NOTE: I am recalling some of this from videos we took, but most of it is from memory, so it may not be perfectly accurate.
Friday, Day 1:
We arrived at M4's house at 3:00, exactly when I said we would try to. There was a small problem however...M4 wasn't there. We tried to call him, but we couldn't get through. Fortunately, he showed up around 3:15, putting an end to our wait and set our hearts at ease knowing that we were indeed at the right place. After we'd set up our tents in his backyard and my grandfather had left, we shot some balloons off with my Douchenator for M4 and his friends. After shooting it maybe 3 or 4 times, I unpacked my water blasters, and we started discussing our first battle of the war.
Round 1, 2vs2 OHS, played until either team gets 10 hits:
Me (SEAL)
Keith (My younger brother)
vs.
M4
Jon (My youngest brother)
I started out wielding the Douchenator (it was M4's idea.), wearing my backpack with my XP 270 stuffed inside, my bike pump strapped to the outside, and a bag of filled water balloons hanging at my side. Keith had my CPS 2700, and I made it extremely clear to him to keep the enemy away from me at all costs. We started next to our tent, and M4 and Jon started in the backyard of the foreclosured house next door, each of which were our spawn points. When the battle began, I hung back, while Keith moved forward towards M4's tool shed. M4 ran to the opposite side, and they exchanged shots. Since M4 was using his CPS 2000, he was able to shoot Keith while staying out of range of his 2700.
Now, I had to be extremely careful, because while I was pretty much invincible while my WBL was loaded, if I fired a shot, I would be as good as dead; because Keith and Jon were using the only blasters with straps that I had, I had no choice but to use my 270, which I had in my backpack, and would take half a minute just to get it out due to all the other crap I had strapped onto it.
M4 and Keith skirmished again, with M4 once again coming out on top. I couldn't let this keep going on, so I searched for an opportunity to yank the lever back. Jon was hanging back, probably not wanting to get shot, but I wouldn't have shot him anyway; I was going after the big fish. Once Keith had respawned, and M4 was standing somewhat still, I decided to take the chance. I fired, and M4 leaped backwards to the side, and barely avoided getting hit in the leg. I knew I was screwed even before Keith was taken out for a third time. Score: 4-0.
After that, I just left the Douchenator back by our spawn point and pulled out the 270. I still didn't have a very good chance against the 2000 and 1200, but I would definitely do better with it than the WBL. We met their next assault with aggression; Unfortunately, M4 took out Keith again, but while he was distracted, I charged Jon, and might have been able to get him, were it not for M4, who was not distracted anymore. As he came in from the right, I took a one-handed shot at him, but started to lose my balance when I tried to dodge his and Jon's streams at the same time. I did a roll on the ground (you'll see it in the video; it's pretty funny.), but I didn't do it fast enough, and Jon shot me.
We didn't get any footage after that (at least not on my camera.), but basically, a lot of the same stuff happened. I somehow managed to get a few kills with the 270, but I'm pretty sure Keith got most of our kills. Eventually, the match ended, and we lost 10 to 5, which actually wasn't too bad, considering that we had an inferior arsenal. I didn't use the WBL again, but M4's friend Jacob (I think that was his name.) decided to have some fun with it; while me and Keith were fighting, he would load the launcher and take some shots at M4. He didn't hit him though, and a lot of the time he didn't pump it up enough or something, because it would only shoot 50-60 feet, and the balloons wouldn't leave the sabot. I don't know what he was doing wrong, because it worked fine for me afterwards.
Scott and his dad arrived a little bit after we finished, and after talking for a little while, we decided to have a CTF round with the orange surveyer's flags I brought (so we wouldn't have to use Goblins again.). To make it a bit more interesting, we had each team start with 2 flags, we'd play until the pizza delivery guy arrived, and whichever team had the most flags when the game was over would win. M4's friend Chris showed up also, so we could now have 3 on 3.
Round 2, 3vs3 4-flag CTF, played until arrival of pizza man:
Me
Keith
Scott
vs.
M4
Chris
Jon
This time, I used my good ol' CPS 2700, with my mind set on being a defender. The other team had very heavy weaponry, Jon used M4's Monster XL, and Chris used his CPS 3200. M4 was the lightest armed with his CPS 2000, although he did use my WBL once in a while without my permission. We switched spawn points, with us starting in the front yard of the house next door, while the other team started by the tents.
I sent Keith out, while me and Scott stayed behind. I'm pretty sure Keith was the fastest person on the team, and he would be our main flag runner, but the first time, I mostly wanted him to test the defense and report back to us. It turned out that all three of our enemies were on defense at first, so Keith was hit and had to go back and respawn at the water heater thing on the side of the foreclosured house.
We decided that it'd be better to wait until the other team made their move, and we didn't have long to wait; M4 and Chris appeared around M4's house, and started to move in on the left. Since he knew Jon was the only one left on defense, and with an MXL no less, Keith ran away to the right, while we held off M4 and Chris. I believe we were successfully able to eliminate both of them, and Keith was able to get by Jon and take a flag, and since everyone on the other team was respawning, he made it back to our base, and we were winning, with 3 flags to the other team's 1.
Alas, good things never last. M4 and Chris once again brought the heat, except this time from two different directions. While M4 kept us busy from the left, Chris snuck around the forclosured house from the right, grabbed one of our flags, and started running for it. I quickly chased after him, and managed to catch up and score the hit. I brought the flag back, but M4 was able to break through our defenses and swipe another of the flags, leaving both teams with two flags again.
Now there seems to be a blank spot in my memory here. Someone (most likely M4.) stole another flag from us, leaving us with only 1, while they had 3. I can't remember how it happened though. It might have been when me and Keith tried to attack their base and steal back one or both of the flags, leaving Scott alone, and therefore weakening our defense and letting one of the enemies take another flag. Whatever happened, we were now behind. Scott decided to switch to his Vindicator from his CPS 2500. Thinking about buying a 2500 myself, I asked Scott if I could use it.
Now that I had the 2500, I was better equipped to go on offense. I tried two or three times to attack the opponents' base and steal a flag, but I was unsuccessful each time, because they now had the lead and had shifted to the defensive. Finally, we had a team meeting, and decided that since we were already behind, it won't matter if they take another flag because they'll have won anyway. After talking it over a little, we brought the house. Scott wanted to use his 2500 again, so I gave it back and took up my 2700 once again.
The assault worked very well. Keith attacked them from the right, and Scott and I went to the left. Once me and Scott got close, I went around behind the base while Scott attacked from the front. Chris had taken up my Douchenator, which made me stop in my tracks. Fortunately for me, Chris obviously didn't know much about WBLs, and he tipped the barrel down just a little bit too far, and the balloon fell out and burst on the ground. With a "Hah!", I rushed forward, only to make a frantic jump towards a tree as he fired the sabot at me with nothing in it. I'm not sure why he did this; maybe he didn't know the balloon fell out (which is kind of unlikely.), or maybe he was trying to hold me back long enough for him to take up his blaster (I think he switched to one of M4's CPS 1500s.).I was still able to take him out, and I think Scott got M4, so the defense was weak. I'm pretty sure Jon was also eliminated, probably by Keith. They respawned pretty quickly though, thanks to the short distance they had to go to their spawn point. Scott and I distracted them long enough for Keith to grab two flags, but we were both eliminated. But by that time, Keith was already halfway to our base, sprinting like a cheetah.
After Scott and I respawned, we gathered ourselves and prepared for the inevitable onslaught from the other team. We expected them to follow a similar course of action as we did, because it worked so well. Just then...The pizza man arrived! We had pulled off a win at the very last minute. It was awesome. This was definitely one of my favorite rounds in the entire war, not just because we won, but because it was just so intense. There was hardly a dull moment in the whole 25-30 minutes of the battle. Probably one of the best battles of my entire soaking career. I find that every time we play CTF, it ends up being a lot of fun. We should really do it more often than once every war.
Now that the pizza had arrived, it was time for dinner. So we didn't do any fighting until it got dark, and then we pulled out our air-pressure primaries for a night round of air-pressure-only OHS. We also had more people now, enough for 5vs5.
Round 3, 5vs5 OHS, played until either team gets 12 kills:
Me
Keith
Scott
Tiffany (M4's fiancée)
Tyler (M4's friend)
vs.
M4
Chris
Christina (M4's friend; I think she participated...)
Jon
Laura (M4's sister)
This battle was hardly documented, if at all. It's also the battle I remember the least. I remember that it was the first night battle I'd ever faught in that had more than 4 people, and as a result, we would occasionally mistake friends for foes. I don't think any of us actually shot anyone on our own team, but we came close sometimes. At the start of the battle, I hung back by our spawn point (the same one as last time.) for a while, but I didn't get any action. In fact, I hardly engaged anyone during a good part of the battle.
When I did encounter an enemy, it never went too well for me. My MD 6000, which was my air pressure primary of choice, was having valve problems. It had been doing it in the past, but I opened it up and replaced one of the springs with a much stronger one. That fixed the problem for a while, but the cheap piece of crap that Hasbro calls a firing valve just couldn't hold up against the heavy amount of use I was giving it. Eventually it got to the point where no matter how much I pulled the trigger back and forth, it would still remain stuck open. I'm probably going to replace it with a Gorgon, but I'll also try to fix it; I'll most likely de-Max-D it in the same way that I did with my Arctic Blast.
So we ended up losing, but not by too much. I think the score was 12-10. The main problem was our lack of organization. We pretty much all split up and went our own direction, thus we weren't able to help each other out when the enemy attacked. Also, if my 6000 had worked the way it should've, I could have been a bigger threat, and probably would've actually got some hits. I don't think I got one in that battle.
For our next round, we decided to take a break from competitive battles, and do something more casual and fun. I think M4 suggested that we play Infection, where he'd be the original zombie and everyone else would be the humans. Since zombies have infinite lives, M4 would need a weak blaster to make it more even. My Electrostorm happened to be sitting on the table nearby, and, well...
Round 4, Infection, played until all humans have been hit and turned into zombies:
I decided to use my Arctic Blast. Since this was supposed to be a fun round, I decided to use a fun blaster. We started all spread out when the round began, but quickly came together to hold off M4 the Zombie. Naturally, he had a terrible time just getting close enough to actually shoot. Words cannot describe how pathetic the E-storm is. They advertise 25 feet for it, but I seriously think that it cannot even achieve that.
Well after maybe 15 minutes of M4 repeatedly trying to land a hit on everyone, each time getting blasted before he was even close enough to take a shot, he actually managed to hit his sister, but that was just because she wasn't paying attention. After that, things got a bit more tricky, and a few more people were turned into zombies. I'm not sure when I was hit, but I think I was the 3rd or 4th last one to become infected. It happened when I was dueling with sombody, can't remember who, and M4 ran in from the side and shot me. Yes. I, SEAL, was killed by an E-storm. It actually wouldn't have counted as a hit, were it a round with more powerful blasters. I was hit by most of the blast trickle, but it was less water than getting hit by a few drops from a CPS blaster. We called it a hit anyway, because that thing probably doesn't have enough water in it's reservoir to soak someone enough to count as a hit.
After I was hit, us zombies hunted down and ate the brains of everyone else. The round was over. My brother Jon was the last one to get shot, but that was probably just because he had a CPS 1500 when everyone else (except M4) had high-end-Hasbro and BBT blasters. I only got to use my riot blast once, against M4 before anyone was turned into a zombie. It's really not that useful in any gametype outside of a soakfest. I almost always use the smaller nozzle, and since it can only get like 32.5 feet, I almost never use the AB as my lightweight blaster (although it's almost more of a pistol.).
Once that was over, we started preparing for our last round of the day. Scott suggested we play a game where if you get hit, you join the other team, although unlike Infection, you can keep switching back and forth. I don't think anyone's ever played anything like this before, at least not that I know of. It is also more of a "fun" game.
Round 5, *Unnamed gametype*, played until all players are on the same team:
I saw M4's Monster XL laying out in the yard before the round, and I thought it might be fun to try it out. After all, I'd never even seen an MXL in person before then, and I was really curious what it would be like to use one in battle. So I asked M4 if I could use it.
I can't remember much of this battle either. One thing I do remember though; if anyone thought that the first night battle was confusing, they had probably not participated in this one. I can't even remember who was on which team when the game started! Anyway, we took this more casually, mostly just walking around shooting at each other. I honestly can't remember much of what happened. Nothing terribly interesting happened anyway.
However, I'd like to share my experiences with the MXL. First of all, when I picked it up, I was surprised by how light it was. It felt like about the same weight as my CPS 2700, but I expected it to be a lot heavier. Now, that doesn't mean it's as easy to wield; the balance on that thing is horrendously front-heavy. I can actually one hand the 2700 like a pistol when it's completely full with relative ease, but with the MXL, I can get it up there for about a second before being forced to use my other hand to keep it from dropping. Last year, DX mentioned that the CPS 2000 is a bitch to pump in a fast-paced game. But that's nothing compared with this thing. It puts a ton of strain on your pumping arm even when you're not pumping! To make it worse, M4's MXL apparently had a pressure leak, making it so I had to wait until just before I engaged an opponent before pumping, and I had to pump it a LOT. At least I got a good workout from it!
Once it was all over, we decided to call it a night. DX and Belisaurius hadn't even arrived yet; when they called at around 9:00, they were still in Richmond! Apparently, DX had left at 9 in the morning, and had gone the route that takes you through every single big city between his and M4's houses. He said that he hit morning rush hour in NYC, and afternoon rush hour in DC! I can only imagine what that's like. So they arrived pretty much at midnight, and M4 thought it would be funny if we blasted their car with the WBL right as they pulled in, so yes, I went outside and started preparing it. Pretty much just as I'd finished loading it, DX and Belisaurius pulled in. I didn't really want to hit the car, so I waited until DX opened the door, and then I let one fly. It landed on the ground below the door. They thought it was funny. We stayed up until like 2:00 talking, before finally going to our tents and catching Zs.
Saturday, Day 2:
We got up around 7:30, and were shortly joined by Belisaurius. M4 had slept in his house, so I don't know when he awoke. DX and Scott however, slept in for a while, so we decided to use our water blasters to give them a friendly little wake-up call. DX woke up just as we were filling our blasters, but Scott seemed to still be asleep. You can see what happened next in the video.
So once we'd finally crammed everything into the cars, we drove over to Umstead. We parked at one of the trailheads for the Sal's Branch trail, and unloaded some of our blasters that we planned to use. We decided to have a OHK round, since we hadn't done one yet. DX and M4 were appointed captains, and chose from our small group o' people (A lot of the people who were at M4's house Friday night had left.).
Round 6, 5vs6 OHK:
DX
Me
Jon
Keith
Laura
vs.
M4
Belisaurius
Paul (M4's friend)
Rebecca (Paul's GF/wife?)
Scott
Tiffany
My team (Yes, I know I have an ugly expression; I couldn't decide between smiling and looking mean, so my expression fell somewhere in between.):
After filling up our blasters in the creek (which took a long time because nobody wanted to submerge their blasters, so we used water bottles.), the teams separated. My team walked up the trail aways, before turning off and heading for higher ground. Once we got to a good spot, we were ready to begin; we couldn't see the other team at all. I must say though, the place we faught in was a little disappointing; there was even less concealment than at Dug Hill, and if you got down low, you could see a long way. From the pictures M4 took of the park, I expected a little bit more. It was better in other spots, just not the places that we battled in.
So naturally, we spotted the enemy fairly quickly. We couldn't tell if they saw us or not, but it was inevitable. They seemed to be walking our direction. DX's plan was to stay fairly close together, thus forcing the enemy to spread out around our team in attempt to surround us, but would leave them farther apart and easier to hit. It became obvious that they'd seen us; they were headed right toward us with murder in their eyes. Our plan went into action as they started to surround us.
Basically, what happened next was pretty much your standard OHK battle; both teams hanging back and being cautious. Apparently none of the non-community members except Jon scored any hits (he had a 2000.), which isn't particularly surprising. I was using my 2700, and taking a lot of shots. I didn't hit many people, but I helped my team get a lot of kills, a value that doesn't show up on the stat list. At the end, everyone had been eliminated except me and Scott. Reminded of the air-pressure-only rounds last year, I smiled; being defensive pays off sometimes!
Scott and I skirmished for a little while. I kept trying to hit him, but I could never get close enough without being in the danger zone; he had his 2500, which shot quite a few feet further than my 2700. I probably could've simply outlasted him, but that would have taken a long time, and I wanted to end the battle as soon as possible. As Scott took up position behind a tree, I charged right at him, protected from his 10X blasts by the large tree. When I got within range, I jumped around the tree and fired, just as he fired. We both hit each other at almost exactly the same time. That would be called a "suicide", ladies and gentlemen; it works in some situations, but not in OHK. It was a good match though, and probably the first OHK match I've ever heard of that ended in a draw.
After that round was over, we headed over to the campsites and set up our tents. Once they were all set up, we went back to the same place we were at before, this time to play OHS. We split people up based on what blasters they were using. Paul and Rebecca had left, so we only had enough for 5 on 4, the same amount as last year's Downpour.
Round 7, 5vs4 OHS, played for ~15(?) minutes:
Me
Jon
Keith
Laura
Scott
vs.
M4
Belisaurius
DX
Tiffany
We started in pretty much the exact same places as last time, and once again spotted the enemy on the trail almost right away. Except this time, they didn't come up to meet us. Perhaps it was because they had smaller numbers in this round. After watching them for a bit, they went down a hill and out of sight. We spilt up and moved in on where they were from three different sides. We got down to the trail, and the enemy could now be seen down below at the bottom of the hill. I wasn't sure why they'd gone down there; true, there was a creek running through, but they were pretty much trapped.
The next part was pretty dull. We stood around staring each other down for at least three quarters of the battle. We couldn't really attack them because they were on the other side of the creek, and had much more room to dodge around. They also wouldn't really be much lower than us if we got close enough to take a shot at them. A few hits were exchanged, and the other team took the lead at like 2-1 or 3-1.
Finally, me and Keith ran around behind them, jumping over the stream. Now they were trapped between us and the rest of our team. We dueled a bit, and got a kill, but the other half of our team wasn't moving in on the enemy like they should have. We kept trying to get them to press in on our opponents, but nobody did until Scott finally rushed in and blasted M4 from behind, but apparently, his glasses were fogged up and he thought Belisaurius was me, and didn't shoot him. Unfortunately, Belisaurius didn't wear glasses, and eyeballs don't fog up. He shot Scott and extended his team's lead. I think either me or Keith shot one other person before the round ended, but it wasn't enough; they won. We thought the score was 5-4, but according to the stats, it only added up to 5-3.
So I was like, "Why the heck didn't we charge around behind them before!?!". I think the problem was, that I was pretty darn tired, and I also hadn't eaten or drank much at all that day, so I wasn't thinking clearly at all. Otherwise, if we'd gone around behind them earlier, we could very well have won. Everybody thought so.
So to cure the problem of our slow thinking and physical abilites, we took a lunch break. After that we headed back over to the same place, but this time we had some more people. We decided to play a hill assault game, which essentially used my Hold the Line rules with a few modifications. Originally, it was going to be everyone in M4's family vs. everybody else, but we wanted to have WBLs in the battle, and no one in M4's family knew how to operate one (except M4, but I guess he didn't want to use one.), so I was going to be on M4's team, but we didn't have any water balloons, and there wasn't really any good place to fill them, so we decided to forget about having launchers in the battle (it would've been epic though.), and I went back to my original team.
Round 8, 6vs7 HTL variation, played until all defenders are eliminated:
Me
Jon
Keith
Belisaurius
DX
Scott
vs.
M4
Drew (M4's cousin)
Jack (M4's cousin, has account with username "rambogo4", but never posts; Downpour '11 participant)
Laura
Patrick (Not sure who he is; is he M4's cousin too?)
Tiffany
Will (M4's cousin; Downpour '11 participant)
So basically this is like Hold the Line, but without a time limit, and the defenders got 3 lives instead of 1. I wanted to use my CPS 1200, but DX brought like all his 2000s, and there was one laying on the ground that no one was using, so I took it up. I could use the range anyway.
This round was very hard. The hill that we had to attack was the same one that the other team ran down in the previous battle, except this time it was the team on the bottom that was on offense. We had the water source, and unlimited lives, but since we were keeping track of our stats, I don't think anybody wanted to be hit that much, and didn't do the obvious thing and keep suicide bombing until all the enemies were defeated. I tried multiple times to ascend the hill, but each time I was driven back, and twice killed by M4 and his SS 300. The 2000 I was using was not a particularly shining example; for one, the pump was squeaky, although it didn't much matter in this round. No, the main problem was that the trigger had to be pulled hard, and all the way back. It kind of reminded me of a nearly-failed Max-D trigger, and it made it really hard to pull off quick tap-shots, which are crucial with that blaster.
After several unsuccessful attempts at storming the hill, I decided to switch out my 2000 with my 1200, since that trigger was being a real pain in the ass. Instead I ended up using DX's 12K, since it was just sitting there and he told me he wasn't going to use it. Armed with this, I prepared to show the defenders that the captain of the Catskill Mountain SEALs doesn't give up so easily. After waiting a bit, I finally saw an oppurtunity, and along with Belisaurius, rushed to the top of the hill. Almost immediately, we were met by M4, but I was like "Not this time...". Belisaurius and I were able to actually take out M4 for once (
), and then I knew we had them. The rest of my team charged up the hill, and we secured a good position. After that we had it in the bag. We charged the enemy team and eliminated the people who were left. We did it in a little over 18 minutes. Now it was our turn to be the defense. Our objecive was simply to last longer than 18 minutes and some amount of seconds. Now we did have somewhat of an unfair advantage against the other team, having all the 2000s that DX brought, plus pretty much every other CPS blaster we had in our individual arsenals. The other team didn't have as many because a lot of M4's good blasters were having problems, and they were forced to use smaller-caliber blasters. The teams would remain the same.
Round 6, 6vs7 HTL variation, played until all defenders are eliminated:
Me
Jon
Keith
Belisaurius
DX
Scott
vs.
M4
Drew
Jack
Laura
Patrick
Tiffany
Will
We were pretty much armed to the teeth. I brought my absolute favorite defense weapon; my 2700, while almost everyone else had 2000s. I would have no problem with betting my entire arsenal that we would hold them off longer than they did. We spread ourselves out atop the hill; not so far as to be completely isolated, but enough to cover pretty much all hotspots.
And yes, it wasn't pretty for them. They'd try again and again, but we would always land the hit on them before they were even close enough to hit us. They kept trying to muscle their way up the hill, which may have worked better if they had 2000s instead of Shot Blasts and XP 75s. DX and I covered the left side of the hill, and we constantly switched positions, which, believe it or not, seems to always make the enemy stop dead in their tracks. I was only hit once, by Laura with her Gorgon, when I stumbled on something, could've been this log that was giving me some trouble in the battle, or it could just have been the slippery slope of the hill, which got worse the more people tried to climb it. A lot of people lost their footing when trying to ascend the hill.
Now, there apparently were some issues concerning hits. Everyone seemed to agree that Jack and Patrick on the other team were calling hits that obviously missed, and charging forward even after they were hit. I noticed it a little, but I didn't seem to have as much trouble with it as other people on my team, particularly my brothers and Scott, did. M4 told them off for it, but it was still a bit of a problem. It starts to make you wonder if we perhaps need referees in the future. Certainly if this game becomes big enough, they'd probably be a necessity, just because hits are a lot more hard to determine in water wars than in say, paintball or nerf. Maybe it's something we should think about.
DX did very well in this round, apparently scoring 17 hits! I didn't get so many, for the most part because I was mostly saving my shots, and only shooting if I absolutely had to, and even then only to hold them back. After repeatedly sending our opponents back to their respawn points, we eventually passed 18 minutes and whatever seconds. We'd only lost two people; Belisaurius and Jon, DX hadn't even been hit once, and I still had 3/4 of the water left in my 2700's massive 4 liter reservoir. So we simply ended the round.
We were going to have a naval war, but apparently the boathouse closed at 3:30, and it was already past 4, so we called it a day. M4 and his family all went back to his house, and the rest of us, after eating at Mcdonalds, headed back to the campground to spend our second night in North Carolina. We mostly just hung around and chatted; we were talking about having a night war, but most of us were pretty tired, and there wasn't really any good spots at the campground anyway.
Keith and Belisaurius had some captivating rounds of chess that we all watched. Here are some pictures:
Once they were done with that, we went to sleep. Tomorrow we were to wake up bright and early, and head over to the lake for our naval war.
Sunday, Day 3:
This time, we didn't have to give anyone a watery wake-up-call. Right after eating breakfast, we started the tedious job of filling water balloons and making sabots out of pringles cans that DX brought. We wanted as many balloons as possible for the naval battle. Unfortunately, Belisaurius had a train to catch, so he couldn't stick around. Once we were done filling, M4 called and said he was at the lake. We told him that he should fill balloons too, because we didn't plan on giving him any of ours. DX and I drove down to the lake early to scout it out. M4 and his friends/relatives were already there, and some of them were already out on the lake. It took us quite a long time to get everything ready, since the parking lot was a 10-minute walk from the lake, and we had to carry all our blasters, WBLs, and a 40-pound container of water balloons...
Here we have pictures of the pre-war activities:
My brother Jon in his boat with Laura.
Another picture of the same.
M4's cousins fighting amongst themselves.
More boats...
Drive (or would that be "Float"?) by shooting.
Us carrying a lot of our gear down. This was like our third trip from the car to the lake.
Getting our gear ready for battle.
Stream Machine shot. It definitely shoots farther than a 2000, but I don't think the stream is quite as thick.
This image is a little blurry, but it's a cool shot, so I kept it.
Now here's the beginning of a 2000 shot (Unfortunately we don't have a shot of the full blast.).
This would be my boat. All my gear is in there except the water balloon container.
More getting ready, discussing rules, etc.
Once we went through everything you see in the pictures, we were finally ready to begin the round that we'd all been waiting weeks for. There were four boats, and each one held two people, so we ended up having 8 people on the assault team, and only 5 on the defense.
Round 10, 8vs5 OHS, played until time runs out:
Boat A:
Me w/ Douchenator
Candace (M4's friend; I thought it was spelled "Candice", but I guess not.)
Boat B:
Jon
Laura
Boat C:
Drew
Jack
Boat D:
Patrick
Will
vs.
Albert (M4's friend)
M4
Keith
DX w/ Douchenator
Scott
So yeah, I was the only community member on the assault team. I had a feeling that it wouldn't go well because of this, as Candace and I paddled out to the middle of the lake to join our team. They were very excited about having a WBL on the team. I told everyone that I planned to hang back and take shots at them with the launcher (I didn't have any other blaster with me.), and that they should storm the shore, and try to get around behind them, and trap them up against the water.
Pumping the WBL was difficult; since I was sitting down, I couldn't put much of my body except my arms into pumping, so I could only get it up to around 70 PSI before it simply became too hard to pump. Once I got it to that point, I slipped a loaded sabot down the barrel, and started rowing towards the shore. Bellowing "ATTACK!" at the top of my lungs, we bore down on the shore like a bunch of angry hornets who just had their nest destroyed by an ignorant individual. It was pretty cool.
When I got close enough, I let one rip, and it sailed among the enemies, but didn't hit anyone. As my comrades-in-arms tried to land, I repeatedly loaded and discharged the WBL at my online friends. There were some pretty epic shots; the second or third time I swung around, I took aim at DX, who was trying to hide behind a thin tree. I was probably much closer than I shoud have been, because the sabot rocketed into the tree at face-level, while the balloon flew off slightly to the side. According to DX, it made the whole tree shake. He tried to take some shots at us with his 2000, but we were just out of his range, getting hit by a drop or two.
Another time I fired one a bit too high (once again, I was closer than I should've been.), and the balloon exploded on a tree branch, nearly hitting Scott with the spray. Those were the only two times when I actually came close to hitting someone. One of the main problems was that the balloons we filled were just too darn big. A lot of the time they would just not come out of the sabot, making it fly dangerously far, and other times they'd just burst inside the barrel. I even tried using a long sabot with three balloons in it, and while the first one made it out, the second one popped in the barrel, and the third one stayed in the shell. It was still fun though.
So after I'd taken maybe 6 or 7 shots, I didn't have many shells left, so I decided to land and try to attack the opponents with water balloons. It took us some time to actually get the canoe up on land, but surprisingly, nobody attacked us. Once I'd got there, with my last sabot loaded and ready to go in the launcher, I began to start going on the prowl, while Candace joined the others who were trying to fight, but weren't doing that well. I was looking for a good target, when Will comes up to me and asks if he can take a shot with the WBL. I knew there wasn't really any way for him to break it, so I handed it over and told him how to use it properly, so he wouldn't end up like Chris in the CTF round earlier. He let me use his Stream Machine while he temporarily became the artilleryman, which I used to drive Scott back, as he was starting to move in on us from the right flank. That thing shoots pretty darn far. I was like 65 feet away from Scott, and I shoved the piston back while moving the nozzle back and forth to create a complex stream pattern that would be more difficult to dodge. It actually came pretty close to hitting him, as he was forced to retreat. If I'd gotten closer I probably could've had him. I was surprised it went that far though; it never looked like it shot that far when I saw it in use at Downpour 2011.
As I ran back to the lake to refill the Stream Machine, Will came over and handed me the launcher back. He said something about the balloon falling out, so I thought that he accedently pointed the barrel down too far, but it wasn't pressurized anymore, so I don't really know what he was talking about. I gave him back the Stream Machine and went over to my box of water balloons and grabbed two. Running at someone, I think it was either Keith or Scott, I tried to throw one of the balloons, but it exploded in my hand. And DX said they were strong balloons! Well about that time, the round ended, and apparently this park ranger was getting pissed at us for firing water balloons all over the place. We tried to pick up as many as we could find, but it was clear that we wouldn't be having another naval war, which is a shame because I wanted to try defending with my CPS 2700.
Here's a shot of some participants walking back.
So I don't know what the final score was (M4 was going to tally up the points.), but I'm pretty sure my team lost that one, probably due to the fact that I was the only community member on the team, and I wasn't on the shore with them until the end, plus I didn't have a water blaster. I never got hit, but I never shot anyone. I probably would have been a much bigger asset to my team if I was fighting on the shore with them. For one thing, as you'll probably see in the video, they kept getting pinned against the water, when I wanted them to be the ones doing the pinning. Ah well, it was almost worth it just because it was so much fun bombarding the shore with water balloons, even though most of them didn't cooperate.
This was definitely one of my favorite rounds of the entire war. I felt kind of like a pirate captain when I was giving orders and firing off the Douchenator as if it were a cannon. I really wish we could've had more rounds, like one where my team would defend, and one where both teams get to be in the water. The guy who did the boat rentals was very nice, and let us get away with a lot, but that ranger had other ideas...
M4's parents had brought lunch, so we went up to the picnic tables by the parking lot and took a break. Here are some pictures of the epic...er, lunch (The closest we could get to a group photo.).
Glug...glug...glug...
Once we were done, M4 went down to play ultimate frisbee with his family, but we didn't really feel like doing it, so we decided to have a small soakfest instead. We chose some small air-pressure blasters from DX's car; my brothers and I all took XP 150s, DX took his Colossus, and Scott took his, with dual Crickets in his pockets.
Picture:
Now there's really not much to say here, other than complain about the unnaturally slippery ground (I think everybody fell at least once...), since soakfests are pretty much self-explanatory. M4, Will, and Patrick joined us for a short period of time as well. Here are some pictures:
Mostly, we took it casually.
But that didn't stop us from the occasional acrobatics.
Keith, shooting at an invisible opponent.
This was funny; Patrick somehow got it into his head that those trash can boxes you see in this picture would make the perfect cover. I showed him that type of cover does not work too well in water wars by changing the weather forcast.
I don't know if this is before or after that happened.
Here's a pretty epic battle shot.
Not sure why Jon's on one knee here...
My brother, trying to look awesome.
This was after the soakfest, when we were just talking about various blasters.
Trying to shoot me? I'll have you know, those things are empty.
And that wrapped up Hydropocalypse 2012. We went back to the campsite, packed up our gear, and left for my uncle's house. We had to leave next morning though, because I somehow got sick...
So anyway, that was my second community war, but I feel as though I didn't do as good as I did at Downpour '11. I was a little out of shape, but still. Perhaps it's just because I'm not particularly agile. I'm pretty strong, but I can't dodge too well at close range while also trying to shoot my opponent. DX and M4 are better at this, and thus are a huge pain-in-the-butt to battle.
I was however, quite impressed with the amount of improvment that Scott showed. At Downpour last year, he got killed over 40 times in one round, but this time he got more kills than me! He did get shot more than I did though, but not nearly as many times as last year. He was pretty hard to kill when I battled him in the OHK round. Keep it up man!
So now I just have to try and successfully get Downpour 2012 organized, and hopefully that will be as much fun as this war was. Unfortunately, it doesn't look good in terms of attendance. Our goal is to get more people each year, but so far, only 5 or 6 people will definitely be coming, down from 9 last year. So please, if you're near New York, think about coming over for a weekend of blasting. The more people we get, the more fun it'll be.
Here's the video I put toegther. I got footage from a handful of different clips, and stuck them all into one movie. I also cut out all the boring parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-htxmYGa ... e=youtu.be
I hope you enjoyed reading this and looking at all the media as much as I enjoyed fighting in the war.
~SEAL
