Sunday, Bloody Sunday

It's D-Day and I'm all excited at the prospect of playing in my first paintball tournament. Being a complete noob and not knowing what to expect, I fill my head with all the different things I should do and how I should play. Run fast. Stay low. Communicate. Pin the opposition. Stance. Snap shoot... STAY ALIVE!

The one cardinal rule as a front player... STAY ALIVE. I could not manage that long enough to be of any help to my team.




















I tried stopping short. I end up being pinned by the 2 corner men.

I tried sliding into the snake. I end up taking one on the loader.

I tried sliding into the snake. I end up taking one in the face.

I make it to the snake and battle 1 in the back can, 1 in the center dorito. I end up taking one on the knuckle.

I make it to the snake and battle 1 in the back can, 1 in the center dorito. I end up taking one in the face AGAIN!
















Granted that as a front player the odds of getting hit are going to be higher but it still is a bitter pill to swallow knowing that I couldn't stay alive that little bit longer and maybe take out 1 man or help my team gain some kind of advantage before my demise. To get hit and then watch my team mates get taken out 1 by 1 is not my idea of fun. Worse still getting hit early in the game!

I'm ultra competitive and I play to win. I may be gracious in defeat but I F#@%ing hate losing. I'll be the first to admit it tho... I GOT PWNED! ROYALLY!! Regardless the reasons, I got my arse handed to me on a silver platter, no doubt about that.

Still, the day wasn't a complete waste. I got to learn ALOT today. Thanks Desmond, Nizam, DT, The Marshals and the rest at Southern Xtreme. (If I didn't mention you here, its only because I don't know your name... heh) The advice and pointers were a great help! I got to learn about being tight in bunkers, shooting stances, field awareness, strategy, movement, timing, diversion as well as having hands on experience with a MacDev Droid and Planet Eclipse EGO. Not to mention the difference between lobbing and straight barrels.

I come away from this with an even greater desire to play well and so its time for drills drills and more drills boys.

At the next intersection turn right?

From 3on3

Most say we all have to be a little mad to play paintball. When my alarm went of at 3:45am this morning I should have thought the same thing about myself... I'm usually only just going to bed at this time on a Sunday morning...

All week the team had been excited to get their hands dirty in our first official tournament... this anticipation sometimes leads to sleep deprevation... which ends in us not getting to Causeway until 6am... detours, thumb prints, MS checks and finally we get into JB... being tech heads we try to use the GPS voice to guide us to our destination... I think we got better directions from the uncle at Caltex!!!

Anyway we get to Southern Extreme with enough time to walk the field and chat to the friendly guys at SX.



At first glance the field looked like a campers paradise with two large lanes running vertically through the field and small hammers that didn't cross the centreline. The rest of the teams slowly joined us and geared up. Not sure how the draw was worked out but we didn't have any much ups with Singapore teams.

Scouts JB Bravo
Evolution
Sat Spade (Our Opponents Game #3)
RPG (Our Opponents Game #5)
PSG Warfreak
Shoot In Rage
JI Team (Our Opponents Game #2 - Loss)
Queen Slayer (Our Opponents Game #4)
Killashadow
My Bro Team
Sang Kuriang (Our Opponents Game #1)
and..... Team Damnation

Scouting spies told us to be not sit back as the majority of the other teams would push up hard... First match we attack the left and right snakes with one player at the back dorito - this is how the game ended with neither team losing a player...

As we were each taking turns to substitute, each time we took to the field there was a different team combo. In hindsight probably not the smartest move but we were there for the experience so winning wasn't the priority - problem is we're competitive %$#$%^s. The rest of the matches were as much of a blur as the first - different team member combos lead to different results each game - even if we had a game plan it was forgotten 5 seconds after the break. Despite this, we got some great advice from other players and observers on how we play - and what we need to start doing to get better.

Watching the other teams compete was great - a lot showed great snap shooting skills great movement and teamwork. Some even showed you don't even need proper branded paintball gear to win.

After not making much progress in our 5 matches, our day was over. With our left over paint we tried a range of e-markers during the lunch break to get a feel for what the big boys use... (I'll let the others TD boys give their reviews on these items). I think after today we are now even more determined to drill until out legs drop off. Of course we we're still griping about how practicing paintball in SG is akin to practicing tennis without a tennis racquet - as any tennis coach will tell you how you hold the tennis racquet is paramount to your playing performance... but I'm sure this is nothing any serious Singaporean paintballer has griped about before...

So I look forward to our next training session - I think the lessons we learnt today will help improve our game a lot...

TD Away Day - SX 3v3 Sunday Match

We're heading for our first tournament outside of Singapore on Sunday and it feels like such a giant leap for TD. Actually it is our first OFFICIAL tournament since the RD5 is technically a no-frills league and more akin to ad-hoc skirmishes.

It's not that I'm belittling RD5, on the contrary I think the two Sundays we've skirmished at RD will stand us in good stead for this Sunday. We'll know how far we've come in the last two weeks and how far we have yet to go.

Only Rocket, Houdini, Myaadraal and myself will be making the trip across the causeway, our front player Dean missing out on this trip due to personal committments. We'll just have to adjust as we see fit on Sunday and hopefully come back with something positive from the trip.

Sunday, Sunday...

I arrived at Red Dynasty on a lazy Sunday afternoon expecting to have a light training session with the boys. I had previously strained my calf on Friday and in lieu of the upcoming 3 vs 3 Tourney in JB, did not want to further aggravate my leg.

Turns out that the RD5 Speedball league was on and the 'DAMNED' were playing! I got dressed thinking that they would be able to continue playing without me and we'd be able to train and discuss after their match-ups. No such luxury... I was tossed a harness and told to get my pods and hopper filled. I was going to play.

Needless to say, due to my bummed leg, some adjustments had to be made. I joined the backline and we played 3 Back, 1 Mid, 1 Front. A short huddle with positions and strategy discussed and away we were.

Playing as an extra backman took a little getting used to. I hugged the barriers, watched the lines and cross field angles. Called out what I could see and pinned the opposition as best I could. But I was itching to move forward, to sneak, slide and run my arse off... I had to remind myself constantly not to go sliding into the bunkers, to stay put and most of all, not to over extend my leg.

This led to me being bunkered in one match, being left behind camping while the 'DAMNED' moved up in another match and basically just shooting into bunkers the rest of the day. That left us 1 win & 1 loss against the RED SEVENS, 1 win & 1 loss against the RED DYNASTY STAFF team. (Apologies if I left out any team) Not toooooo bad but definitely not how I would have liked to have played.

I wish I could have had an afternoon of fast running and gunning and if not for the leg I just might have. But having said that, it was still tremendously fun and thus...

C'est si bon,
So I say it to you,
Like the French people do,
Because it's oh, so good!

Gear Review

I got to test out my newly acquired gear during the last BTO and here is a short review of each item.



JTUSA SPECTRA FLEX-8 FULL COVER MASK
Fits really snug even without adjusting the strap. The top head cover allows the mask to rest on the head and helps spread out the weight of the mask. Profile is small and it comes with a chin strap to prevent the mask from lifting during a slide.

The mask was a really good fit for me. I didn't feel the mask at all the whole time I had it on. I experienced zero fogging and everything was clear as day through the lens. The vents allowed me to breathe very easily even after a hard sprint.



DYE C7 JERSEY - MECCA
Nice Limited Edition at a really low price. L size fit me perfectly with all the paddings seated where they should and without undue travel. Comes with a micro-fiber cloth hidden in the left cuff, useful for those fast lens wipedowns.

Sitting through the briefing with my jersey on did make me feel unduly warm. Once I got onto the field though, all that disappeared. Sprinting from the break and moving forward from bunker to bunker posed no problems. I was feeling cool and had complete freedom of movement without any of that sticky fabric on skin feeling.



PROTO 07 PANTS - GREY
Medium sized and another perfect fit with all the padding seated nicely, length too was spot on for me.

I had good movement in these and it gave me the confidence to slide into bunkers as well. Venting felt adequate and since I don't remember much while I had them on, that must mean that it did a good job.



ADIDAS PREDATOR ABSOLION TRX FG WIDE FIT - METALLIC IRON/BLACK/SILVER
Good cleats for firm ground use. Light and very good traction.

Allowed me to sprint towards bunkers and stop in time without losing my footing. Low price.

So there you have it. I'm really happy with my choices, everything works perfectly and best of all I didn't blow a hole in my pocket.

The dictator retorts

Ha ha... have to find my stop watch... I'm now thinking those knee guards may have been a decent investment!!! See you on Sunday (evil laugh)

I'll let Mr Schwarzenegger's quotes speak on my behalf...

"The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That's what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they'll go through the pain no matter what happens."


"Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tone the spirit just as exercise conditions the body."

Arnold Schwarzenegger

No RD5 this week &%#@!

Title says it all. Kinda disappointing since we getting Rocket and Dean BTOed tonite and we won't be able to give em a baptism of fire like we had last week. What a bloody waste.

RD5 is prolly the best way to learn to be tournament players and even though there were 15 teams in SPNS 2, we can't even get four teams to turn up on Sundays. Come on guys, where else you gonna be able to get this kinda tournament style play without going across the Causeway?

TD is still gonna turn up at RD on Sunday anyway, from 3pm onwards so if anyone wanna skirmish we open for business as long as Dictator Trainer from Hell Houdini feels we've done enough drilling for the day.

RD5 Game Footage

Link to a little footage taken from the RD5 League at Red Dynasty

YouTube

Sunday 13/07 - RD5 skirmish training with help from Jayex XXL. Practiced communications. Practiced field awareness. Practiced PB technique... basically went all out to hold our own against well seasoned teams and players for our first venture onto a speedball field. I won't say we did well but we learnt a lot about each others playing style...

Lessons learnt:
- If you have protective elbow guards wear them!!!!
- If you get hit keep as close to bunker as possible while checking for paint, stepping away from the bunker will results in further hits...
- Proper naming of all bunkers by the entire team is essential if you are to communicate opposition positions properly to each other
- Don't always get caught up in firefights across the field, take a few seconds to listen as your eyes aren't the only things that can determine the positions of the opposition

RD5 and Singapore's first ever X-ball game!

Team Damnation took part in our first ever speedball tournament yesterday at the Red Dynasty 5s (RD5). RD5 is an informal no-frills league played every Sunday at the Red Dynasty Paintball Arena in Yishun.

Opening day yesterday saw four teams taking part, Red Sevens, Team Damnation, Wargh! and Kamikaze. Initially we were supposed to join up with Wargh and form a 5-man side but due to the fact many of the teams could only field 4 players, we put up two teams of three-men with two guys from 20th Legion (XXL) split between TD and Wargh! to make up the numbers.

So the teams were named DamWargh!XXL 1 & 2 with the TD guys in Team 1 and Wargh! guys in Team 2. I suppose we could have named the teams Damned Legion and Wargh! Legion but it was cool.

TD had a baptism of fire of sorts when we went up against the Red Sevens (Singapore's first reps in regional paintball tournaments). We got first blood but the experience of the remaining Red Sevens players showed when they whittled us down.

The Wargh! juggernaut (and if you saw Chak in his armor you'll know what I mean by juggernaut!) shot their way through Kamikaze and the Red Sevens to set the standard for the rest of the day.

TD's game against Kamikaze was a roller coaster of sorts for yours truly. Down 3-1 with an empty hopper, I somehow survived a two player rush after spilling half the paint in my pod and bunkered the last player thanks to a grinning lady luck.

Kamikaze must have been stung by that and went all out against Red Sevens to win their only match of the day. TD got smashed by Wargh! in our last match of the round, good covering fire and movement winning the match for Wargh!

The fixtures in Round 2 mirrored Round 1 and TD was up against the Red Sevens again. This time we were better prepared and took the match, applying lessons learned in Round 1.

Wargh! won their match against Kamikaze but lost to Red Sevens in their next match. Red Sevens upped a gear in this match and took Wargh! apart one player at a time. Small Ben (Calgar) was the toast of the Red Sevens with his aggressive snake play on the right, taking out two players.

TD did the double over Kamikaze in the next match and the latter also lost to Red Sevens. It was down to DamWargh!XXL 1 (TD) and DamWargh!XXL 2 (Wargh!) in the last match, winning would have put TD on par with Wargh! at 4 wins each. We were unlucky after Houdini got hit on the break and the Wargh! guys make the numbers count. Kudos to sgb33f for laying down a wall of paint to cover his team's advance and hitting me in the head in the process!

All in all it was an awesome day and it was capped with an impromptu X-ball match between a combination of Team Damnation/Red Sevens and Wargh!/20th Legion. Seburo and King of the Red Sevens join us for this and it was an experience playing with them.

The basic rules were similar to RD5 but unlimited number of matches with a 15-minute or no paint limit. Players also had to have their markers on the frame within 30 seconds of a flag hang for the restart. We won the first round but three of us made the mistake of not having our markers in the ready position and were ruled out at the break on restart. It was insane to say the least but I can see why it is fast gaining popularity in the US. You need to be super fit to play this though!

We won the mini X-Ball 4-3 but the result didn't really matter. It was a historic event as it was the first ever X-ball game in Singapore!

What a day for TD, first tournament speedball and our first X-ball game all in one day!

Note: This report is written from what I remember so apologies for any errors.

RD5 Day 1 Results

Round 1
Game 1 Red Sevens vs DamWargh!XXL 1 - Red Sevens
Game 2 DamWargh!XXL 2 vs Kamikaze - DamWargh!XXL 2
Game 3 Red Sevens vs DamWargh!XXL 2 - DamWargh!XXL 2
Game 4 Kamikaze vs DamWargh!XXL 1 - DamWargh!XXL 1
Game 5 Red Sevens vs Kamikaze - Kamikaze
Game 6 DamWargh!XXL 2 vs DamWargh!XXL 1 - DamWargh!XXL 2

TIMEOUT

Round 2
Game 7 Red Sevens vs DamWargh!XXL 1 - DamWargh!XXL 1
Game 8 DamWargh!XXL 2 vs Kamikaze - DamWargh!XXL 2
Game 9 Red Sevens vs DamWargh!XXL 2 - Red Sevens
Game 10 Kamikaze vs DamWargh!XXL 1 - DamWargh!XXL 1
Game 11 Red Sevens vs Kamikaze - Red Sevens
Game 12 DamWargh!XXL 2 vs DamWargh!XXL 1 - DamWargh!XXL 2

Rankings
DamWargh!XXL 2 - 5 wins, 1 loss - 83.3%
Red Sevens - 3 wins, 3 losses - 50%
DamWargh!XXL 1 - 3 wins, 3 losses - 50%
Kamikaze - 1 win, 5 losses - 16.6%

Field Test - New Paintball Gear...

Ok - Observations from first run with all my gear...

- Although I can dance all night at Zouk in a alcohol enhanced trance, 5 minutes on a PB field in full kit playing re-spawn simply kills me...

- The Empire elbow ground pounders are great protection but take getting used to wearing and add to the heat exhaustion

- The Dye C8 pants are also great protection and look great but with the multi-layers and lining no amount of venting seems to help

- The Empire Events Goggles are great - a little less visibility than the Profilers and probably less protection but they fit well. Still undecided as to whether the lack of front venting effects both breathing and communication - will be doing more testing to find out. The lenses change over in a flash although the locking bits are tiny and I can see them getting lost very easily if I'm not careful. The additional attachments for the cap peak etc are also a little hard to put on when the lense is in...

I did take a hit on the bottom of the jaw guard which I think then bounced on to my neck - bit hard to tell if this was actually the case or got hit twice as there was paint flying in all directions - so if you're worried about more protection the profilers look like they offer a little more in this area...

Will update with pretty pics later..

TD/XboX Forummers Paintball Orgy

TD hosted a bunch of guys from the Singapore XboX Forums at Red Dynasty today and despite a heavy downpour that turned most of the field into a mudbath, everyone was ready for some paintballing action!

Kudos to the armchair warriors who showed they were equally gung ho in real life as they are on Xbox Live. We hope you all enjoyed yourselves and perhaps even get the paintball bug.

I'm shagged so I'm just gonna steal some of what I posted in the XboX forums as paste them here for the rest of this post.

We saw a couple of acts of heroism that would have earned multiple medals from the SAF and also a couple of turkey of the year awards. Some guys would have earned both!

Our war correspondent extraordinaire Arthur will be putting up more pictures so stay tuned to this thread. I hope those who got the paintball bug will consider playing tournament paintball. Find out more at the Singapore paintball forums.

We'll try and organise more sessions but the Team Damnation paintball squad will be preparing to take part in tournaments both locally and in Malaysia so these kinda fun days will be few and far between.

Getting a team together and playing in the local leagues and tournaments is the way to go so give us a call if you want to find out more.

P.S The bruises take a couple of days to disappear!

RD5 League 2008

Hot off the internet press... RD are looking into a 5 man league... we look forward to hearing more details on the concept.

RD5 League 2008 Forum Thread Link

Meanwhile Team Damnation and some BOB.com.sg forum members are getting together this Saturday for some paintball pleasure. For those who don't know BOB stands for Brotherhood of the Box, like minded xbox gamers who get together and rant about their xbox gaming addiction. So it will be interesting to see whether the boys and girls can take out the current #1 Ghost Recon 2 player in Singapore aka houdini RIP : ) on the paintball field (yes I'm taunting the opposition to play hard - being a whiz on an xbox controller is far removed from real-life fitness and marker skills)

Looking forward to also road testing our new gear - expect reviews to be posted next week.

I think the rest of TD will agree - the weekend can't come soon enough!!!!!

Ready to roll!

Question: What could possibly make four grown men make a fool of themselves in public, oblivious to the stares of passers-by?
Answer: A box filled to the brim with goodies from http://www.actionvillage.com/!

There we were, four reasonably respectable men who have decent day jobs sitting outdoor at the Starbucks in Tampines Mall, sipping lattes and other overpriced drinks.

In fact, we looked perfectly normal until Houdini started dishing out all the goodies. At first, people were just stealing glances but these turned into outright stares as the V-Force profilers and Empire E-Vents came on lol. You'd have expected one of them to have called the cops based on the looks we were getting hehe.

We didn't care. We were too busy admiring the abovementioned masks, the Dye C7, C8 and Empire Contact pants, the Empire groundpounder elbow guards, our harnesses and even the pods! We'll have some pictures up soon but you can bet your last dollar that we tried on all our gear as soon as we got home!

PICTURES

BACK TO BLACK

Ok one word...

WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



Our gear is here..