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| Author: |
MrHyde |
| Date: |
Saturday, March 26 2005 @ 08:00 AM EST |
| Viewed: |
700 times |
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 Myrna organized a long weekend skirmish trip to Echuca/Moama. This was a followup to the skirmish trip exactly 2 years ago to Mount Gambier. It was also Priyanka's first trip to Echuca and to a skirmish... she had no idea what she was getting into.
Since it was the Easter long weekend, Echuca was fully booked out. So, we were staying at Rochester (30Ks from Echuca). Myrna, Dana and a few others were staying at the Rochester Hotel whereas Priyanka and I were staying at the Criterion Hotel. We drove up on Friday afternoon and met the others in Echuca for dinner at the Shamrock Hotel. From chatting with them, it turned out the Rochester Hotel was a dump. We managed to get a good deal at the Criterion. We had a huge room with a TV and fridge and an ensuite with a spa for only slightly more than what the girls were paying.
Next day, we went to the Skirmish place - Semoz Paintball - and met up with Minh and his mate and got ready for a whole day of skirmish. We were given camouflage overalls and helmets. However, the two teams were differentiated only by armbands, instead of different coloured clothes as in Mt Gambier. Priyanka and I were put on opposite teams. :)
The first scenario took place in a old ruins complex and the aim was to capture the flag and take it to the enemies HQ. The first 5 minutes was a no dying period, where if you were shot, you had to run back to your HQ and become alive again. After 5 minutes, if you were shot, you died. I probably got shot around 3 times in the first 5 minutes trying to get to the flag. The flag was in a broken down stone brick church in the middle of the field and when the two teams approach the church, there is only two wall (with lots of big holes in the shape of crosses in it) separating the two teams. Somehow we managed to get the flag and make a run to the other side on the flanks. In the return game, the opposite team managed to grab the flag within the first 10 seconds itself.. the rest of the game was spent trying to get it back unsuccessfully.
Following that we played a couple of team elimination rounds in fields with lots of tyres and haystacks.
Another scenario that I enjoyed was played on a field with about 6 long parallel hills and about 2-3 haystacks on a couple of the hills for cover. The aim was for one person to reach the other side. In the first game, I managed to get over 3 hills and was crawling in the trough making my way to a corner, but somehow I still got shot. Andy ran out of ammo at that point and made a run along the one side and managed to reach the other end without being hit. Apparently it was Priyanka who shot me as I peaked over the hill.
On the return scenario, I got shot pretty early and did not make any headway. However, Priyanka was doing well. She had managed to get to one of the haystacks in the middle of the field. What she didn't know was that there were two other people on the other side. She slowly came round the corner and yelled at the other two to surrender... big mistake... two vs one.. she didn't survive that challenge as she was shot by someone else further back.
Another scenario that I enjoyed the best was a seek and destroy. The opposite team was told to hide in a pretty big field... lots of tree trunks and bushes and tyres for cover and we didn't know where to hide. Our mission was to kill them all. Our team was working extremely well at this point. We would provide covering fire while a couple went forward and then they would provide covering fire while the rest advanced. In this way, we had managed to advance quite a bit down one of the flanks. During the advance, I noticed Priyanka's head pop up from behind a tree stump, but I did not have a clear shot... so together with Minh, we approached the tree stump from one side while the rest of the team distracted her in another direction. I managed to get behind her and shoot her and she had no idea we were even there. :) She was extremely pissed off at me for shooting her. :) In the reverse match, our team decided that defense was not really viable, so we attacked the team that was supposed to hunt us down and we killed them off winning both times.
Another scenario, which I did not enjoy, was capture the fort. In defense, we were not allowed to leave the fort at all and the enemy could approach us from three directions and from trenches and I died pretty early. In attack, I got pegged down in the trenches and couldn't get much ahead much.
Most of the other scenarios were team elimination which got boring after a while as there was no mission other than shoot the opposing team. The final scenario was played in a car junkyard and although I didn't survive for long.. Priyanka did extremely well. She had run out of ammo, but that didn't stop her.... somehow she had managed to sneak behind enemy lines and was going around getting people to surrender. I can still see her sneaking up behind people, pushing her gun into their back and shouting surrender. She did the same to Minh... in fact, when she snuck up behind him, she grabbed him by the collar and pushed him off the field and all that with an empty gun!!! In the reverse game, she tried the same tactic and got shot at from close range.
Overall, the skirmish was ok. I prefer the Mt Gambier course as there are more scenarios, teams are separated by coloured clothing, there was safe areas where you could take your helmet off (Semoz had no such area meaning we had to wear the helmet the whole time we were outside and they were extremely hot). In Semoz's favour was that they gave out cards each worth 100 shots and the referees would exchange the card with ammo on the field, which meant you did not have to carry around 1000 rounds with you. In addition, Semoz would refund any remaining ammo at the end of the day. I used up 1100 rounds and Priyanka used up 900 rounds, so we didn't need a refund, but it is good to know that one is available.
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