WaterWar.net

This thing is happening Yo!

When:
May 24th-26th/27th
Doodle Calender: http://www.doodle.com/93turavwetuw5kxc

Attendance List:
*Scott
*Bela
*Sam
*Callan
*SEAL
*Chief
*Firebird
*Duxburian
*CA99
*Drenchenator (maybe)
*Poseidon2000
Some will only come Saturday as Sunday will be the more hard core rounds.

Where:
My house - We will be camping in my backyard (and maybe house, my yard isn't that big!). We will also eat diner and breakfast here. Night wars will probably be held in nearby woods.

Sycamore Island - Naval war/faster paced OHK OHS rounds will be held here. I also want to try conquest. We will no longer be camping here as originally planned, we couldn't keep our stuff there during the day, and it is a bit of a hike to haul it back to the parking lot.

Carderock Recreation Area - This is were most the rivalry rounds/longer OHK/OHS rounds will be held.

About each location:
Sycamore Island in Glen Echo, Maryland: I will have to reserve it for a "large party ahead of time." **This does not mean we will be the only ones there!** it just keeps two big parties from happening at once. The reservation will only be for one day, Saturday.

Being an island, it would be perfect for a naval war. There is about 8 loaner canoes there so we could have quite a battle. The only hitch in this is that there is a dam about a mile downstream. If any canoe starts floating away we would have to pause the battle and get it (it would probably take half an hour at least for it to float all the way down there, but I don't want to test it). The island would also be great for quicker OHK and mid-length OHS rounds. Sycamore island is about 1/2 a mile long and maybe 1/5 a mile wide, so it tends to keep the action pretty fast paced. I have just ordered 10 one minute timers so we can also play conquest, which I really want to try. We might be able to stay after dark and have night wars there. I'm pretty good friends with the caretaker, and he said we could, but we will have to see.

Other notes: Bit of a walk from the parking lot to get there (not any worse then Downpour 2012, though it's downhill so coming back is harder) - we take a ferry to get there. Clubhouse has full Kitchen, pool table, Foosball, and two ping-pong tables. It also has two hoses so refilling shouldn't be a problem (I wouldn't recommend filling from the river - it is full of sediment runoff and sometimes fertilizer from upstream.
The one possible problem is that if there is too much rain, then the river rises high enough they can't run the ferry. If that happens, we might have to just battle at Carderock

Carderock Recreation Area in Potomac, MD
Only had one or two small scale wars here, but have done a lot of exploring and it has great potential. The area is pretty massive so would work well for long OHS rounds. There is even two parking lots so we could enter in separate places. The river is much cleaner here so you might be able to fill from it, it depends on the day. I would recommend using in inlet though as it is rather fast moving. There is a big field, or really two fields with a little "island" of woods in the middle. Other features involve streams with bridges over them, lots of different trails, and woods, woods, and more woods. Only the southern parking lot has a spigot, the northern one (which has the best battle spots), only has a bathroom with very small sinks. Shouldn't be a problem though as we could fill up a S***-ton of water bottles at my house before we go. The parking lot is really close to a lot of the battle areas. We could always fill in the river, but you all know how I feel about that.

One note of Caution, there are a set of cliffs near the northern parking lot, they are about 50ft high and have lots of rocks at the bottom. It is pretty obvious where they are as you would have to climb up on some rocks to get to the edge, but still best to stay away from them.

My House (address will be PMed to those that come)
We will be camping out here in my backyard. Depending on how many people end up coming, some might have to sleep inside as my backyard isn't that big. We will also be eating breakfast and sometimes dinner here. Other then that, so long as the weather isn't really bad we wont spend too much time here, but if we do:
LEGOs, Rokenbok, Nintendo 64, Playstation 2, Wii, and quite a few movies as well. The only thing we don't have is a microwave! Hopefully we will get a new one soon, but when you have had the same microwave for 25 years, it can take a wile. - We got a new one now, R.I.P. 1995 Sharp Carousel

There is also a small section of woods at the bottom of my street, along with some utility buildings that might work to fight around. We would probably drive down there, it isn't that far, but we would need the cars to carry enough water. Also, due to the close proximity to peoples houses, we probably couldn't fight after 10pm. Even without that, I wouldn't be surprised if someone calls the police, but we might as well try it.

Schedule:
Friday:
Arrival at my house? (I might be gone for some of the time, many of my friends will probably require me to pick them up)
Depending on time people arrive, tour/battle at Carderock (probably short OHS type games).
7:00pm-8:30pm - Dinner at the American City Diner
8:30pm-10:00pm/whenever someone gets mad at us - Night wars in woods near my house. (there isn't anywhere to fill, but I can fit a lot of water bottles/coolers in my car)

Saturday:
9:00am - wake Scott up (seriously though, don't use anything bigger then an Electrostorm!)
9:10 - Breakfast
9:30 - Go to Sycamore Island/fill guns
9:45-11:00 - Opening game(s)
11:00-12:00 - Conquest (think Battlefield 1942) - do we have an official WW name for this? Other then the naval wars, this is the game I really want to try, the island would be perfect!
Lunch (Make sandwiches at island)
12:30-1:00 - Chaos round(?) - I might set one up during lunch, we will see
1:00-3:00 - Naval war (2x HTL beach landings then other games like ship vs. ship)
3:00-7:00(?) - Other rounds people want to play
7-ish - Dinner at island/relax
8:30 - Night war(?) - depends how tired people are, like I've said, we might be able to do it at the island, but we might not.
Note: The treehouse will mostly be off limits due to the large advantage it gives the team that starts at the south end of the island. There is talk of maybe playing HTL with the treehouse, I've done this before and it was a slaughter, but DX thought it would work if we had WBLs and 2Ks.

Sunday: rivalry
9:00 - Breakfast
9:30 - Fill guns and go to Carderock (it will work best if we fill everything before we go)
10:30-11:00 - OHK AP round(s) (we only did OHK with air pressure once before)
11:00-1:00 Long OHS round (I'm thinking we could eat lunch as teams during the game)
1:00-2:00 - BBT CTF round(s)
2:00-until one team wins - Long OHK round
-Other games

Depending on who can stay we might do more games Monday. I would say we could do games Sunday night, but after all that ^^^ I doubt anyone will feel like it
Sunday night:
-Video game rivalry!

That is it for the schedule so far, I highly doubt it will goes as planned, but people wanted me to have one.

Cool. Hopefully after schools out, though.

If you hold it after my school year (I think the last day is around May 14th), I'll probably come. You should take some pictures of the battlefield.

Most likely this will be too far from Mississippi, but id love to see my team still play at least one round as a team without me. Would be a different dynamic.

I will try my best to make it, but not promising anything.

SEAL wrote:If you hold it after my school year (I think the last day is around May 14th), I'll probably come. You should take some pictures of the battlefield.

I did, or at least I sort of did. Me and Duxburian scouted out both areas for a couple hours, the problem is all the pictures are on his camera!

As far as dates go, a good starting point would be to ask when every one is done with school.
I finish on the 15th, though many of my local friends are still in high school. This wouldn't be much of a problem though as long as most the battles are on the weekend.

My school year finishes on June 6th!

I'm interested in this war. This is pretty close to where I live, but I already have some plans in late June, so I don't know if I could come just yet. The middle of June is fine, but I couldn't make it any later than that.

Will try to make it if my schedule allows. If I have a job at the time and can't get any time off, it's less likely. However, if the war is on a weekend, I could possibly go by taking a day or two off. I'm not crazy about flying again (although driving there has plenty of disadvantages, particularly if I'm alone), but I will see what can be done.

As you know. if Seal's there I'll be there as long as our car's in good shape. We should be able to make it.

Hopefully, the weather turns out good. Just don't name the war Hurricane or something like that.
We already made that mistake with Downpour. lol

Please post those pictures DX.

In that case, we should name the next war "Happy Sunny-Beach Soakings". Although that's no use if anyone does a rain dance with a CPS.

I actually may be able to make this one, because there's family/cousins in the DC area and I can use it as a road trip excuse (Which means I'm packin' some, trunk space permitting.). Just give an idea of which month it'll be in I guess? (Setup a Doodle or something.)

Late May would probably be best for me. I could do June as well, but it starts to get pretty dang hot down there and I'm not 100% sure if I can do it then or not. At any rate, we should do this before Waterbridge and Downpour.

Can someone elaborate on exactly how "super-hot" it gets at DC in the summer? Are we talking 100°+?

The air temp rarely gets over 103 degrees, but the heat index can soar and break 120. I have a screenshot of the heat index at 121 degrees. DC can stay hot though, when I wanted to run at night I couldn't cause it was still 91 degrees at 3 AM. However, this was late in July...May should be cooler. Sycamore Island should be cooler still, as it's in the Potomac.

Better start your warm weather training. (giggle)

HBWW hasn't specified a maximum temperature for wars, but the highest we've played in is around 91-95 (can't remember exactly); people got sunburns that day.

91 degrees for a night war sounds okay, provided you're not moving around too much I guess, or for a soakfest.

It's odd how my temperature ranges differ from everyone else's. I never got sunburns on that HBWW Season Opener. I find the heat to be perfectly fine as long as I have enough drinking water.

In any case, we can always devise soakfest games to beat the heat. I was not a fan of them in 40-50 degree weather (even with Spartan VI / Iron Man armor err, I mean, PVC rain suit), but if things heat up, there are ways to break it up. Such as hidden-flag CTF soakfest for example. (Or as the name I gave it on HBWW, "Hide-and-go-Soak CTF.")

I don't think that's too bad of a compromise if the heat demands it, and we can always go to 1HS/1HK in nighttime wars.

I got sunburned twice in the '90s, twice in the 2000s, and not yet so far in this decade. I don't mind high heat so much as high humidity. Even just 70 degrees with high humidity sucks when you have to run around in it. I wouldn't be too worried though, May can still be a transitional month. Last year there was snow on April 22nd in the western mid Atlantic.

That's one of the reasons I'd rather do it in May than June. People may see water warfare as a hot-weather activity, but the way we play is really not. 55-65 is my favorite temperature range for fighting. As for sunburn, it happens to me a lot at the beginning of summer, but near the end it's not a problem. Of course, I do a lot of outdoor stuff like baseball and swimming (not to mention water wars), so I probably get more sunburns than those who'd rather beat the heat by staying in an air-conditioned house.

I might actually be able to make it to this, at least for a day. I'll keep my eyes on the topic.

What kind of rounds are we playing?

I've updated the HBWW listing, adding some games from the Season Opener. Rest assured, there will be plenty of options to shake things up if needed.

I think community wars have taken a host-rules (whilst soliciting some feedback from others playing) sort of approach, so I'd say it's up to Scott on what's played.

Edit: Some things in the OP I never replied to:

- Perhaps someone can build a tube thingy for refilling from sinks.

- Very excited for naval warfare. Not excited for having to spend money on extra GoPro mounts I'd need to film it. I could use the wrist mount but it'll be super-shaky and not even upright most of the time. And no duct tape to guns either. Also, I have a small Stream Machine; will bring it I guess. If I can get a working CPH/APH by then, I'll also bring that and dip the tube in the water.

- Everyone else, please be water-bottle ready this time! Everyone should ideally also have a bag of at least a few dozen unfilled balloons at all times (many balloons cost less than a penny each and I have lots of extra I can bring), unless you only use expensive balloons.

- If trunk space permits, I'd love to get one of my launchers in there. Specifically the breech loaded one; the PWN-312SB 50mm.

- If it thunderstorms or something crazier and we end up going inside, I have a laptop which I may load movies on before the trip. (I'll also prepare it so I can work on water warfare stuff.) Scott, what N64/Wii games do you have?

Lastly, I suggest everyone bag up their smartphone. If you have the money and the right phone, you can invest in an Otterbox waterproof case. Otherwise, you can get something cheap from Aquapac or Overboard (I assume you guys all know how to Google search for these things). Almost every waterproof solution lets you use fully use the device when in the bag. Avoid ziploc bags because they can break easily, but they're much better than nothing. You can direct any specific questions about waterproof smartphone protection to me. Learn from Marauder: Protect your mobile device and don't let it get lost! (If Marauder didn't loose his iPhone in the woods, there was always a chance of it getting soaked anyway.) And do use it to provide war footage where possible.