WaterWar.net

Happy Thanksgiving! Parking is at Target in New Haven, but if it's just you and Keith you may be able to ride with Rob to the site.

Water is limited to what we bring in (no viable source on site; all saltwater), but there shouldn't be blaster restrictions.

Hope you all have fun! Sorry I had to back out, it was just going to be too crazy with Thanksgiving right before and exams right when I get back. Traffic would probably be a nightmare coming all the way to DC too. Hopefully next year I will have a higher tolerance for dealing with so much stuff and can come though having it after school lets out like we have in years past wouldn't hurt. If we plan it after school lets out I might even be able to get Bela to come. Unfortunately he could share the driving he hasn't even taken the learners permit test yet! He doesn't want to apparently and I doubt I could get him to before next year (been trying for two years now)

Make sure to take some awesome movies!

Google's showing green (normal traffic flow) all around right now. You still have time!

Ok, fine, see you in December then. Good luck on your finals!

I am about to head out the door to NC. My mom's cancer has taken an inoperable turn and she had several strokes. She is being transferred to a hospice and I want to be there with her.

The boys still want to come, so please someone don't forget about them and give them a ride. If you need their phone # then text me. Please keep mine and Nick's families in your prayers. I will see y'all soon next year, count on it.

Oh wow. I am really sorry to hear that. This has not been a good month.

I feel better today, but I don't know how much I'll be able to do tomorrow. Perhaps we should scale it down a bit and focus more on just hanging out. I'll bring sleeping bags and stuff, but depending on how I'm feeling, I might just go home Saturday night and come back in the morning.

Edit: I will park behind the Target, near the battlefield. See you there.

Hey, so with everything that has taken place, we are just going to do Saturday. There may only be 6 or 7 people remaining, including the nephews, so we'll play some rounds that make the most sense with the reduced numbers and explore the park. Bring your light primaries and anything under 4x and extra water. Might as well fill some mediums and bring them just in case we want to do a round with them or use them to hold water.

Meet us at 10 instead of 9, there's less of a point in going early now.

Quick summary of the weekend:

Sat: Mixed bag of OHS, VIP, and 1CTF attack/defend games. I was blamed for not getting the water, despite not receiving any instruction to do so ("fill up the guns", lolwhut guns? Oh, the containers, you meant.), although I did find those 89 cent jugs at Meijer today. xD Still not sure if Target carries them, but they should be fairly standard. Anyway, some of the rounds were fast and fun; lots of running around and maneuvering. There was little real stealth. We were more focused on play testing the location than anything else, and I do like what we saw. The abandoned building we played at was okay, but something's better than nothing.

Sun: NENO 11. Easily one of the best nerf wars I've played so far. Kills in any nerf game (stock and NIC, indoor and outdoor) happen a lot more frequently, which I think gives the game a lot more potential for interesting things to happen. Here, I lacked appropriately applied aggression, shooting skill, and a proper barrel for the darts I was using (basically scraping anything I could find off the ground). 103 FPS out of a 5-pump airgun will get you nowhere.

Anyway, looking forward to Soakemore 2015, which I can always count on for variety and fun. (Seriously, we have no other wars that are as well-varied.)

Sorry for not getting these up sooner, but here are the few pictures I took.

Taking a picture of Duxburian taking a picture of the group. (His turned out better obviously, haha.)


This was before a 1CTF game in tall grass. Area51 with the face palm, haha.


Same as above.


Cool shot of my blaster resting on a sill while waiting for the enemy team to appear.


Danny on guard; same round.


CA99 also on guard in the same battle.


Patrolling through an abandoned train yard.


It was a pretty awesome location and it'd be sweet if we could do an all-day battle of some type there. Maybe over spring break?

Those are really good pics. Area51 is Danny, Tony hasn't joined the board yet. The tall grass and structures look quite different from what we've played in before. I'm excited for next year.

Rob can you post your pics?

The setting gives off a post apocalyptic vibe. I really dig that. Sometime I'd like to get the full size pics from y'all.

Alfatrooper's battle report:

This was a great first war and I enjoyed meeting new people and experiencing a new type of game. NENO was also amazing and it was fun to see people at a water war and on the nerf field.

One flag CTF:
We played this round in the openness of a field like area covered in train tracks. My team was attacking. The teams were Myself, Tony, Brandon, and Robert vs Sam, Keith, and Danny. The idea of a response point didn't work very well because I got hit once and by the time I responded the round was over. I like this round and started to understand how to fire the blaster as well as dodge on uneven ground.

One Flag CTF:
My team was defending the flag. Danny, Sam, Brandon and I vs Robert, Keith, and Tony. I got my first hit of the day on Keith and was eliminated by him and Robert. I started to learn how to move better and fire.
I really liked this round and enjoyed the non stop fighting. We were defending a clearing and the enemy team was traveling through the grass to get to us.

VIP-both rounds covered.
I honestly didn't like these rounds very much because they took so much time and I only got one shot off during the entire 45 minute period. It seemed like my team's sneaky strategy didn't work because we met all of them at once and we burned time walking all the way around to the back of the building.
When my team was defending I was waiting for about five minutes then Robert called me forward and I watched Robert take one shot and end the round. Both games were not that fun for me. I think with more people they could be better but 3 on 4 was not good.

Field Deathmatch
This was the best part of the day for me. I loved the openness of it and the constant running, communicating, repositioning, and intense fighting that happened. I think we wasted time at the beginning because once we found the other team we never got separated from them. I liked the close combat fighting and the easy to play game type.

This was a great day even with the five rounds we played. I really like the location and the differences from nerfing. A big thankyou to everyone who was there and especially Robert who worked with me ahead of time and made sure I was ready for the day. Also a thanks to Sam for helping make NENO a great war.

See you all next time!

It's kind of funny seeing how what Zach liked most seems to be the opposite of what Brandon likes. E.g. hunting vs fighting in an open field. I love the constant action of fighting in rounds like 1hs, but I do not like open fields at all; unless you include high grass and bushes in "open fields" because I like hiding.

Glad you had fun at your first war. I hope to see you on the battlefield at some point.

One of the main problems is that we don't have enough people, and not enough solid people who can handle these long rounds. Obviously note that the playtests were just that - tests. The full versions of the rounds we played at FF call for much more space. The whole field instead of the upper corner, the whole badlands instead of the storehouse, all of the grasslands instead of the clearing, etc. These areas have a ton of long round potential if balanced teams of at least 4v4 can be turned out (at least 3v3 if all-solid players).

I am open to trying all day rounds where both teams have objectives to accomplish over the course of the game and don't have knowledge of what the other team's objectives are. People to escort to various places, flags to capture, buildings to explore, etc. In other words, giving the battle a storyline and places for the teams to encounter each other. In addition to normal tactics and strategy, they'd have to try and figure out what the enemy is trying to do and stop them.

Cedar Hill is massive and has lots of varied terrain that is more interesting than traditional woods, so I'd like to continue with games there. We can do a Spring Break single round war there if there's enough numeric interest.

I do like a variety of game types to play. It gets boring in nerf to play 3-15 all day. I didn't like the stealthiness of the two VIP rounds because in the end I only got to take one shot during both rounds. I think it could be better with more people.

The "field" had cover but there was no hiding and waiting on the other team. At all times we could see each other and were just exchanging shots.

I am very interested in going back. I have a weird spring schedule but if something is planned I will make the effort to attend.

I'm definitely interested in a single-round war. Adding different objectives sounds like a good idea, though coming up with good ones might be a challenge. I'd be willing to help set things up. Having it over spring break would be cool, but I don't think our schedules line up very well. I know marauder's spring break was like a week before mine this year.

marauder wrote:It's kind of funny seeing how what Zach liked most seems to be the opposite of what Brandon likes. E.g. hunting vs fighting in an open field.

That's why he's a nerfer and I'm a water warrior (and soon-to-be airsofter, assuming I can find a good group), haha. I guess I'll offer some feedback on the rounds:

1CTF round 1: It was fun at first because we started out of sight of the enemy (my team attacked) and we crept up on them from all sides. The actual fight was over pretty fast, but better that than being stagnant. Tony (I could've sworn someone said he was Area51) got to capture the flag while I kept the bad guys away.

1CTF round 2: This was in a clearing surrounded by tall grass (my team defended) as seen in the 2nd and 3rd pictures. There was a lot of shooting but it felt pretty cramped. I think I liked the first one better, but that might be because I was attacking then. I'm pretty good on D, but it's kinda boring.

VIP round 1: We waited on guard for a while before the enemy appeared. Once they did it was over pretty quickly. I agree with Alfatrooper; this would've been much better with a couple extra heads.

VIP round 2: This was actually really hilarious because marauder's nephews switched clothes in an attempt to confuse the enemy into going after the wrong one. I think they were fooled for about 10 seconds...yeah that didn't work. But it was still the most amusing part of the war. Once again, this would've been fun if it were like 6v6.

1HS: There was plenty of action, but it was all in the open. If it were all veteran players, I bet you that there would've been close to no hits made. I tried to get my team to move out of the open and try some interesting moves, but nobody listens to me anyway. A lot of running took place. I was getting over what I thought was just the flu but was actually Mono, so needless to say I wasn't operating at 100%. This battle wasn't my cup of tea, but we did the best we could with our limited numbers.

Looking good guys, sorry I couldn't make it! We need more water balloon launchers...

Water balloon launchers haven't been very useful in past wars and they take way to long to set up. I have been thinking about an improved design with multiple air tanks that can be quickly swapped out and an attached sabot that stops at the end of the barrel. If there is one thing that my past has taught me though is that I tend to make grand plans to build things, but rarely get around to making them. As a kid I planned to do airsoft and was going to make an army of RC planes with guns and a pedal powered armored car to launch them from, yeah, that never happened.

Sound like a good war that could have used a few more people, sorry I couldn't make it. If another war is held over spring break I can probably come, even if it is not during my break, so long as it is a weekend I think it would work. I drove to Michigan to go Nerfing with CA99 over winter break so driving up to Connecticut right after school doesn't seam to bad now (only 6 hours vs. 8 ). I will probably start planning for Soakemore soon too, a few of my local friends have their drivers license now so if some people start dragging they could be driven back to my house while the rest of us keep fighting.