is fun…
In an unexpected answer to an unasked prayer, I ended up a bus to play paintball in Table Top on Sunday with a bunch of other radio competition winners (read: a mostly expenses paid trip).
I’ve wanted to do this for quite a while, and the experience didn’t disappoint. In my head I was picturing large clunky guns shooting big clumps of paint, but in reality, the guns are lightweight and the paintballs are small marble-size ‘bullets’ that make all the authentic ‘ping’ ‘whoosh’ noises that I expect real flying bullets make.
Paintballing would certainly be more fun playing with a bunch of friends (e.g. bucks party), or at least with people who’s names you knew. It made it difficult to strategise and communicate with each other on the battlefield when we didn’t know each other.
200 paintballs was included for free as part of the deal, but 200 paintballs is not nearly enough! In a striking parallel to real warfare, the team with the most resources (read: most money to buy the most ammunition) usually wins. I managed to scrape through 3hrs of fun with only 300 paintballs, but that was only by being ‘sniper-like’ and playing a gun-less medic for one round (which was actually really fun). Extra balls cost $22 p/100 and are available throughout the games. Some of the other players spent up to $200 on extra balls (discounts are available for bulk buying). Most players bought at least 200-300 extra balls. So with this in mind, buying a 500 ammo deal up front is probably the best way to go.
The guns don’t shoot 100% accurate, but that becomes part of the fun – learning to work with the random arc of the paintballs.
There are 7 or 8 different courses to play through, each suited to a some kind of scenario e.g. capture the flag, defend the POW, stalk the fortress etc.
The balls can sting and I walked away with 3 or 4 small bruisey welts. Some of the other guys ended up dotted all over with little red rings. I am glad I didn’t see the need to invest $5 in a crotch guard, but at least one of the guys was glad he did when he ended up with 3 bullseye gobs of paint splattered across his groin.
The little Round Hill Hotel in Morven proved a great spot to drop in for an ale on the way back to Wagga. And it was only then, much too late, did people slowly get to know each other a little better.