Ramblings About My Life..

5 Bruises, 1 Scratch and 1 Great Day!

There are around 3 circular welts on my left flank, one on my shoulder and another on the right side of my back. That is what happens when a paint pellet has it's flight abruptly stopped by a person. 350 miles per hour, 5 grammes of paint - the change in momentum is definitely sufficient to alter the superficial tissue of the human body. You don't feel much pain - it feels like someone gave you a particularly hard tweak. Perhaps its the adrenaline coursing through your veins. You can run, stumble, slide and jump without feeling exhaustion, even though your legs have lost all sensation ages ago. When you finally stop, everything crashes down on you again. The welts sting. Your legs have turned to jelly. You're suddenly out of breath. You notice scratches that you have no idea of how you obtained them. Ah, yes. Paintball is absolutely astral.

Went for paintballing organized by MASSOC (Malaysian and Singaporean Society) just this morning. MASSOC had chartered a coach to take us there, and our paintballing session was from 9am to 4pm. It was held in a vast, thickly wooded area in the outskirts of Sheffield. The whole area was cordoned off to form "maps" in which we had our matches. We played a total of 4 maps, each having 2 rounds. We were split into two groups, Red and Yellow. I was in Red. And we totally dominated Yellow. I'm serious. It was pure ownage on our part. Out of the 8 rounds, Red won 7. The only round we didn't win, we tied with Yellow. I guess our team was just much more coordinated and aggressive. Whereas Yellow would just charge at us with their guns blazing, we would just lay down suppressive fire, send small groups to flank them and shoot the living crap out of them from the sides.

My experience in paintballing began rather badly. In our first map, we were supposed to attack a "fort" in the forest. The first area was rather hilly and our plan was to assault it from two fronts. I chose to attack from the hilly side, but as our spawn point was downhill, that meant that I had to run all the way around the map, hike uphill and charge down at a fort held by 25 or so bloodthirsty and trigger-happy opponents. When the game began, I sprinted off to higher ground. Once there, I immediately took cover behind a tree and began sniping at the enemy. However, to my chagrin, the tree that I was taking cover behind was suddenly used by two other blokes. I found my self with insufficient space to hide myself - and before I knew it, my gun was hit. The paint spattered onto my mask and I thought I took a head shot. I held my gun up (signal that says "I'm F***ed") and went back to the spawn point. Once there, however, I discovered that I wasn't shot at all! And before I could rejoin the battle, Red had already captured the fort.

In the second round, Red was supposed to defend the fort this time around. I took a position in a corner of the fort, overlooked by the higher ground. I figured that most of the action would be there - and I wanted to be in the thick of it. I wasn't disappointed. Yellow kept doing suicidal charges at us. We shot them down in a hail of pellets. After a while, I ran out of pellets - I was literally doing a triple tap to every enemy I saw (one to range, one to adjust the line of fire and the final one to kill). Managed to snipe two enemies before I ran out of ammo. After my pellets ran out, I just crouched in a corner and observed the battle raging all around me. Suddenly, an enemy poked his gun through one of our unguarded firing ports and opened up on us - I was hit on my back. The perpetrator had his arm bloodied by a hail of pellets that rained down on him immediately after that. 5 seconds later, the shouts of "Game over!" by the marshals echoed through the woods. Red had won by successfully defending the fort.

In the second map, Red was supposed to defend huts for 10 minutes from the advancing Yellow in the first round. The defenders had limited lives whereas the attackers had unlimited lives - if you get shot, you just run back to the spawn point and start again. Yellow's assault advanced, slowly but steadily, their sheer numbers overwhelming us. My huts were one of the last pockets of resistance. I sniped from a window, forcing the enemy to take cover and hopefully slow them down. One by one my friends were hit, and I was the last one in the hut. I was kept busy by trying to snipe someone who wasn't completely behind cover - only to not notice Yellow had advanced to my hut. A few of them poked their barrels through an open window and unleashed a fusillade of pellets at me. Ow. A painful way to get knocked out from the round. However, Red won again by holding on onto the last hut until 10 minutes were up.

The subsequent rounds, my luck (and perhaps, to a miniscule amount, skill) had improved. I actually managed to get shot only once for the remaining rounds. Red's teamwork saved the day. Our flanking moves always caught Yellow wrong-footed. In the capture-the-flag maps, Yellow always reached the flag first (by virtue of their charging to the flag as soon as the game commences), but we would arrive soon after to gun them down and take the flag for our own. We usually surrounded them and while one side kept them busy, the others would rush and shoot them from their backs.The most memorable part was when the small group I was in was tasked to flank the enemy - only to find ourselves against their main force. Yellow had warmed up to our tactics, albeit at the very last round.

We had to move forwards in leapfrog movements while taking cover at every possible moment in order to avoid getting an unhealthy dose of attention from them. Some of us provided covering fire while the rest ran forwards, then those who went forward would take cover, provide covering fire and allow those at the back to run forward. I remember running from tree to tree, leaning out to shoot occasionally (I managed to shoot two of them while doing this!), and then crawling forwards in the hope that they couldn't see me. I remained supine behind a rock the size of a stool for nearly 3 minutes, raising myself occasionally to shoot at the enemy. When our group was close enough, we literally charged them. The enemy did an unexpected thing - they ran. We shot at their backs as they scampered away. Some got away, but the sounds of gunfire from the other side of the map meant that our other teammates were dealing with them with extreme prejudice.

Then, for some reason inexplicable to me, I just walked into the enemy's base, my finger on the trigger but with the gun in a relaxed position. We had already won the battle. I half-expected some of the opposition to be lying in ambush - but the truth was that my teammates had already shot all of them in our charge up to their base. My friend took the flag and we ran back to base. Red wins. After the final round, we de-kitted and went back by chartered coach, which dropped us off in time for dinner. I spent around 15 pounds on paint pellets, not including the game fee of 11 pounds. An incredibly expensive past-time, but I think I'll be making paintballing an annual event - it's great fun!

Summary:
Confirmed Kills - 4
Probable Kills - 3
Killed (Times) - 4
Shots Fired - 400 (yes I'm a bad shot - 400 bullets and only 4 confirmed kills?)

posted by yong chen @ 12:31 AM