Reading Entity 2013: We Are Coming.

2013

2012 saw the rebirth of a fallen team. After a few training sessions we came and conquered the highest open division at the CPPS, banging on the door of the Elite league which we will compete in over the 2013 season.

The off-season was quiet for a few weeks between late December / early January but when we came back we were straight back to work. 

This year we aren't looking to prove ourselves, we've already shown that we have potential - this year is about reaching it.

The training regime has now been set and we are training Saturday & Sunday every other weekend at 'The Crib' (Skirmish Cribbs Causeway) just outside of Bristol. The field is being developed and since the weather has been getting better, we have had players training every Sunday. I myself have been training every weekend; I'm looking forward to when I can get up there in the evenings midweek when the sun gets a bit more sure of itself.

Team plans for this year are as follows:
Commit to CPPS Elite Division - our goal is to be on the podium by the last event of the year.
Play Campaign Cup.
Send a regular team to Super5ives
Bring more people training to grow our home site at The Crib
Bring up some players through training and Super5ives eventually earn a place on our 1st team.

My personal aim this year is to train as often as I can to get myself onto the starting 5.

Judgement Day: Snatch - September 23rd

The 3 previous events of the year we scored 2nd/2nd/1st and were the current leaders. It all came down to today and I had previously worked out that as long as we made it into the top 3 bracket after the seeding, we would make 1st place unless MH3 or Disruption Entourage placed higher than us. So when we got set up and found that MH3 decided to pack up and leave after their first game and Disruption didn't turn up, it felt kind of cheap and I felt like the challenge I had been hyping up to myself had been taken away.

That is until we lost 2-1 to Lethal Bizzle, a team we were not expecting to lose to. That really took the wind out of our sails but at least now, we had something to fight for. We seeded 4th after beating Volatile, which turned out to be just enough to scrape into the top bracket as they had now decided to do 2 brackets of 4 after the prelims.

After this we had to win our next 2 games to win and win we did, defeating Rampage and Firm Academy. The games were hard and nothing was served to us on a plate, the weather was getting worse and worse and I personally felt like I played some of my worst paintball. I was catching paintballs in the face in the doritos. I put it down to a combination of getting tired after the morning and getting a bit too greedy; trying to wrap on the infield players when I can see their packs only to find that back corner wasn't as lazy or easily dominated as they seemed. 

It may not have been as convincing as we would have liked but 1st is 1st and that's what we got for both the day and for the season!

It's been a great year and it is in fact my first full season with any one team and if I could have my cake and eat it I would be playing with the guys in Snatch for years to come, however with their plans to move into the open race-4 next year and Entity looking to play in the locked race-4, there's no way I could juggle the two.

It was a hard decision to leave but the opportunity to play with my best friend from the real world as well as friends from my early marshalling days at Skirmish Bristol in the locked division with the big dogs on the UK scene, was one I couldn't refuse. I like to think that once I've grown up and have more real world responsibilities I can take to the field again with the people I've gotten to know over the last year, but for now I'm young, dumb and have enough disposable income to throw at the game.

Judgement day: Reading Entity - September 23rd

Reading Entity

If you asked me 8 short weeks ago how these players would fare if we threw them together into the open division of the race-4 at CPPS. I would have looked down at the ground and guessed - 'Somewhere around the middle'.

If anyone did ask me that question then right now I would have those words in front of me on a plate; lightly salted with a slice of humble pie.

For me this was my first race-4 game this year; for others this was their first tournament in years; but for all of us this was the first time we played a tournament together as a team. But that was exactly what we did. Individually we're all very different players with varying levels of experience, but together we played as one aggressive and unforgiving team; a dominant force that dictated the games our fucking way; we were not so much 5 players as 1 living entity (see what I did there?).

We also do a lot for the game in the form of sex appeal.

The points were played hard and fast (yeah baby) and.. well the proof is in the pudding.

Entity 4 - 1 Volatile
Entity 4 - 0 Celtic Banshees
Entity 4 - 0 Kinetic
Entity 4 - 1 Laysick VIP

1st. Fucking. Place.
  
We had problems with a bit of paint chopping, probably down to the cold weather. Also a couple penalties were made against us which does need addressing, but all in all we couldn't argue with the result.

On a personal level I felt strangely empowered. This was the first time I had played a tournament with a team I have trained with relatively often (I've rarely trained with a team more than once every few months in the past). I played the Teabag side all day and innately knew that it didn't matter who on my team was with me, I had faith in them and their ability to keep me alive so I could get to work.

It was this empowerment which just inflated my game and my ability to play aggressive and intimidate other teams and my god is it a good feeling. Yeah I wasn't perfect, I have a long way to go, but I was playing better than I ever have and I owe that to this new concept of teamplay.  

I made the decision last training that I am definitely going to see things through with Entity and their fight into the elite division with the big dogs next year. I've had the vision for 2 seasons now and pictured myself joining a feeder/sister team and working my way up, but to be a part of a newly rebuilt team and earn that place as a team is going to be so much more rewarding.

This winter we train hard; we have a lot of work to do... because today we made a statement and told everyone around that we are coming and that we are hungry. Today Reading Entity showed that it can bark, next year we need to bring the bite.

September

September 1st - Portishead:

Just a day on my own trying to get a better snapshot mainly when I'm snapping out left. For some reason although I've always been fine shooting left, my whole technique for snapping that side sucks! Just as well really that I used a whole box just shooting at some targets! It was a lot of paint and I tried a whole load of different things out trying to make it feel right but in the end I didn't feel miles better for it.

Sunday 2nd - Bricketwood, London Tigers:

I spoke to Twizz during the week and he was happy for me to come down and join in with the tigers program, as it was their first real training session since Campaign they just wanted to have a bit of a fun day playing points and doing some off the break shooting / running and gunning drills - with the twist that we weren't using a back centre and just standing in the open (on the MAO 2012 layout) it made it a lot more fun as everyone was getting shot whatever they were doing.

In the points I felt like I was holding my own but I just wasn't quite aggressive enough. To be fair they were very good at containing me on the teabag side and there was almost always a lane stopping me from getting out wide. This is something I still am not comfortable putting in place myself. I get bored of sitting behind the lane pretty quickly but I know that if I want to take this up to the next level I have to be doing it.

Thursday 6th - Cribbs

Just a couple of us went up, we played on the cube field as opposed to the air ball as it wasnt worth blowing it up and taking it down again. We did a lot of snapshooting drills and first shot stuff and didn't really play any points.

Sunday 9th - NTT Academy 491387234523

We went all out and got a couple boxes each which today which was good. I prefer it when I don't have to worry too much about paint consumption. We did some half field 3v3's and some full field 4v4's broken up by some snapshooting / running &gunning drills to keep our skills sharp. We also got some off the break shooting going but with just a single target at the other end of the field who also happened to be doing the same back to you. Not only did this work on first shot but it started to help us sink in the fact that if we're getting shot at, there's always going to be a chance we get shot and instead of panicking and trying to dodge, we should just concentrate on getting that kill without being a pansy about it.

After this weekend I was feeling good. People were developing and getting more enthusiastic about the team and hopes are high for our debut at CPPS on the 23rd.

Thursday 13th - Cribbs

Another day on the cubes, a bit of snapping and a few mini games just to make sure I don't rust over too much as I don't intend to play again until the 23rd.

August: Part Two

Cribbs 16th August: 

Small crowd again. Just 4 of us up here. We played a few 2 on 2s but mainly did some off the break / run&gun and snap shooting. Nothing to see here!

Friday 17th: DODGEBALL!

Completely irrelevant but I started playing dodgeball on Friday evenings as part of a new league in Weston. It was very fun and an amazing workout. There's muscles in my arms and back I found which I didn't know existed!

We lost our first friendly but the ranked games haven't started yet so it's all good practice for a warm-up!

18th & 19th August: Academy 213140582676373945021349234572456

Another weekend of practice up at Bristol. My head wasn't really in the game and I feel like I hit a wall this weekend. I just didn't feel like I was up to scratch when we were doing half field games of 3v3 and my hesitation and lack of aggression became quite apparent to me as I was very slow to move up the dorito side of the field. On reflection I think I need to start making my own windows instead of waiting for them to appear. I should be dominating the people keeping me locked down and buying myself the time to bump instead of just waiting until they eventually look infield. 

The NTT squad seems to be shaping up a bit now. Shayne's shaking off his rust well, Harry's remaining a solid player and everyone who turned up today actually seemed to have some enthusiasm! I was pretty moody and felt a bit defeated just because I didn't feel as strong a player as I knew I could be. Some of the guys suggested maybe I take a weekend off and I remember thinking at the time that it's probably just what I need to sit back and compose myself before coming back out to hit it hard. Next weekend I think I'll take it easy and do what normal people do and stuff. Whatever that is.

26th August: My weekend off (UKSM with UWE paintball society) 

Well I went to spend the weekend at the old man's and see a bit of London. But you know, as I was in the area It would have been rude not to nip over to bricketwood wouldn't it?

I started the day in the snakeside back centre-left  (MAO field makes everything awkward doesn't it!) but I sorta got there and felt a bit bored and couldn't see much of the field. Everyone else on the team went out and killed people in the first game which we won. In the second game we lost and I got shot by playing a bit sloppy behind a pin and leaving my knee out.

After that I got bored of watching the games pan out and trying to play damage control so I thought I'd start diving into the doritos and was back in my element, patiently gunfighting people out one by one and winning games until the end of the day. We came first overall by a long shot winning 7/8 games. 

Yeah okay I was probably sandbagging a bit being in Div2; after a month or so of seeing how far I had left to walk on this intimidating path on the way to that elusive pro level spot, I needed to remind myself how far I had come after a lot of work. A couple guys from London Impact watched me play and took me to one side, we chatted about Paris, they're not sure if they have a spot for me but I'm hoping they do so I can go play my first millenium in October!

That's all for August. Next month I will be training hard at Bricketwood and Bristol as well as fighting to defend 1st place with Snatch at the last round of the CPPS!

August: Part One.

August is shaping up to be a very busy month. With the new air ball field set up at Cribbs opening up some more midweek reps and a new site opening up another couple of junctions up the M5 by academy 49 I really have no excuse not to go all out this month.

Thursday 2nd - Cribbs

Cribbs evening session, straight out of my nice work clothes and into a few rounds of 3v2/2v2/2v1/1v1 with some of the regular walk on players who fancy playing a bit more around the airball bunkers. Unfortunately the crowd on a Thursday night is never constant and it's a bunch of different players every week. Hopefully before the summers out we will see some more consistency with the players turning up as it is proving so useful to be able to go up and drill my core skills as well as just get that extra injection of gun-time into my week and I would hate to see it go.

I have been thinking about taking some newer players up to the next level and some of the guys I have been seeing at these Thursday evenings are proving to show the aggression and that they can enjoy the faster pace of the sup air field. I am looking to take them down to the Super5ives next round.

Sunday 5th - Bricketwood & NTT

This Saturday was one of my scheduled half days at work, in the afternoon I went up to see what was going on with the academy 49 site that just opened up and was impressed at the flatness of the field and the work that had gone on to get the tall netting set up around the field.

On Sunday however I took the trip with Harry and Shayne, some guys that were playing with a team called Recoil and then joined Cynergy, back when I first started playing around 2005. I looked up to them and they helped me get into the game back then, so I was excited to play with these guys after so much time had passed. I was also curious to see how I faired since I have been playing so much recently after they have taken some time out of the game.

The training session was a get together of some of the cynergy/entity players that have played with those teams over the years, as well as myself, just because I will whore myself out to any form of training I can get.

Andy Burridge is looking to reform the team and although he's been out of the game due to injury he is not only a very strong leader, but a very dangerous player on the field, as well as a very curious character.

After warming up we powered on through drills, 3v3's and a few scrims. A major pet hate that I have, is when I go out to a field and spend 50% of the time chatting bollocks to other people or taking guns apart. When I turn up I turn up to train and I want to actually spend my time playing or working on my skills. Andy's high energy and enthusiasm meant that we kept going all day and didn't get complacent. However I couldn't say the same about some of the other players who turned up, namely those who played for a couple hours or so and just spent the rest of the day chatting or throwing tantrums. I don't think that in the long run I could work with a team who didn't share my enthusiasm to playing the game as it is just causes unneeded frustration. 

It was interesting to see how I compared to some of the other players. Andy was a very intimidating player, easily able to dominate me if I gave him an inch to work with. Some players were definitely more aggressive than me, however I think some were a bit too far down the spectrum. I've never been an overly aggressive player from the start; I choose my windows carefully. If I can change bunkers without getting spotted and get the drop on another player, I find it so much more effective than charging down the field and risking a trade out, not that trade outs don't have their place, I just don't take those risks as often as others.

Thursday 9th Cribbs

Again not a big crowd this week, but with who I had there we organized some good first-shot drills, from off the break sweet spotting or run&gunning to snapping. I definitely feel that I made the most out of the time I had as that first ball accuracy is something I definitely need to work on.

Saturday 11th - Bristol A49

The kids from A49284729 had their U19 trials on Sunday and so had set up shop to get that extra gun time. I headed up and Burridge and a couple guys from Bristol Effect also made the trip. After a bit of snapping at targets and the patented 'best paintballer in the world championships' (winner stays on snapshooting) we got some good half-field 3v3 scrims going, influencing gunskills and teamwork. The shame was that the laning was pretty pointless as the site paint was cheap and jamming the rotors and I hope it's something that's addressed before next week when I'm up again.

When training with poor quality paint (90% of training sessions) it is important to count your bouncers as hits, as in a tournament scenario, the chances are the other team will be using much better paint and it's going to splat on you 80% of the time (note: 84% of all statistics are made up, I have nothing to back that up apart from common knowledge). It was very frustrating to see some of the younger players just playing on through bouncers, but at the end of the day it's only themselves they are cheating.

Sunday 12th - Super5ives - Snatch

We were stuck for a player and for paint for this event. Luckily the guys at Skirmish Bristol really came through for us and got us 10 cases of paint for the event. To solve the player problem Jon Ellis from Tigers helped us out as he was after a game.

We came first in all our matches - which I felt was fairly hollow due to the fact that one of our games was a by as Angry Jon's didn't turn up. To make up our games, the lovely Kitch got us to play off against Bristol Effect. It's usually a 2 horse race between us when we're both down at the 5ives and this weekend they really had our number. The field was ridiculously open near the start gates and they pulled off leaving 4 guns in the back center off the break and just smashed us before the games had a chance to develop. We got 1 point but they got 3 on us making it a bad loss. After that though they didn't seem to have a good day, I think they changed their plan, where we carried on to not lose a point to any other team all day.

The field layout really forced my hand into playing aggressive, I was getting into the 50 M within 30 seconds of most games and locking off the dorito side of the field and usually getting a chance to feast on their back line as the game progressed.

One moment I wont forget too quickly was when I was trying to clear out the last player in the snake corner, I made a run for their back center with my gun up hoping to tag him on the move, however he just turned on me and I had to make a dive into their back center bunker to stay alive. Ellis not believing that we had cleared up already chucked a few balls and managed to paint my chin green.

In all fairness he must have realized what team he was playing with, it's just not Snatch if we don't shoot each other at some point during the day! Either way we got first place on the scoreboard and we couldn't have done it without Ellis' help. He's going to keep me in the loop when Tigers train at Bricketwood as I was talking to him about looking to train as much as I can and step my game up. He's also thinking of coming down to the A49 site in Bristol while he's at Uni in Cardiff so I imagine I will be seeing a bit more of him in the future.

Later this month I am going to be hitting up UKSM as well as A49 Bristol and Cribbs some more.

July

July

What can you expect from a month renowned for it's small hopeful moments of sunlight, snatched away by showers of rain? Oh wait that's April. FUCK JULY.

It wasn't a very busy paintball month for me, however it was definitely useful.

July 1st 

The first day consisted of a relatively slow day for me at the walk-on at Skirmish Cribbs Causeway. Then for two weeks I was out of the game due to a very busy schedule sorting out business and stuff.

Getting shit done

July 19th

It had been a long time coming but my local site at Skirmish Cribbs Causeway had finally got their field together with some old sup air fields that had to be repaired and the grass needed (and to an extent still does) a bit of nurturing. The bonus is not just shorter distances to train, but it also adds in the option of a weekly Thursday night session while the sun is still out. I got mugged in the face pretty hard and realized that my JT bottoms need swapping over - but I think I'm going to hold out until I can get my hands on a pair of those e-flex's. Those things look tight!

July 22nd

It was time to head back up to Stafford and scrim. The puddles were deep and hadn't quite gotten over the July Showers that hit pretty hard during the week. We jumped in with/against a few handy players from the Firm as well as some other guys who I didn't really know. Didn't get much technical training done - just a bit of snapshooting - but I did get a lot of reps in on the scrims and every little helps.

Today was also the day of the Youth trials. I know a few of the kids from Academy 49 and was glad to see that they did well and have made it to the last 15 as they are working hard pretty much every weekend.. Just like I have

July 28-29th

On Saturday I headed up to CPPS yet again for Manchester Firm's open day / tryouts. Although I'm not particularly looking to join their squad, I wanted to see what they were like first hand and hey, I had a Saturday off and a chance to play ball. Sold.

Went through a few drills - off the break shooting, snapshooting - I did manage to sharpen my snapping technique a bit further with a bit of guidance from one of the guys, pointing my outside toe towards my opponent wasn't something I've consciously thought of before but it definitely put me in a much better place when I snapped out. Snapshooting and first ball accuracy is something I've been struggling to get used to and it probably explains my weakness in gunfights.

Luckily however we did a few domination drills and 2v2's where I felt I stood out quite well. I managed to pull off a couple 2v1's and made a few sneaky moves through the dorito's - I've found I'm pretty handy at utilizing dead space in those situations where there's only a few players left on the field. 

Anyway, overall on Saturday I feel like I played well. I'm usually quite modest but I know that I was one of the better guys there - upon saying that I do realize that a lot of the better players of the Firm weren't around and that those who were, weren't on the field.

Sunday was much more fun. I went up to Cribbs to train with Snatch. We did a few drills, some I found more useful than others. One of my favorites was a 4 way snapshooting drill where 4 of the dorito's were kind of in a square around the middle of the field and we had to shoot our opposite and our diagonal opponents. It was a good way to play tight but not forget about the other side of our body too, I think we have all at one time been guilty of leaving dat ass out begging for a pounding. 

Overall 

it was a good month for consolidating my skills and finding more out about my weaknesses. No tournaments this month but coming up in August I think I'm doing some training at Bricketwood, some more Thursday nights at Cribbs and gonna bang out as many games as I can at Super5ives on the 12th.