1. The Liquor store!
2. The Flying J!
3. Big Boy's Toys!
Modest traffic aside the ride in was greatly uneventful and harmless thankfully but once we got to the flying J with a slight raid in another local store it was onward to EMR with Big Boy's Toys being the only stop over enroute. Of course Will being new had to put his eyeballs back in his skull after seeing all the guns on the walls with the various barrels and so on but finally settled on a five pod pack with the appropriate pods. After some joking around with the folks in the store we were on our way. Myself and Brian had seen the park before but will was pretty amazed at the stuff in there, the bunk houses...the mud...the large amounts of people present...the mud.... the massive gravel that made up the main road...the mud....did I mention that EMR is notorious for it's mud? Ok good just checking, anyway so after unpacking Brian and I went about showing will the sights which of course started with a trip to the castle. Being a one acre castle it was more then most would expect it's huge, constantly modified and repaired as the new boards would attest, and largely is a pretty dominating feature on the landscape. Of course this year we noticed the lack of inflatable barriers and an increase in barrels of all shapes and sizes. After a short tour through which I got on digital camera lot of it, we went about registration buying paint, and generally getting settled in for the evening. Tonight would be the big party night as everyone would be far to tired to do much after castle. The usual Bonn fire was lit and the usual shenanigans occurred topped off with a visit by a member of Damage Inc who promptly started messing with Will's mind much to the amusement of everyone else. Of course by about 1am everyone pretty much turned in and you know that�s another thing they don�t put in the EMR Brochures it gets COLD at night no matter the season so most of us in the SCP bunkhouse were pretty cold which screwed up sleep for most.
Pre-Invasion!
"We're just gonna charge right in, don�t worry about getting hit!" -Joint Fury
On the day of the big attack it was pretty obvious just about everyone was beyond primed, folks were milling about at 7am, and the weather was spectacular, although a little cold. All was quiet for the first few hours, and of course by the time Meph woke up he opted to use sonic warfare by putting El Chombo - Chacarron Macarron on the stereo system. Talk about a wake up call that song has got to be the musical equal to AIDS it's so infectious even if it is funny. Chrono opened at 9am followed by the normal safety meeting at 10, some folks were lucky in that thy went in and came out others like yours truly had to try to chrono three times due to various problems including paint in the barrel, low tank pressure and the need to fine tune the gun. I still say the ref felt so sorry for my inconsistent gun she let me through on pity, but that�s another story. Anyway the line to fill up CO2 was twice as long as the Compressed air lines (go figure) so some of us had to spend time waiting on that. With done time seemed to speed by as those of us attacking talked about plans to take on the toughest castle ever, the dueling splat masters/ VM's came up and were at least partly implemented either way a whole lot of attackers, about 800 of us had a whole lot of ways to try and assail the defenders who had a much more solid plan.
Showtime!
"Aww crap, not only are we pinned here but now it's getting dark!"
Even so the first insertion was at 1100am, and we went screaming in and unfortunately the attack on the right bogged down as the attackers got fired on from the ridgeline. The defenders were using positions in Tippmann town to harass us on the way in, one could guess that some of the other attackers thought there were far more defenders up there since we could barely see any of them not that it mattered since eventually a number of brave attackers rushed up to take positions by the rock wall in the hills and take up positions in between the various boulders and snags of trees.
This is where the attackers on the right met their first choke point, no one wanted to advance so everyone clumped up right behind the rock face. Of course this limited advance allowed the defenders to try and out flank us by moving a handful of players to the far right where we had no effective cover. At the time I was crouching behind a boulder after having moved further down to go along with the attempted rush to take Tippmann town when the flankers paint started flying overhead. For my efforts to try and get at the flankers I took three hits to the head and got another in the back of the head as my first visit to the dead box occurred. By the time I got reinserted we were poised to overrun the town, and did so, it was only a few short moments before we took out the last hold out in the town and moved to take the upper fields behind the castle. Tasking the fields was more or less a cakewalk because the players who were inserted on the left had cleared a lot of it before we broke out even so both sides met and began attacking their targets, the left was working on wall three and it's ramp...while the right was working on wall four and it's respective ramp which is where we met our second stalemate in the form of two separate shooters positioned within the walls of the castle just so that we'd have hell trying to remove them. In the end there was perhaps three or four separate attempts to rush the ramp and take the upper floor all of which were peeled back in the end. So there we were behind this four-sided wooden bunker trying to minimize our profiles so these two defenders in the walls couldn't get at us, it was a stalemate until finally a couple of us fired on the same hole in the wall all at once, we managed to light the guy up enough that when he didn't move someone called the ref and the guy got moved onwards to the dead box. Of course after this ranged fight I had to make my own exit due to a lack of ammo.
After a reload of ammo thanks to Brian, and a refill on my 20oz tank I was back in business and ended up hooking up with Meph who was trying to organize a rush on the large doorway in wall 3, we hooked up with some other players and an objective runner, and just before we could make our move Mesh�s batteries died and he had to step out and we were without a plan. In the end we found ourselves up against the third wall where I kept moving up and down relaying messages between those on the corner of the second/third walls and those further down within the third wall. It was then we attackers heard what we didn't want to the sound of the defender's reinforcements. It' all started with the appearance of some goofball wearing a bright green nylon tube like the sort kids have in their backgrounds. He appeared around the corner and became a prime target as he yelled "You can�t shoot me!" Of course we sure as hell did, poor guy went from green to a sickly blue color fast but we didn't know that was just a distraction for the charging defenders who attacked full force and wiped just about everyone out who was preparing to enter the corner doorway, including myself. Short trip to the dead box later and we were back at it but climbing the left side's hill the very same hill I fought with in fall castle.
This is where the mud came in, you see few EMR veterans make this mistake and I sure as heck didn't either seeing as how I'm a landscaper but on the insertion I watched some kid, couldn't have been more then perhaps fifteen step into the mud trough that led up to the hill his foot hit solid ground so he made another step...this foot sank in with a gooey gurgle. Next thing I see is the kid take another step then another but his foot had come loose of his shoe so he steps full on into the muck with just a sock on. That�s another lesson at EMR never underestimate the mud nor the age limit for serious cursing. A short trip up the hill, we found ourselves attacking the wall again with no sign of the defenders to be seen, we positioned for another break-in and set up to make a mass rush through the third wall's door just before the whistle was blown. At this point we were almost at the four-hour mark...we had two props at least and were about to cede defeat when it became apparent that it wasn't an end just a pause since a player had hurt himself and had to be carted from the field. As it turned out the player had slipped somewhere in the castle and been shot in the back by a stray round. Later everyone would find out that the player was just fine making CCXXI an injury-free game. With the player evacuated the game was under debate, should it be continued or not. Blue was at the corner of wall 3&2 with some defenders and those of us attackers who happened to be in the area at the moment.
"So what do you think guys should we continue restart or call it?
Of course as tired as I was at the time I couldn't resist being wiseass and heckling blue for the very thought of us attackers giving up.
"It's funny we were going to ask you the same thing! You know you can�t stop us!"
From there the game was on, I had to exit the field for a short period to get a drink and some food, but by the time I got myself ready to go back in the attackers had won in record time capturing all 10 objectives. That ended the 10th anniversary of Conquest, and one of the most difficult attacks on the castle that most had seen. Of course that evening there was the prize giveaway which as always had some darn cool stuff handed out, on the same note the paintball museum opened and everyone either started cracking their drinks and settling in, or were entering the big tournament which was sponsored by Tiberius arms, the Top Gun tourney with the prize being one of their nice paintball pistols.
Either way it was one hell of a game, the defenders and attackers seemed to have fun, and in an unusual change from the norm, EMR arranged for fireworks to celebrate their miracle tenth year. Shame there was no beer pong to be seen but hell maybe next castle...
The Long, Long Road
Of course to say this story is over at the end of the event is a plain old lie. You see it's the way of the universe that when I and Brian are in the same location and time some sort of mayhem has to happen, and it happened on route 82 on the way back to New Jersey. Inevitably when you�re out there on those two-lane roads between states you end up running into speed demons that are just ass holes to begin with. On that note I need to clarify that there are two types of asshole, the bad kind that do stupid thoughtless things to make life generally uncool for everyone. Then there�s the good kind, those of us who make life miserable for the aforementioned bad assholes, folks like me who get a kick out of making parking enforcement suffer, torment IRS auditors, and proceed to make tailgaters suffer by going even slower just shits and giggles. So there all three of us were hurtling down I-82, when some ass in a truck pulls up behind us and beings flashing his lights because apparently driving 70 when the speed limit is 65 just ain't fast enough. Being the ass I was at the moment I pulled the car up next to a semi and matched speeds, yes that�s right so now there was no way around, just us the semi and a whole lot of ticked mobile gridlock. For the record the semi was going about 45 mph, so the guy behind us was getting even more ticked as I tapped the brakes blatantly to make him madder, will and Brian were in hysterics and I was wiping tears from my eyes because all of us were laughing that hard but no it gets worse. You see the good form of asshole tends to spread like Christmas cheer so then Will gets the idea to get the semi to honk so we speed up a little and will gestures to the semi. I guess the semi driver knew what we were up to because who ever it was starts honking up a storm and the guy behind us is redder then a beet. The poor guy got this brand of torment including us waving at him for at least forty miles. No wait this is not the end, we tormented that guy the whole way back into New jersey all one hundred miles of it at least until he turned off somewhere on I-280. In the meanwhile we also played car ping-pong, which involves pulling in front of someone who cuts you off then slowing down to force them into another lane. After which you get in front of them again and again with the goal to be getting the most lane switches. The ugly lady in a BMW we tormented was three swaps. Of course our road torment didn't end until we tormented a slow driver in eagle rock who was driving 15 mph down a single-lane road like an idiot so to be annoying I started beeping the beats to Clarence Carter's 'Strokin!' just to be annoying. I finally stopped when the lady on eagle rock road turned off and we hit a song I knew I couldn't keep beeping in tune to. So that dear readers is a profile of good Assholery, of course this story is not content edited and if you've read it you already agreed to the disclaimer on content either way I hope you were entertained, and if you don�t believe my written words just ask Brian of the paintball marshals he'll vouch for it.
Have a nice day and don�t be a dickweed on the interstate...I might just be the ass who shuts you down!