supplied with a tube of paintballs; however, you will need to buy more paintballs. I can guarantee that. At £6 per Tube 0f 100, they?re fairly pricey but obviously essential to your days enjoyment.
Because you can also buy 2500 balls for £125 It?s worth clubbing together and buying in bulk to save yourself some money for bandages and plasters on the way home.
If you?re like me and go on a power trip when you get into the game zone, (I was killing everything with paint. Team mates, standing-up trees, lying-down trees. The lot.) I averaged about 75 balls per game, and we played 12 games.

After we?d all gleefully signed the form that had the line
?We will not accept responsibility for injuries including death?
We were split into 10 teams of even sides, and given a coloured armband so we could identify whom we?d shot accidentally rather than on purpose.

There were 14 people in our team ? White Team ? made up of 9 of our party, and 5 strangers, who really were strange. Honestly, I?m sorry, but you were.

The day is split into 6 games, and you play each game twice ? swapping ends each time so that no one can claim an unfair advantage
On the Sunday that I attended, we played 6 similar but excellently imaginative games.

First game of the day was designed to be a wa
rm-up, as it was incredibly simple, with no complicated side rules that would feature in later games. Basically you had to defend your flag from being stolen whilst at the same time trying to steel your opponent?s flag. Glorious.
Finally, we could get this game underway and my Rambo nature could come to the fore, unveiling me as the greatest paintball king, since the last one, who is sadly anonymous, because nobody knows his name.
My stage was set, time was running out, and I was only yards from a glory grabbing sprint-scream dash home with the flag, concreting my legend status.
Or so I thought.

I jumped up from behind one of the many hiding places that had been built in amongst the trees, and ran like the proverbial wind. I grabbed the flag by straddling the oil drum castle it had been place upon, at which point a hiding enemy member of the opposite side sat up and fired her gun up at me. From point blank range.

Imagine the scene if you will ? I?m stood legs akimbo, baggy overalls allowing plenty of ?swayage? and this girl - (who clearly, and obviously has never taken a kick to the knackers, never mind a paintball ? mainly because she doesn?t own any of her own, although she nearly had one of mine in a glass of formaldehyde) ? hit me square on my right baby-maker.
Needless to say I had a lump in not only my throat.
She also had the audacity to shoot me in the back as I was on the floor crumpled in a heap, flag in hand. Glory stolen alongside dignity.

After taking some time to recover enough to walk, I joined in the next 5 games and managed to avoid any further serious injury.

The steal-the-flag-defend-the-flag game was a mainstay of the day, with variations being played in 4 of the 6 scenarios, with elements such as having a member of your team designated a ?General?. If the general gets shot, it?s game over.

My personal favourite of the day also happened to be the smelliest, muddiest, sloppiest, mos
t frantic game of the day.
No flags, just a shell of an old Ford Transit van, showing battle scars of a million paint balls as it?s testimony to fun times had.
The simple aim was to get in the van ? after picking off the rest of the team first. The adrenaline made me feel drunk with excitement, so much so that I suggest that the Priory puts a paintball arena in its grounds to help all the famous alcoholics.

The whole day lasted a marathon 7 hours, and included a barbeque for lunch, although this was an Extra £3.85 per person so packed lunches are a recommended companion. As is a woolly hat ? as the particular site we played at didn?t give you the cloth hoods you often see, so a paintball that strayed onto your head felt like a kick by donkey.

Even though it may have cost me the use of my right testicle, I loved every second of the day at Delta Force, and I have my Winning Team Certificate displayed proudly in a drawer somewhere.

If you fancy going, invite me first, but then call 01483 211194

Or visit www.paintballgames.co.uk

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