| My first successful head shot: |
| Submitted by juxstapo |
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| Lets see, allow me to paint a picture of the chaps I was playing with: First there was John; John was the experienced player, the veteran among us, because he has played eight more games than the rest of us. Then there was Noah, cousin of mine and a newbie just like me, in fact he started at the exact time I did and for the same reasons. John was a paintballers paintballer, followed accepted tactics by the book in every situation. Noah had no clue as to proper paintball tactics, but was totally unafraid, very comfortable around firearms of every variety, and gung-ho enough to not care about his low experience level, despite who he was playing against. The field of battle was situated behind another newbie's house, he was unable to attend at the time, and was later a little put off that we had played on his property with out him. But thats another story. It was about an acre square and blanketed with waist high blackberrys and broomsage. For those unintiated in south eastern American flora, blackberries grow on stiff, thorny things commonly referred to as 'briars' which tend to leave unpleasent little barbs in every thing that attempts to pass them. Being 'born and bred in a briar patch' we had no qualms about playing amongst them, and felt it would add to the challenge. Broomsage is just a dry, beige colored plant that people once made brooms out of. Its easy to hide in, and often tall enough to leave fluffy seed pods in your mouth if you attempt to run through it. Over all these plants average just above waist high. So if you were standing up, everyone on the field could see you, and if you were laying down, no one on the field could see you, but you would get quite a few thorns and fluffy seeds about your person. The field was surrounded by several acres of hardwoods, and the only cover available were a half dozen smallish sycomores too far apart and narrow to be of any use. A road of sorts had been bushhogged from the southeastern corner to the northwestern corner to allow easy access for the local hunting club. One thing the field had which was really cool was a totally enclose deerstand right in the middle of it. We were playing "cival war", (no hopper, load by hand), with a fifteen round limit. Each of us represented a different faction. Noah was confederate, I was Union, and John was, (somehow or another), Italian. This was mostly because my people came from the mountains, John was of Italian heritage, and Noah absolutly refused to be called anything other than Confederate. John and I opted to remove one another before going after Noah, who stationed himself at the far end of the field. So we began a series of complex, briar-hopping manuevers and exchanging the occasional shot. I wound up in the clear road thingy, where I could comfortable crouch as low as possible and be hidden by the briar and brush on either side of the road. John wound up some 50 to sixty feet distant, near the corner opposite the one the road started in, behind one of the little tree clusters. Some wouldn't consider that 'long' range, but we were inexperienced and all playing with Brass Eagle, so go figure. I popped up and let a round fly, dodging the response and ducking back into my cover. I crawled a couple of feet to the left to counter the possibility of him drawing a bead on me. We repeated the process, pop, shoot, counter-shot, duck. And this time after I shot and ducked, I heard the sudden "frip frip frip frip" of John's outfit interacting with the briars at high speeds, (Noah and I played in black tee shirts and jeans, John was decked out in a full set of BDUs complete with combat boots and a "radar" cap). I peered up over my cover to see him leaping and bounding, (with no small amount of difficulty), through the brush. I frowned. He lept. I raised my eyebrows. He bounded. I dropped another ball into my feed tube. He soared. I completely failed to aim, align, or in fact move my gun from my hip based loading position in any way. He hurtled. I pulled the trigger. He flew through the broomsage, the paintball flew through the barrel. Him being at the self imposed mid-air elevation, and I crouching, it barely caught him across the forehead right over his mask. Adding its momentum to his lack of traction nearly knocked him over backwards. It failed to break, but it did earn him a whiplash that had him resembeling an unattractive Italian unicorn for the rest of the day. I went on to be marked out by Noah at what we considered an extreme range, but he had to use all fifteen shots to do it. In fact I have a sneaky suspicion he fired around thirty shots, he was at the end of the field where we had stashed all the equipment. But I said nothing, there would always be another game. And I will vividly remember my first succesful head shot. After that I bought John a drink at the Waffle House to somewhat make up for sending him home looking like a police aggression victem. Everyone in the restraunt was giving us odd looks for the militant outfits. We talked in hushed tones of the coming rebellion, and how the liberalist dogs would quake in their armchairs at the sound of our names... the patrons went back to their plates, we chuckled and shook our heads. Oh yes, there would always be... another game. |
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