P is for Paintball

so you know how we went paintball the first monday of the holidays...WELL here's more or less how it went.


Top Ten Tips for those playing Paintball:

1. Don't gym it up the day before.
The guns are heavy and the canisters are heavy.

2. Eat a very very very filling breakfast or lunch before you play.
Our game was meant to start at 9.30, but in reality probably started at 11, and it finished at 3. What did I eat? 2 Weetbixes and milk for breakfast, and a Peach Iced Tea during our 15 minute break...Needless to say I was starving throughout the game.

3. Get hit once.
It's a good experience. After you get hit for the first time, try to never get hit again. That's a bad experience.

4. Don't get hit on the butt.
One of the worst places to get hit, not counting a guy's private parts, since that's most likely protected by a Hector Protector.

5. Don't get shot repeatedly in one area.
This is what happens:

(...yeh my face looked disgusting but you get the point...and it wasn't as bad as it seemed. in the photo it looks like its relli relli red...like blood red, but it was actually purplish at the time)

6. Don't waste your bullets.
I never understood it when people, before and after games, started randomly firing off their guns, as if practicising or something. You're just wasting your bullets, and you're not really improving your aim.

7. Don't open your mouth.
It's not pleasant when someone shoots the mouth bit of your mask and the paint splatters into your mouth. Not pleasant at all.

8. Decide what balance of fun and pain you want.
If you want to have some fun but not get hurt too much, then linger around your base and don't advance. If you want more fun and don't mind getting hurt a lot, advance a bit. If you want the most fun ever and the most pain ever, do a Mukhtar and just walk out casually shooting everyone you see (but remember, everyone who sees you will shoot too).

9. Try to work as a team.
I don't know about the other team, but my team didn't discuss tactics much. Who was going to advance? Who was going to stay back and defend? Who was going to start off where? Who was going to partner up with who?

10. Get a Maheesha on your team.
By this I mean get someone who is absolutely crazy about cadets, and knows everything. And stay with him. We had a free for all game and the last two people left were Maheesha and Nicky. I don't know if this was to do with others just blindly shooting out paintballs and the two cadets conserving their bullets, or if the two cadets just had relli good coverage and whatnot, but I mean, it's gotta mean something.