Preparing to go to WARGH!!

The day is finally here. Its WARGH!!
Its 5 am and ive just got done packing everything i need for wargh. Modifed the standard issue LBV to include my dslr harness. Knee pads for protection and boots likewise.

Team Damnation is back ..

Update soon on event pictures..



WARGH!!!!!!!!

Evolution of Paintball markers

For the most part, I've been using rental markers throughout the time I've been playing paintball. Besides RAP4 markers, I've used mostly Tippmans and Spyders and with such limited exposure I wouldn't even dare to start writing about markers. Not yet anyway. However, I have been fortunate enough to come across a pretty decent article about the evolution of paintball markers written by Billy Goodman and would like to share the link below. Enjoy.

Evolution

First draft of a concept for the new Team Damnation Paintball Team logo... let me know your thoughts?

Paintball fitness

When I told my wife I was planning to get a group together to play competitive paintball her first reaction was to raise an eyebrow. I can't really blame her because my idea of a pastime until recently involved sitting in front of a computer and playing World of Warcraft or gunning down virtual representations of my online buddies on the Xbox 360.

I've recently stopped the former and have not been spending much time on the latter and honestly feel liberated lol. I just can't imagine having spent hours on end sitting down and taking part in raids or multiplayer battles where the only physical exercise I was getting was in my wrist and fingers.

Getting back to paintballing is a refreshing change and I've already started trying to get back into shape. Well, sort of. At the moment, my "fitness plan" involves alternate periods of jogging and walking for about 20-30 minutes in the Sembawang Road area. If you're ever in the area and see someone collapsed on the sidewalk and gasping for breath, that's probably me.

I suppose playing regularly will also help with the fitness levels but I probably wont be earning any brownie points with the rest of the guys if I keep collapsing every 3 minutes on the speedball field.

Compared to when I was paintballing 4-5 years ago, I am seriously out of shape and have basically turned to the net to see what kind of drills will be of use to someone like me. I'm probably not going to have the time or willpower to hit the gym seriously so whatever I resort will need to be something well within my current condition. For now anyways.

I've found one interesting article on the paintballguns.net website:

Paintball Fitness

Whether you play paintball for fun or play on a team, there are steps you can take to improve your game. Much of what you can do to better prepare yourself for the game of paintball is to get into great physical condition. Being physically fit and strong will help you to play the game at your highest potential.

Reality

There are many areas of physical fitness you can work to develop that will help you to improve your skills at paintball. Exercising and eating well will help you to stay in the best shape you can for your paintball games. Playing a day full of paintball does take a great deal of energy. Players often are tired and even sore after a game. However, the more fit you are, the better you will feel during and after you play paintball.

What’s the Plan?

A workout plan for paintball fitness should include cardiovascular workouts, strength training and running exercises. You should be exercising several times a week. Your workouts can include more than one form of physical fitness at once. For instance, you might run and do a cardio workout all in the same day.

Your cardio workouts will help you to improve your endurance. After implementing cardio workouts you should start to notice that you are not as tired or as winded when running around while playing paintball. For your cardio workouts, there are a variety of exercises and equipment you can use.

If you are visiting the gym, you can work out on the treadmills or stationery bikes. Of course, you might have one of these pieces of equipment in your own home.

For those of you who do not use the gym, there are a variety of cardio exercises you can do from home. Go out for a jog or take some bike rides. When indoors, you can use stair climbers, use aerobic videos, kick boxing or jump run just to name a few ideas. To keep from getting bored with your exercises try taking turns among some of your favorite cardio activities. What is important is to get that heart pumping!

Endurance

You will be running a great deal during your paintball games. Most times you will be sprinting during the game. But you do not simply want to focus on your speed abilities when preparing for the sports. You also will want to pay attention to your endurance when it comes to running.

Therefore, it is a good idea to practice both distance running and speed running. Incorporate some longer distance runs into your workouts a few times each week. Run for three miles or so to help you prepare to run around all day when playing paintball. You can take time to practice sprinting and running short distances as fast as you can. This will aide you in increasing your speed when playing paintball.

Strength

Strength is another necessary component if you wish to become an ace paintball player. You will be carrying around your paintball gun throughout the day. Your sport will consist of carrying your gun, running, shooting, diving, crawling and other activities. Your body needs to be strong in order to withstand the activities throughout the game. If you wish to get in shape and to stay in shape for paintball, you also should have strength training three times a week or so. It is important not to have strength-training everyday so that you have time to heal in between your workouts.

If your main goal is to build muscle strength and build up your muscles for paintball, there are a few specific areas of your body that you will want to target. The legs and your muscles should be primary focuses. This will help you to have the strength and endurance to stay on your feet all day and to cover a great deal of ground, especially while running. You will want to make sure that you have strong back muscles and therefore will want exercises targeting the back.

The Six Pack

Paintball players will want to have strong abdominal muscles as well. You can work towards that six pack abs for many reasons, including further benefits to your paintball game. Because you will be carrying your paintball and any other equipment all day you will want to work on your upper body. It is especially important to work out in ways that will target the muscles in your shoulders. A few examples of strength training exercises that will help you prepare yourself for paintball include: squats, shoulder presses, lunges, dead lifts and leg extensions.

To further strengthen your abdomens, you may want to use a few other exercises. Abdominal crunches, oblique crunches and reverse crunches are an excellent place to start. There are a variety of exercises that can be used to build strength for the upper and lower body muscles as well as the muscles in the back and abdomens.

The Internet provides a great resource for finding sample workouts. An example of a site with some strength training and ab exercises (including photos), can be found at http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwfit/strength.html.

Diet

What you eat can have an impact on your paintball game. As with any sport, it is important to eat well for health and fitness to play paintball. You do not want to eat a diet that is high in fat. This is important to stay lean and fit. Of course, everyone should limit his or her fat intake in an attempt to obtain optimal health. Eat a well balanced diet at all times. Work on decreasing the amount of foods that are high in fats and sugars. Fill your plate with plenty of fruits and vegetables.

Paintball players also should drink plenty of water. You will be doing a lot of running around and “exercise” while playing paintball. It is necessary to stay well hydrated. Many paintball players drink sports drinks such as Gatorade. This is a good choice as well. However, it is important to remember that a large quantity of your fluid intake should come from water. Drinks that are high in caffeine and sugar should be kept to a minimum.

The day before a paintball game or tournament you may want to change your diet a little. Make sure to eat plenty of carbohydrates. In your normal diet you will eat a healthy mix of carbohydrates, proteins and good fats. However, carbohydrates will provide you with increased energy that you will want for your paintball games. Pasta is a common food that is eaten by athletes, including runners the day before events. Select some foods that have some complex carbohydrates. Again, remember to drink plenty of fluids.

Both your diet and exercise can affect your paintball game. Paintball is a very active sport that requires a lot of strength and energy. Through proper diet and workouts you can maximize your potential as a paintball player.

credit: http://www.paintballguns.net/paintball-fitness/

Gearing up for TEAM DAMNATION

Ok proper paintball gear probably won't make us play like champions but Myaadraal's non PB pants came off second best when he dove knee first into the gravel so we are all keen to get suited up with proper PB clothing . I'm going to start posting up items for discussion by the crew. I think we have all agreed that custom jerseys are the go. A few sites we should look at:

http://www.animalpaintball.com/

http://www.diablodirect.com/jerseys-pro.asp

http://www.csgpromote.com/main/page_products_paintball.html

http://www.eye2eye.org/ProductsPaintball.htm

As for pants well there are lotof well established brands to choose from. Obviously the sweltering Singapore humidity is as much a consideration as comfort, padding and durability.

The Dye C7 (pictured) gets a lot of rave reviews online. I've struggled to find anything that matches the quality of these - especially in terms of venting.

Have checked out some goggles as well - the Proto Axis gets great reviews as does the Empire Events goggle

This site has a sale on Empire as well as other useful stuff

http://www.sakworldpaintball.com/veevpagopreo.html

If anyone has any other links or suggestions let us know?

In the meantime I'm getting to work on a new Team Damnation Paintball team logo. Bring the fear on!!

BTOed...well worth it!

AMOK living on the edge.... one hand steering and SMS

Three of us from TD - Amok, Houdini & Myaadraal - went for the BTO (Basic Tournament Orientation) session at Red Dynasty today and had a blast!

Red Dynasty Entrance to pwnage

For those not in the loop, due to regulations and restrictions by the Singapore Police Force, players who want to play without the centreline in a speedball field need to be certified by the Paintball Association of Singapore (PBAS). This is accomplished by taking the BTO for a nominal fee which include marker, mask rental and a hopper-full of paintballs.

Stay away ... my balls stray..


Calgar gave us a very detailed briefing on rules, safety and overall gameplay with a cameo appearance by King who assisted with a few theatrical poses to illustrate a few points.


Houdini... now you see me ..


After the briefing we went ahead with a couple of rounds but we were all put into random groups so that made a mess of TDs pre-BTO planning sessions and wasted all those diagrams and video reviews we've run through.

Well ok. We didn't do all that but we did watch a lot of youtube videos!

Anyway, it was fun getting back into paintballing and the two matches we had did get the adrenaline rushing a bit. Scary part in the second game was when this kid sprinted past me towards our deadbox and as I was laying into him, I saw Myaadraal running past me and I actually cringed expecting the sting of the shots on my back.

But all he did was run right past and grab the flag before one of us hit him in the crossfire. Found out later the muppet wasted all his rounds trying to suppress our back player and was out of ammo. HA HA.

Houdini was in his element as well capping a couple of players although he was called out twice when he wasnt actually hit. First time he called himself out after feeling a bounce but I reckon he just didn't wanna get hit by half a dozen balls cos he was the last man and was facing two charging opponents. Hehe. Second time he was called out cos the marshals just wanted see how he reacted to being called out. It was part of the test I guess.

Anyway we all passed and will be able to play and train for future tournaments without the centreline and we'll be getting into the act for sure. We've been bitten by the bug now and I must say the professional way Red Dynasty is being run is also a good factor. Great job guys, we'll be seeing you often for sure.

By the way, your's truly didnt even get one speck of paint on him :D


A lot of JT luvin..


The Myaa

Speedball Field Terms

Found this little nugget while trolling the net for paintball related articles and since I've never seen it anywhere else I'm gonna post it here with the appropriate credit and link given to the author at the end. It has been edited a little.

Speedball Field Terms

I looked around a bit and couldn't find any defining diagrams or terms to describe the field set up for a speedball field and thought it would be helpful if one was posted to help new players understand what is being called out on the field of play.

The triangles are Doritos, circles are pop-cans, the dumb-bell looking thing on the right is the snake and the rectangle on the left is another low lying bunker. Call it what you will.

The 50: The 50 is the center of the field. Any bunker on this line will be called out as left, center or right 50. Reasons for calling out a bunker would be to alert team members of an opponent behind said bunker or instructing a teammate to move up to that bunker.

Front players for both teams will try and scramble to this position if they can. If your team can control the 50, your chances for success are great. The 30 is between the 50 and the back bunkers. It's another reference point for calling out instructions/alerts. Mid players will set up here off the break and sometimes assist the back players in shooting lanes to give their fronts more time to get to their bunkers.

Keeping with the trend, this is also why the back bunkers are called out. These bunkers will be shielding the other team's back players who will be calling out to their teammates about your team's positions. The faster you can get these guys out, the better. If the opposing team loses their back players and doesn't realize it, they will be in trouble fast.

At the same time, you need to be aware of your back players. Should you lose one, someone is going to have to fall back and take their position/duties. This is usually a mid. Each bunker needs to be played differently.

The position of the bunkers will change the way the field is played, so if your regular field decides to take the pop-cans from the back corners and replace them with small doritos, your typical tactic of being able to stand back from the pop-can and watching the goings ons isn't going to work.

You're now going to need to be positioned closer to the bunker and crouching, if not laying down, which seriously affects your ability to move, change sides and snap shoot. Practice playing every bunker type, regardless of the position you play.

The bunker's position on the field is also going to dictate how you play it. You aren't going to play a tombstone at the center 30 the same way as the back right, so make sure you get exposure in all situations.

Pop-cans: These are tall bunkers which a player can stand up behind. The further away your opponent is, the further back you can stand from the bunker. This gives you an obvious advantage of being able to see more of the field. As your opponent approaches, get tighter into the bunker.

Be aware of any part of you or your marker that may be exposed. If you're up against someone that's using a marker they've had since 2000, and he fires a 3 shot burst at your exposed pod, 1 of 3 shots IS going to hit you.

Doritos: Pyramid shaped bunkers that are played crouching or laying flat depending on the situation. if you lay flat, you risk exposing your feet to someone sitting 30 feet away and to the side. Because of the Dorito's physical shape, it provides an opportunity to come up and over the top at any level.

Coming over the top however exposes more of your profile. The more profile you show, the greater the chance of your nickname becoming Christmas Tree before the day is out.

The Snake: 9 times out of 8 this will require you to crawl on your belly amongst the broken paint shells and who knows how many years worth of fill that has soaked into the field's astro turf (if you're so lucky to play on astro turf).

Movement in the snake is slow. Opportunities will arise where an opponent isn't paying attention and practically paints a bullseye on his back for you. At the same time, your prone position makes you easy pickings for the full court press.

Deadbox: perhaps i should have started with this one. This is where your team will start each game. Barrels typically are required to be touching the netting. This is also where you go when the paintball addressed to "Whom It May Concern" gets delivered to you. Once you are behind this net, the saying "Dead men tell no tales" applies.

Keep your mouth shut even if your best friend is about to get bunkered by two guys with electro paint hoses. That's all i've got. If anyone else feels i've missed something, posted misinformation or just plain disagrees, feel free to say so.

Article by ZfrkS62 lifted from http://www.paintballforum.com