On Saturday November 24th, I had the delightful experience of going paintballing at Skirmish USA. Now for me this is a big treat for me because I am only able to go once a year, if that. It’s not so much the fact of me being free for that weekend but more about being able to get everyone else together to go. Usually when I go, I go all out. I am not able to do anything else that weekend because I leave Friday day, paintball Saturday, then leave Sunday night.
I don’t know how many have you been to Skirmish in Jim Thorpe, PA let alone paintballing but the combination of those two are great. The dates that I try to pick are either an event call ‘Young Gunz’ or half price paint day. I’m pretty sure the latter is self explanatory but Young Gunz is basically were anyone from the ages of 10-19 play for half price admission ($14.95). You may not know this but paintballing can get very expensive and I don’t have that kind of money to just go whenever and just start playing. Paint is also expensive because you have to buy their paintballs because of what they are made up. The ones that you would buy at Wal-Mart and other places such as that, are made of cheap plastic, don’t break on impact, and hurt a lot more. Paint can run about $100.00 per case of 2000 but really you should only need about 1000 for the whole the day.
I have always liked Skirmish. They have great fields, great scenarios, and easy registration. So as we pull up, I didn’t really realize how cold it really was. To become warm I had under armor, a shirt, a double layered long-sleeved cotton shirt, a sweatshirt, and then camo overalls. Like the saying goes; go big or go home. When you go paintballing, you should stay the whole day which is usually from 11-5. It did get warmer throughout the day but not much warmer.
When we first got there, they had us register. This process was quite easy with all of the usually information (Name, Address, DOB, and liability signatures). Paintball can be a dangerous sport with little plastic balls of paint flying through the air at 300 feet per second and that coming in contact with your eye can be a painful experience. There are masks and goggles that are mandatory to wear but Skirmish is just making sure they are covered if said event were to happen.
After registration, we got our camo overalls which were $5.00 to rent and belt packs which are basically empty peanut butter cases in a belt that hold about 100 paintballs each. From there we proceeded to the main ground to pick up our guns, masks, and air for the gun (also known as N2). This took about 10 minutes and after that we meet up with our team of which half was black and half was white. To distinguish between the two, they had duct tape of different colors and this would go around the bicep of your arm.
Now each time you go, you will most likely get a different set of referees, also known as refs with the word ‘REF’ on their shirt, and they will choose which fields you go to. They do at some point let you choose or you can request a field but you won’t always get it.
Throughout the day we played several different fields, each with different scenarios. There are two different types of fields. The first one is wooded, which is just natural woods. The other is manmade, which is anything that has barrels or any kind of barrier to help you. Skirmish has a lot more wooded area than they do manmade which isn’t saying much because their fields are estimated at about 10 square miles.
After we go to our first field, the ref would tell us what kind of game we would be playing. They have CTF or capture the flag which is where one flag is in the middle of the field and you have to bring it to the opposing teams flag stand (which is just a piece of PVP sticking out of the ground). Another game type is called flag return which is where you have to get the opposing teams flag and return it to your side but while you do this, they can’t have your flag, so you have to have both your flag and their flag to win. The most common of all game types is just elimination which is where you just have to eliminate the other team before they eliminate you.
Speaking of which (elimination), there are two sets of elimination rules. To be eliminated you have to be hit with a paintball fired from the opposite team and it has to break on impact. There will be some times where you will feel it hit you and it won’t break so you have to make sure before you call yourself out. In some games you will play all hits where you can hit them anywhere and if it breaks, they are out. Other times you will play arms and legs where if you hit their arms from the forearm down and the bottom half of your leg, it won’t count. Basically it’s just only torso shots count. The other things to remember is always check yo self before you call yourself out and anytime they hit your gun, it doesn’t count EVER.
Now the main attraction with Skirmish is what they call The Castle. And wouldn’t you know it; it’s a big 3 story castle. Now this is most of the time the final field you will play and the most exciting. They will have hundreds of people play for this one so prepare to waste… I mean use a lot of ammo for this one. Half of the people participating will be defending and the other half will be attacking. There is only one round of this. Anybody who is a defender has a piece of tape that they put on their helmet somewhere. When you get hit, you have to run out, ring a bell, take the tape off, and then you run in as an attacker.
I have been going paintballing for about 4 years now and each and every time I have a great time. There would be no other paintball place that I would go to.
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