The story starts in 1991, around April or so. Winona RPSIG began to hold a Battletech tournament with a traveling trophy. At the first 'event', Winona RPSIG humiliated LAGS by making them surrender, and surrendering their 'mechs and salvage rights. (In game context, this is close akin to begging for mercy...)
At the next LAGS meeting, they were still licking their collective wounds. Since they ran opposite of the RPSIG meetings, some of us would come down to game with them. At the business meeting, they discussed retrieving some "Honor" by challenging us to something other than Battletech.
One of them said "Well, how about paintball?"
That's all I needed. There was a field within one mile to where LAGS held their meetings called "Paintball Steve's". It was on "Grand Dad's Bluff", and was really steep. (We joked that you needed rappelling gear to play it.) And I suggested we could do a game there. They liked it, and we began to set it up.
At the next RPSIG meeting, I told everyone about the game challenge, and everyone said "Sounds like a plan." So, we organized the meet.
The plan was simple. We wanted to get everyone a Splatmaster (meself included) and we'd all go out and play that way. Steve told me that he had enough Splatmasters to cover all of us, we just needed to show up. And that was OK, we were looking forward to it.
Before the outing I was getting a little nervous. I had 20 people who wanted to go. It shrunk to 5 over the course of two weeks. Lack of money, lack of time, lack of interest... It was a mess. On Friday night before the event I didn't sleep, I was too wired. I finally collapsed around 9 AM to raw exhaustion. I woke up around 3 PM to my roomies telling me "We're all going!"
How? "The bank of Huey."
I could dedicate a whole web page to Huey, but I won't. Huey is an interesting person, to put it lightly. At the time, he was in the Army reserves and getting money from the government for being in the reserves. At least that's what he told me. I was really happy that we would finally have players to play in this thing, and I was grateful to Huey for funding it.
"So where is he?" I ask
"He's coming." Jim said. "He's gonna meet us here."
No problem, I think. Do the 'morning routine' of shower, clean up, get my gear prepped... Yeah, the plan was to play with Splatmasters. But Steve mentioned he "...may not have enough guns." I decided to bring mine just in case. I'm closing my case and packing my ICS vest when Huey shows up.
Crisp cammos, creased and all. Spit shined boots. Regulation camouflage cap standing crisp and clean. Camo paint on his face, up to the hairline, down past the neckline in front and back and behind the ears. Painted hands up the wrist and forearm. Jet black Wayfarers on, smoking a cigarette. "Hard Core Central"
My first thought? "Hey, Huey, they give you a mask."
"Don't want it. Just gimme goggles." Huey says. Now this was before it became "Fashionable" to go goggles only, and the whole idea just didn't ring too good with me. But, that's life and I accepted it as just Huey. We all piled into a few cars and started the exodus to Granddad's Bluff to meet LAGS.
I should mention here as well the fact that Winona is 30 miles North of LaCrosse. So this was a trip next door as far as we were concerned. We spent the entire road trip down psyching up for it, and getting ready to make it happen. To this day, I'm happy there weren't any police around, we may have gotten pulled over for driving estatically.
Games were slated to begin around 4 PM, and it did. RPSIG was well represented with 11 people. LAGS had 13 players. We put our heads together as RPSIG and figured out that LAGS had hunters and some veterans, we had paintballers and Huey. "We'll go as it is." The other problem arose that they didn't have enough Splatmasters to go around. So I reluctantly broke out my main gun, and a few people rented the "Razorback" pump guns.
The idea was we would play a best of 3 series for bragging rights. With nightfall coming we wanted to get it going as fast as possible. Gear was handed out, we got the orientation and armbands on and we got playing.
We played a 'warm up game' first, just to get the hang of shooting the guns. We had the high side, they had the low side. On the horn, I sprinted out a little up the center, Huey screams past me. On my down slope Roger (Lefty), Jerry and Andy started to push the bottom side. Tony (Shabby), Tony N. (Ponyboy), and Tom (Terminator) moved around the top side with Jim (Gothic). Steve (Kamikaze) stayed back a little, but joined us on the bottom. And Rich ("Runflats" Maruzzi) said "I'll hang back." and defended the fort.
A quick note here. Ponyboy was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I just wanted to mention that. Pictures are being searched for...
It was amazing, Roger dodging paint as we all shot supporting fire for him. The three guys under the bridge bunker only saw Roger, but paint thundered around the them. After a few minutes, Roger got one to surrender! (He had no paint in the gun at the moment...) We started to slam through the bottom, Jerry in front of me. The middle looked good, we just couldn't get a good flank on the final castle bunker. What of Huey? Well, he ran up the tape, shot two players, and got eliminated with a shot to the face. On his nose. Took him down on impact. The LAGS player thought he killed 'im!
Huey's comment : "It's a little blood. I think I'll live."
RPSIG won the game to body count, 15 minutes wasn't enough time to really make a good move or push. Seeing as we won the 'warm-up', we gave LAGS the option of which side they wanted to start the for the real thing. they chose to start from the bottom fort, that we just beat them from. (Apparently, they're not familiar with Sun Tzu...)
We started from the topside again. And, once again, Huey sprinted into the woodline on the top of the hill. And once again Rich said "I'll hang back." and defended the fort. I stayed back a little, figuring I could longball and work it from there. We were doing well, holding our own and all. About ten minutes into the game I hear Tom yelling "I need help here! I'm pinned!"
So I walk over to Tom "Where from?"
"Over there! Get him off of me!" I should mention I'm standing about 5 feet from him to the right, and the guy 'pinning' him had a Splatmaster. Tom was using a brand new Phantom. So I figured "Okey..." and flanked around. Beautiful shot, the guy only had his hand sticking out so I nailed it at 100 feet.
"Tom! Let's go!" We were going to start to push the bottom side The problem was that we didn't have enough time to make an effective push, we got ambushed as time ran out (we got sloppy, I admit it.) What of everyone else? Well, Huey ran forward, shot three players and got eliminated by a shot to his lip. Everyone pushed the top side, leaving the bottom as an unknown. That's ok tho. We got the game on number of people left.
RPSIG : 1 LAGS : nil
Switch sides and start over again. We figured that we could take the high ground first, we'd have a chance from the bottom side. So myself, Huey, and Andy went as high as we could. Tony, Jim and Ponyboy wend up the center ditch (A drainage runoff carved through the center of the field.) Everyone else went on the low road. Well, Rich said "I'll hang back" and sat in the fort.
We sprinted high as fast as we could. I shot a few balls, but my 6-pak changer jammed, and I spent about 10 minutes clearing the next 12 gram into it. (The spring was off, and needed to get fixed...) All the time I was doing this, I could hear Ponyboy running up to bunkers screaming "Hey Monkeyboy! You can't shoot me Monkeyboy!"
The referee who was helping me out said "Can I borrow your gun? I just want to shoot him..." So imagine what LAGS was thinking. I managed to clear the 12 gram from the gun, and I made a few clutch shots. But, with time running out, we had to move. I started the hike up the hill to get to the LAGS fort.
This took me towards the 'dead zone'. Where a few people were saying "Hey! Someone shot Catt!" (My offflne nickname...) I looked up at them, looked at the boundary line, and said "Not yet." And slanted to the fort. However, it was too little too late. We ran out of time when we were 25 feet away from the flag. Oh well, that's the game.
The bottom got run hard and well. Huey ran along the top, took out two guys, and got eliminated by a ball to his lower lip. The center harassed them long enough that the bottom side could maneuver up. Again, we took the game to numbers of people left.
Huey's comment : "Man, this is worse than scope-bite!"
RPSIG : 2 LAGS : Nil
Darkness was falling hard by the time we got to the third game. Saying night fell would be an understatement. It came crashing around our ears with audible ringing. The only light was from the bar that was adjacent to the field that was throwing us all off.
Our plan was to let LAGS come at us. Just to see what they would do. So on the horn we moved forward about 100 feet and sat. Well, with the exception of Huey who made more of a run than the rest of us. And Rich who wanted to "Hang back" and sat in the fort. Apparently, LAGS had the same plan.
So I'm behind my bunker waiting... waiting... waiting... And before I know it I can't see a thing in front of me. Ponyboy, who's behind me says "You don't have to answer this. I think they're sitting too." So we figure a crawler campaign is in order. I slither into a bunker with Jim. Remember the only light we can see by is the lights from the bar above the playing field, and that's only in a small shaft where the fence is open for the stairs into the field. (I said it was STEEP!)
All the while, Roger is standing in the middle of the field. He looks (in the remainder of light) at Andy and says "It's Dirty Harry time." He walks UP THE MIDDLE of the field, stops and waits. Standing in the open. Nothing happens. Well, with the exception of Steve who mistakenly took Roger for a LAGS person and shot about 20 balls at him with his Splatmaster. (He can be forgiven. It was late at night...)
Tony joins us up topside. The only shots we heard all game was in the beginning, a rapport of 5 shots, two LAGS people yelling "HIT", and Huey saying something I can't reprint and keep a Family rating as he gets shot in the cheek next to his nose. (More scope-bite material...)
Most paintballers aren't as patient as we were, in retrospect. But, we were having fun listening for a twig to snap. The refs must have been bored to tears, they were giving us time calls. But the whole game changed with one call.
"Two Minutes!" yelled the ref.
"CHARGE!" yelled Roger.
That's all we needed. We were like caged badgers who wanted freedom. The entire RPSIG team started shooting and moving. I rolled out of my bunker right, Jim rolled out left, and we pounded into where we thought there was a guy. We got him hard. In the center, paintguns came to life as Tom, Andy and Jerry started to push that side. We had a good slam going too.
Roger looked over to the ref and said "I'll stay here. It's safer." It was. We began to aggressively push through the nighttime air when the final horn was blown. RPSIG had about 10 players left, LAGS had around 3.
RPSIG : 3 LAGS : Nil
A great battle of honor had ended, and RPSIG walked away victorious!
The story doesn't end there yet. We all headed up to the bar for congratulatory drinks (Lotta beer, some sodas, lots of appetizers...) but we were missing something. Mainly Chris. See, Chris was (at the time) a part owner of the LaCrosse store "Next Generation" which housed LAGS and sold gaming books and dice. He was lost on the field! So a referee was dispatched to find him. War stories traded all around. As a token of appreciation, LAGS bought the first round, RPSIG bought the appetizers. Neither one lasted long.
Rich "Runflats" Maruzzi rented a Splatmaster, and bought three tubes of paint. When it was all said and done, he returned the Splatmaster, and two full tubes of paint and handed me a tube with 7 balls in it. The other 3 shots were on the target range.
Huey took all face shots. He ended up with a slightly split lip and a really interesting nose for a week. Last I heard of him he's somewhere in either Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, or Germany with "The wonderful wife Dianne." It's never really been fully explained to me.
RPSIG challenged LAGS to another match next year. Roger, Andy and myself were the only ones to go, with one of Andy's roomates. LAGS never showed up, so we declared ourselves the winners by default and played pool at the bar and drank root beers. (Well, I drank root beers...)
Paintball Steve's in LaCrosse was shut down by beaurocracy in '93 or so. The bar was leasing land they didn't have. Steve made a move to buy the land, but it was too late. So, he lost the field. I haven't really seen him around since.
Me? Well, I ended up with a good story and some great shots (accuracy wise and photographically). I don't remember the drive home, I fell unconscious somewhere around when I got into the car after we left the bar. (No, I don't drink. I was just exhausted.)
Finally, I assume that someday one of the LAGS people will write me and say "That's not what happened." Well, I would like to quote a famous person who I don't know who once said "Winners get to write the history books." Always willing to revise history, however...
It's how I remember it, ok? Sheesh!