Death Before Dishonor

7– May– 2006

As usual, (due to the field being 2 ½ hours away from my house, ARGH) the day started out early. 05:15, and the alarm was blaring – it was promptly snoozed until 05:30. I got up, got showered, dressed, packed the cooler and threw everything into the back of the Jeep. I go back inside the house for a minute where my lazy-a** dog has not even lifted his head up, and give my fiancé' a kiss goodbye. First stop, Sgt. Tomahawk's place.

I get to my buddy's house at the appointed time, and after moving the soccer gear , we transfer my gear into the back of his Honda. Go CRV Power! (Well at least GO CRV Gas Mileage!). His wife and dog are still asleep, and we are able to make a clean getaway without disturbing either of them. We finally begin our 2 hour ride from New Jersey to the field on Long Island .

We arrive without any tickets, as usual, and begin unloading and strapping on gear in the parking lot. Dave has beaten us to the field by only a few minutes. We check in, pay our way, and pickup a case of field paint. Finding Dave at our table, he has already strung up our shiny new banner. It unfortunately had arrived two days too late to be displayed at our last game, but it looks great, and is hanging with pride.

I begin to look over the ranks with nothing but pride. This is our team, we are the Loaded Crows, one of the few keystones of the Red team here at High Velocity. Its small turnout for us: Dave, Rob, Joe, and myself. Joe made it just in the nick of time, as usual. Hopefully, once the other crows get all the NYS Bar Exams / babies / nagging injuries / christenings / hangovers out of the way we'll get the full squad to come out . We get ourselves chronographed and loaded up with paint. It's going to be a great day. Alongside the Loaded Crows, we have the Red Team Elites, and none other than the West Point team, its going to be a good day.

Again, the day begins without a trench start, and I'm happy with that. The Red's began in the rear of the air force field, with the blues starting in the rear of the WW2 field. We probably had a little less to run, and that seemed to help, as we swarmed into the woods and converged on the trenches. I'm not sure how they ran so far so fast, but those hated Blues didn't get there much slower than we did, firefights ensued everywhere. Listening to the pop of air gun reports, I thought again "G-d, I love this sport.".

The morning session saw the Red team make some impressive gains. Due in part to the starting position, we were able to quickly gain control of 3 out of 4 flags. The Airfield flag was raised first, followed shortly by the Woods and then the Trenches. What followed was truly amazing…in stark contrast to the last game, our lines held! We repelled blue charge after blue charge. It was hot, we were sweating, but we played hard. I would like to think we played harder than usual, but we always give it 110% on the field and today was certainly no different. Fighting alongside the cadets from West Point , Team Recon, and the Red Elites, we withstood the blue onslaught and managed to maintain control of those 3 flags for the entire morning session.

Those West Pointers made a huge difference in our force. I think they brought like 20 of them. Even the Red's walk-ons seemed to do a tad better than usual. People are beginning to recognize the Loaded Crows, and that's truly awesome. We went in one year from being a bunch of clown nobodies to not just a team, but a team with field recognition and respect. We even got a nod during the pre-game briefing from Orion.

We have a big game scheduled for June (NJ-NAM), and I am beginning to really watch our players. What do we need improvement on? What can we do to be a more effective force? Well, I can see we need some help in a lot of different areas, but the biggest remains playing together. We are getting better, but there is a lot of room for improvement. We all have different play styles, and prefer different positions on the field. I play more of a rear support and command role, while Dave plays up front more, flanking opponents and looking for angles . Joe prefers to hang back and long ball with his Apex barrel, and Rob likes to play up front in as much action as he can find. If only our two front players, Todd and Jeff had come, Rob would have had some much needed assistance up there . I suddenly have the sense of a proud father as he notices his children have grown up while his eyes were closed. Yeah, we'll be ready for next month. I've noticed over the last year, each one of us has continued to improve our individual skills; however, many of our team skills have seemed to reach a plateau. I sadly believe this has a lot to do with the field we are playing. It's relatively small, and we have played it often enough to not merely have the map memorized, but we are beginning to see the same battles at the same points most every time we are out. Our radio communication is getting better, but it's slow moving. We haven't been playing a field where we are really forced to be spread out, or bring reinforcements much further than shouting distance. Its tough to find more than two major battles on this field at any given time, and even then, they are generally within eyesight distance of each other. This is a mere fact of the size of this field. It remains one of our favorites, and definitely where we have spent the most time, but I sadly think we have reached the point where we are going to be branching out. It's really a lot like Counter Strike. To the casual player, once you have a map memorized, its time to move on. To the real hard core player, once you have a map memorized, you camp and terrorize the newbies. Being the honor-bound team we are, we will never pick on newbies; it is our sworn duty to assist and support those new to our sport.

Back to today's battle! Damn, we're doing well. About as well as we had hoped, but far better than we had expected, and better still than I think others had expected. For those of you who may be new here, the scenarios at High Velocity break everyone into two teams, the red and the blue. We play a 3 game season, generally from February though May, retaining the same command staff for all 3 games. It is customary for a scenario team to choose a side and stick with it through the end of each season. Today marks the end of the winter / spring season here at High Velocity, and for those keeping count its 1-1. A lot of respect, and even more smack talk is on the line here. Our beloved Loaded Crows strive for the challenge, and this game represents the culmination of our second season on the Red side. Since their inception, our foes have been the Blues; they are generally comprised of about 5 or 6 other scenario teams along with their walk-ons. The Red's are comprised of the Loaded Crows and handful of elite payers, and a few others “when they can make it.” Because of this, the Red's have been the underdogs since before even the Loaded Crows started playing. This is our 5th game here, but even with the Red's being the underdogs we ended up winning last year. We are used to being outnumbered in skill and players, and outgunned. Not this time though, today, with the West Point team, and a few absences on the Blue side we are quite evenly matched in numbers, skill, and artillery.

Speaking of artillery, those crazy Blues and their god-forsaken secret weapons; they brought the same water balloon / paint grenade launcher, but this time they added to it. The NYOC team built and deployed a shiny new air cannon / mortar type weapon at this game. They called it “The Beast.” Humorously we Reds found it rather ineffective. Anything short of a direct hit doesn't seem to generate enough splatter to count as elimination. I got splattered plenty of times, none of it counted. (It should also be noted, after the game a number of players have reported trouble washing the paint from it off, and the Blues should be advised to please change paints to something more soluble.) Not to be outdone, some of our own Red elites built (with a little safety advice from Dave) their own version of the same weapon. Its principle is really quite simple, just a big pressurized tube. Open the valve to release the pressure, and whatever is in the tube is launched, just like a mortar. Apparently the Blues had no similar wizened old man to listen to, as halfway through the day, they had a misfire, inadvertently eliminated the entire heavy artillery squad, and had their launcher removed from the field due to safety concerns. On the other side, ours was able to continue firing flawlessly until it surreptitiously ran out of ammunition.

During the lunch break we found out we had a decent lead in the points. The scoring at high velocity is largely based on three things, body count (eliminations), missions, and the length of time in which the flag stations are controlled. This lead basically meant that as long as body count and mission points were comparable, all we had to do was control 2 flag stations for the afternoon and we would be victorious. We had our objective…keep the trench flag red.

The afternoon session started in the trenches…not my bag, as I've mentioned before, but I digress. This time, the blue horde had the starting advantage. They were quickly able to raise the Airfield and Woods flag while we raised the WWII flag, leaving the trench flag, as we expected, up for grabs. The battle for the trench flag raged back and forth all afternoon starting out blue, later falling to us Reds. Joe, having figured out the dive-bomb effect on his new Apex barrel was having a great time. That coupled with his camo JT Flex 8 made him an absolute monster in the trenches. Dave, as usual found a spot in the woods that gave him a great angle on the middle bunker as well as one side of the trenches. From there, he was able to shoot ropes of paint from his Promaster through a hole in the bunker wall that had been created by someone diving in. This hole in the bunker wall probably sealed the blue's fate. Each charge or dive into the bunker resulted in a torrent of paint which could not be dodged.

We fought hard, every last damn one of us. From the Command Staff (Jim and Nexter), to the Loaded Crows, to our elites (IDF, Ranger and associates), to the West Point team, to our walk-ons, there was no retreat, no giving up, and no slowing of charges. At the end of the day, it paid off. We Reds won. We happily finished our second season and 5 th game at High Velocity as Champions. Thanks to everyone who was there, played and played to win. Congratulations to all on the Red side, you earned it. To the *hated* Blues: Thank you, we had another great game, a tough season, and we love playing. Keep up the challenge! To all the seasoned Blues going to NJNAM: Looking forward to shooting alongside you guys for a change, instead of at you! The Loaded Crows can't wait; it will be our biggest game ever.

“Veni, Vidi, Vici” - Julius Caesar