Paintball players have got to be one of the greatest bunch of tall-tale-tellers on the face of the planet.  When we’re not shooting someone or getting shot, we’re telling someone else about ‘that time we shot someone’.

When I paid a visit to the Chicago UWL event I had a really good chance to be reminded of just how much we all like a good game story.  I was hanging out with some of the longest playing folks around and we could have spent the next ten years reminding each other of this or that game, event, player, piece of equipment or what have you.

It reminded me of how much fun those stories are to tell and to hear – and how instructive they often are. (Not that any paintball player ever learns by listening to someone else give them advice!)  So I figured, why not make a place on 68Caliber for folks to tell those kinds of stories.

Paintball Stories will be an occasional feature of the site.  If you get bored with my tales of derring do, send in your own!

Our first paintball story takes place at Skirmish USA, home of the PMI-RP Scherer North American Championship tournament and home of the rhododendron.

The NA Championship event was one of the premiere, must attend tournaments on the circuit back in the day and, although I can’t remember exactly which year this took place, I do know that it was towards the end of the series – 90 or 91.

Before going any further though, I have to explain what rhododendrons are to those of you who’ve never played them.

The rhododendron is a viney plant that covers the ground, grows up to 12 feet or so high and is a dense, virtually impenetrable jungle of twisty-turny branches. Those branches aren’t usually more than an inch or so in diameter, and they’re pretty flexible, but the whole plant is also really tough.

It looks like this -

If you’re small enough and learn how to play rhodos, you can find animal trails snaking through the plants, but for most folks, except for the rare open pathway, rhodos create a wall.  Something you have to work around, rather than through.

During this particular tournament, my team – the Werewolves of NJ/PA – were doing pretty good, mostly because we hadn’t had to play any real competition up until the game in question.  Which was scheduled to be against the Grim Reapers, another NE team.  We knew, loved and hated the Reapers.  They were a typical brawling NE team, just like we were, and we never failed to have a great and interesting game against them.

The field we drew was one of the thickest being used.  In fact, it was basically a meandering path between flag stations on one side and nothing but rhodos on the other, and that other side was at least four-fifths of the width of the field.

There was an open area about the middle of the field, so the game was essentially going to be a race to run down the path and take control of that spot.  Since we figured we’d be filtering into the rhodos in order to flank, it was a good bet that the Reapers would be trying to do the same.

We therefore settled on the following game plan: Most of our guys would hoof it down the path. I’d crawl into the rhodos and cover the other flank – waiting to ambush any of the Reapers trying to do the same. A couple of our guys would hang back just in case and to tie in with me.

I got the crawling duty because I can fit down most of the rabbit trails in the rhodos and we figured I stood a good chance of making better time than any of the Reapers who might be doing the same.  That meant I might have a chance of sneaking past them.

The game started, I crawled off and started listening to the progress of the rest of the game.  I got about half way down the field when I realized that things weren’t sounding right.  There was shooting coming from behind me and, strangely, it seemed to be coming from the area of our flag station.

This didn’t start happening until about half way through the allotted time, so I began to suspect that some of our opponents had – somehow – managed to sneak through.

I dithered for a bit – it’s not a good idea to leave a flank open – but I hadn’t seen anyone, heard anyone or smelt anyone from the other team and I decided to chance it.

I crawled back towards our flag station and stopped just inside the bank of rhodos, right outside our flag station.

And this is what I saw:  Chris Harrison, a member of the team’s Imperial Guard (a few older, slower but very smart and patient guys on the team) was standing just outside the station with two Reapers and a ref.

It quickly became apparent that everyone was having an “I shot him before he shot me” argument (which is a good way to run out the clock when you are out numbered and the other team has your flag) which was getting pretty steamy.  Chris is one of those guys who gets really red in the face when he’s angry and despite his mask, I could see that he was very flushed.

The ref was gallantly trying to sort things out while simultaneously preventing a fist-fight (remember, I did say brawlers), when that proverbial light bulb appeared above my head.

I stepped out of the rhodos and shot both Reapers from just about ten feet away.

Man, if you thought the argument was hot and loud before that, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Reapers both shouted something like “Hey! What the heck are you doing!”

The ref turned to me and said “Yeah, what the heck are you doing!?”

I winked at Chris and said “Did you call anyone neutral?”

The ref did one of those shaken head double takes, turned to the Reaper players and said “You’re both out!”

We ended up winning the game on points (no hangs).

I guess the moral of the story is – just because you’re arguing with the ref doesn’t mean the game is over.