I recently had a chance to speak to my friend Wayne Montle of Blast Radius Woodsball Podcast about all the madcap antics that went down at OK D-Day.  Give it a listen.  If you don’t already subscribe to Blast Radius (I get my episodes through iTunes), put that on your To-Do list, and pick up a t-shirt if they’re not already gone.  All the cool scenario kids are wearing them.

Forgive me for not mentioning it earlier, but Paintball Live interviewed me on April 9 for a lengthy discussion of issues in scenario paintball and my sponsorship deal with Archon.  Check out their live show each Wednesday at 7 PM Pacific, or catch the rebroadcast via podcast on iTunes.  You can download (for free) the latest episode, or listen through the back catalog, including the stellar April 9th edition.  With Bea Youngs as a regular on the show and the knowledgeable and connected Don Saavedra on the mic, it’s an informative and fun listening experience.

I’ve been busy these past few weeks - MPP game at Paintball Charleston (complete with tornado) and the one day scenario at Wolf Creek Paintball.  I have a couple of weeks to catch my breath, write some magazine articles and update the blog, and then I’m off to Chicago for Living Legends of Paintball at Challenge Park.  Look for pictures and brief summaries of all these games to be posted soon.  I also made an appearance, sort of, on Paintball Live, an internet radio show run by Don Saavedra (Sentinel of Argent Force) and RyantheMighty.  They cover the paintball industry, the latest happenings in the tournament world, and scenario - predominantly the west coast scene.  Check out their most recent episode by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes.  Plans are in the work to have me on as a guest in a few weeks, so stay tuned.  It’ll probably happen not long after Living Legends, so I’ll be able to run down all the drama from CPX.

I’ve posted new links, so check ‘em out, especially Tango Alpha, a nice blog dedicated to south eastern scenario action.  I had a chance to play on a pick-up team with Paul at the Wolf Creek game, and while we kept getting separated, the times we actually ran together were a blast.

Much more coming soon.

Well, the word is out, and the press releases should hit the magazines soon. I’m now officially a sponsored player, backed by the world’s largest distributor, Archon Paintball. Archon makes fine paint such as one of my favorites, Chronic, as well as Proball, Origin, and others, and they carry everything from the Ego to the Dangerous Power Fusion and Threshold. One of Archon’s lines, TACAMO, is geared specifically to the mil-sim market. They craft the Type-68 marker with real AK-47 parts in a Chinese military factory. Doesn’t get much more simulated than that!

For 2008 I’ll be representing Archon by wearing Chronic Game Gear at all the events I attend. I’ll also be shooting the Dangerous Power Threshold. I got a chance to put it through its paces this past weekend at MPP’s Battle of the Ardennes, one of the hardest-fought scenarios I’ve ever attended. The teams slugged it out over every scrap of Paintball Charleston all weekend, and the Threshold kept rocking, putting paint where I wanted it to go, as fast as I could pull the trigger. It’s a light, tight, gunfighter’s gun, and although the stock barrel is actually quite good, when I set it up with my Freak matched to the event paint (Proball), I had no trouble sending those pesky Germans to their reinsertion. I’ll post more about the game itself soon. I’ll also be using the Type-68 for walk-on games and possibly at some of the big events as well. The realistic look of it carries its own intimidation factor.

I think it’s great that a company like Archon wants to support scenario paintball. From my conversations with the folks behind the company, they really understand that the majority of paintball players spend most of their time in the woods and want products geared towards their style of play.

The press release with all the official wording will hit the magazines soon, but here’s a sneak peak at the photo shoot. I wore the Chronic Game Gear all weekend and found it comfortable, but I did get called “hey you in the brown” way too many times. I need to get my name printed on these new jerseys.

Check out my interview on Blast Radius Woodsball Podcast, my favorite paintball show on the internet. If you love scenario and woodsball, make this a regular stop.

Stay tuned - I’m going to break some big news (at least big news for me) in the near future.  Hopefully I’ll have some details in the next few days, but it’s looking like my quest for the ultimate scenario gun may soon be over.

I’m already booking my 2008 calendar of events.  If you’d like me to play and cover your scenario or recreational event, or if you’d like me to show up for a day of walk-on play at your local field, contact me at jason@blackcatpaintball.com.  I typically hit 30-36 events a year, so contact me early to get your event on the calendar.  I’m based out of North Carolina, but I travel coast to coast for the greatest paintball adventures.

I’m looking forward to meeting new teams at some of the best games in the country in 2008.  If you see me at an event, say hello.

See you in the middle,

foolybear

I subscribe to dozens of podcasts but very few paintball ones.  There’s a dearth of good paintball material in the world of podcasting.  My favorite is Wayne’s Blast Radius Woodsball Podcast.  If you haven’t been turned on to Wayne’s dulcet tones, go to his site immediately or simply subscribe through iTunes.

I’ve been thinking about this issue - what makes one scenario event more newsworthy than another? For a player/writer involved in covering events, this is an important issue to me. I’ve come up with a list:

• Size matters. Big events deserve coverage simply for the fact that they’re large. Larger events simply affect more players, and when any producer can gather together a huge crowd for a paintball game, that deserves some attention. It proves that paintball is gaining steam, if that many participants gather for a game, a tournament, a tradeshow, or any paintball-related event.
• Innovation. When producers break new ground, the game deserves to be covered, no matter what size. I’ve been to games that really stretched the boundaries of scenario paintball, but had relatively few players. Sadly, the scenario community isn’t always aware of where the best games will be held, only the most advertised ones or the ones by the producers with the highest profiles. Case in point - Line-of-Fire’s Pirates of the Caribbean event. They transformed their field into two ships with a desert island between them. Players lobbed water balloons at each other, battled ship to ship, and “swam” in the water by hopping in potato sacks while trying to grab pineapples for points and avoiding remote controlled sharks. Insane! That game broke the mold and deserved media attention, no matter how many players attended.
• Teams. I’ve shown up at some mediocre games that became great, though no responsibility of the producer’s. Top notch scenario teams put their hearts into uninteresting missions and made a normal game a competitive, dynamic one. In the same way, a few experienced role-players on the field can work wonders for a game. Producers take note - hire a few third party role-players to bring the storyline to life. Even a field with little interesting terrain can be made great through some role-player intervention.
• The Field. Any game that pushes the boundaries of what we think of as a paintball field needs to be covered, preferably with plenty of pictures. Games on abandoned military bases, in old prisons, corn field mazes, even natural fields in unusual locations (the desert, high mountains, Hawaii) can be innovative.

Of course, the absolute best games involve a confluence of all the above factors. Take a great producer who draws large numbers of top teams to an unusual field, and you have a recipe for a game that makes history. I have my eye on some upcoming events, big and small, that promise to be noteworthy.

This Saturday I plan to be at one of my favorite fields on the east coast for a one day game based on the third installment of the Halo video game series. Line-of-Fire Paintball Field has even built a warthog and who knows what else they’ll break out at the game. At an earlier Halo game they had a ghost, a sniper rifle that looks exactly like the one in the game, and a working replica of the Spankr rocket launcher. Check back here for pictures from the game.