The Manchester Firm only had 5 players going to the event before they asked me if I could come along, I was asked just after the CPPS two weeks ago. I had to sort some things out with work and by Wednesday/Thursday that week I confirmed I could do it. I spoke to Andy before I made any decisions, although I told him I really wanted to do it, he didn't seem happy about it. His concern is that if people start guesting for other teams, it not only opens doors for players to leave the team for 'greener pastures' but it also takes away from the development of our team if players start putting tournaments elsewhere above training and tournaments with Entity. I told him that guesting with the Firm wasn't going to get in the way as I have the time and money to do both and the dates have worked out pretty well so there's no need to clash. I also reassured him that I'm not looking to move, I believe in our team now that we have a solid core who are putting in the work.
I was asked if I could come to training last weekend (29-30th March) however it was our very own Harry Pitchers' wedding on the Saturday evening and so whilst going to train at Cribbs was feasible, I didn't feel up to travelling to Stafford after the celebrations - plus the cost factor came into it. Ideally I would have gone to train with them before the event to gel with the team a bit, but real life rears it's ugly head every now and then unfortunately!
Wednesday I made the trip to Clarkie's place in Stafford and we stayed up until 2am before setting off to Liverpool's John Lennon Airport.
Thursday
We touched down in Nice and got the rental car. When we got to the venue (we had on-site accommodation in the holiday village) they were obviously having their lunch / siesta / whatever celebration that means that the French don't work, so we played headers and volleys while we waited. It turns out I'm incredible at being bad at football. We eventually got to the static caravan and it was very reminiscent of the one we stayed in in Rome. I shotgunned a bed and we went to watch some teams training and checked in with the guys at the Empire booth.
The Firm are an 'All in' Empire factory team and so use Empire products exclusively from head to toe. From what I had seen elsewhere, I got the impression that most sponsorship deals tend to mean little more than a multi-pack discount for teams that can put a bunch of players together to provide more buying power, however in this case it seemed to be more than that. The people I met in the Empire tent seemed to be bending over backwards to help the guys in any way they could. Not only did they offer the usual tech services you now expect at a major event, but it's the little things like letting the team keep pods behind the tent that really help a team on a weekend like this one.
The Firm are an 'All in' Empire factory team and so use Empire products exclusively from head to toe. From what I had seen elsewhere, I got the impression that most sponsorship deals tend to mean little more than a multi-pack discount for teams that can put a bunch of players together to provide more buying power, however in this case it seemed to be more than that. The people I met in the Empire tent seemed to be bending over backwards to help the guys in any way they could. Not only did they offer the usual tech services you now expect at a major event, but it's the little things like letting the team keep pods behind the tent that really help a team on a weekend like this one.
We went shopping for food and water and sorted ourselves some spaghetti for dinner at the chalet.
Friday
Our first game was at midday so we got a chance to watch some games before getting our pods and paint from Empire and kitting up.
Prelim 1: Hellys Montpellier
This was a close game. Of course being the guest to the team I wasn't going to be on the starting 5, however as the game was very close they kept rolling the same team each point so I didn't actually play any points. I understood why, the points were back and forth and they weren't sure how I would play or how to use me and so didn't want to risk losing the game by putting me in. Nevertheless the guys won it 4-3.
Prelim 2: Ipnoz Paris
Wozza apologized for me not getting to play the first game but I told him it's okay I understood, we moved on to the second prelim game just an hour or so later against Ipnoz Paris. I played in Clarkie's position running out to the snake corner and controlling the snake-side tape. It was noticed in the first game that Bishop, breaking to the first temple on the snake side, was shooting the teabag side and therefore not making moves into the snake when he could have been. I told him that as his support I'll look for the move for him and tell him when to go at which point he'd have to trust me he can make the move.
I got to the corner each game and easily dominated my side and got Bish into the snake quickly and easily. To be honest we were rolling these guys and it was an easy game. In the final point however, Wozza told me to take his spot attacking the teabags. Playing the bags is what I've done with Entity pretty much every tournament and so I was a lot more comfortable doing this. I broke out to the first teabag, purposefully oversliding it (I love good astro turf!) so that I could scramble into the 2nd teabag and get to work. Within seconds I was in the teabag 50 and made a bunch of crossfield shots and it was G4 (or '44' as the Firm call it) meaning there was one guy left. That one guy was just rinsing my bunker so I just kept calm, focused on the sound of his gun and the coaches in case he tried to make a move and I remember thinking to myself "shoot my bunker all you want buddy, I got at least 3 guys coming for you".
When it comes to closing out a game, it is very easy to get over aggressive and keep trying to farm as many kills as you can get for yourself. Whilst it's obviously beneficial to your team if you can, more often than not it's better that you just stay alive when the guns are on you so that your team are able to make the moves necessary to safely close it out.
That's exactly what they did and we won the game 4-0.
We went out for a steak and we were confident about the next day, we were pretty certain we were through to Sunday now but we still had to play London Tigers 2 the next morning.
Prelim 1: Hellys Montpellier
This was a close game. Of course being the guest to the team I wasn't going to be on the starting 5, however as the game was very close they kept rolling the same team each point so I didn't actually play any points. I understood why, the points were back and forth and they weren't sure how I would play or how to use me and so didn't want to risk losing the game by putting me in. Nevertheless the guys won it 4-3.
Prelim 2: Ipnoz Paris
Wozza apologized for me not getting to play the first game but I told him it's okay I understood, we moved on to the second prelim game just an hour or so later against Ipnoz Paris. I played in Clarkie's position running out to the snake corner and controlling the snake-side tape. It was noticed in the first game that Bishop, breaking to the first temple on the snake side, was shooting the teabag side and therefore not making moves into the snake when he could have been. I told him that as his support I'll look for the move for him and tell him when to go at which point he'd have to trust me he can make the move.
I got to the corner each game and easily dominated my side and got Bish into the snake quickly and easily. To be honest we were rolling these guys and it was an easy game. In the final point however, Wozza told me to take his spot attacking the teabags. Playing the bags is what I've done with Entity pretty much every tournament and so I was a lot more comfortable doing this. I broke out to the first teabag, purposefully oversliding it (I love good astro turf!) so that I could scramble into the 2nd teabag and get to work. Within seconds I was in the teabag 50 and made a bunch of crossfield shots and it was G4 (or '44' as the Firm call it) meaning there was one guy left. That one guy was just rinsing my bunker so I just kept calm, focused on the sound of his gun and the coaches in case he tried to make a move and I remember thinking to myself "shoot my bunker all you want buddy, I got at least 3 guys coming for you".
When it comes to closing out a game, it is very easy to get over aggressive and keep trying to farm as many kills as you can get for yourself. Whilst it's obviously beneficial to your team if you can, more often than not it's better that you just stay alive when the guns are on you so that your team are able to make the moves necessary to safely close it out.
That's exactly what they did and we won the game 4-0.
We went out for a steak and we were confident about the next day, we were pretty certain we were through to Sunday now but we still had to play London Tigers 2 the next morning.
Saturday
Prelim 3: London Tigers 2
We said before the game that we can try and be a bit experimental with the game plans. However Tigers came out hard and the guys played some pretty tight points that the Firm won only with individual skill and not as a team effort. One point was won where Clarkie jumped over the snake beam to run down the highway (infield of the tape-side bunkers) before jumping over their snake beams shooting their snake player out and tucking into the knuckle, waiting for their corner runner to run him down, making it a trade out. Off the back of that there was a 2v1 in favour of the firm, Bish was in the snake bunker and the other remaining firm player (Barlow?) was in the teabags. It was a low paint situation and the last Tigers player was in the teabag corner and Bish pulled off an incredible crossfield snapshot that blew up on the guys pack.
The score got to 3-1 in the Firm's favour and there was only a minute and 30 seconds on the clock. I had been sitting up until this point where Wozza asked me to switch out for him. He was getting shot when making the move into the teabags and they were obviously putting up a good lane there on the break, so he told me to break short to the tall cake on that side. However Barlow deduced that as they had to come at us to score two quick points, they probably wont be putting up strong lanes so told me to run straight to the first bag. I did as I was told and got shot on the break. Tigers scored the point and had about 40 seconds to spare to win another one. Markie told me to sit the next point and the guys went out and held out for the 40 seconds with 2 guys left on the field when the time ran out to win 3-2.
I was a bit annoyed that I was told to sit after getting shot on the break taking a risk I was told to take. I was also concerned that that was my weekend over - if I'm not getting many spins in a game that didn't necessarily matter, then how many points am I going to get on the important Sunday knock out games?
We said before the game that we can try and be a bit experimental with the game plans. However Tigers came out hard and the guys played some pretty tight points that the Firm won only with individual skill and not as a team effort. One point was won where Clarkie jumped over the snake beam to run down the highway (infield of the tape-side bunkers) before jumping over their snake beams shooting their snake player out and tucking into the knuckle, waiting for their corner runner to run him down, making it a trade out. Off the back of that there was a 2v1 in favour of the firm, Bish was in the snake bunker and the other remaining firm player (Barlow?) was in the teabags. It was a low paint situation and the last Tigers player was in the teabag corner and Bish pulled off an incredible crossfield snapshot that blew up on the guys pack.
The score got to 3-1 in the Firm's favour and there was only a minute and 30 seconds on the clock. I had been sitting up until this point where Wozza asked me to switch out for him. He was getting shot when making the move into the teabags and they were obviously putting up a good lane there on the break, so he told me to break short to the tall cake on that side. However Barlow deduced that as they had to come at us to score two quick points, they probably wont be putting up strong lanes so told me to run straight to the first bag. I did as I was told and got shot on the break. Tigers scored the point and had about 40 seconds to spare to win another one. Markie told me to sit the next point and the guys went out and held out for the 40 seconds with 2 guys left on the field when the time ran out to win 3-2.
I was a bit annoyed that I was told to sit after getting shot on the break taking a risk I was told to take. I was also concerned that that was my weekend over - if I'm not getting many spins in a game that didn't necessarily matter, then how many points am I going to get on the important Sunday knock out games?
Sunday
Quarter Finals: Redball Paris
Sunday is when the real tournament starts. Not making it to Sunday is a bitter pill to swallow, but fortunately not one I have had to worry about in my major league experience so far. We set up and I didn't expect to be played so got busy in the pits potting up and wiping down the players. We were playing against Redball Paris and they scored the first point. The points were very close, the firm were getting G's off the break but weren't closing them out well. Before I knew it the game was 3-0 and I was playing in Clarkie's position, however instead of running straight to the corner I was going to the first bunker at the snake side, dominating my mirror and then moving out to the corner. I did okay in my first point and we won making it 3-1. The next point we changed ends and I was doing the same role, however we didn't get that early G on the snake side and there were two guys in my mirror. I was dominating both of them fortunately, but then I saw back centre's hopper sticking out of his bunker and tried to get a shot on it, unfortunately my first shots missed and he tucked in. I looked back towards my mirror and was dominating them again, however one of them had moved forward into the snake. I saw a couple guys walking off the field to my left and so switched to look that way in case someone was running through, as I did that their snake player ran down the highway and shot up bish before shooting me and then they closed out the game.
Tournament over.
I realized as soon as I was walking off the mistakes that I had made in that game. I shouldn't have been looking to get that G on the back centre, allowing my mirror to move up into the snake. I also should have stayed on the wire protecting Bish whilst he looked infield. If I hadn't of let that happen, there was a chance we could have worked up the field doing damage and played another point.
It's a shame I made those mistakes and I could tell that everyone was disappointed in the result and also with my performance in that last point. You kinda want to explain to everyone that you understand the mistake you made and reassure them that you won't make it again.. but it was too late. The tournament was over. Paintball is an unforgiving game.
Unfortunately being the guest I didn't get much pick of where I play. With Entity I can go to a tournament knowing I'm playing most, if not all, of the points and playing on the teabag side, usually as the attacker. However as the 6th team member in a 5-man game, you just don't know where you're going to be put. I could argue that I played really well in the 1 point against Ipnoz where I was playing in my usual position on the bags, however at the same time we were rolling them wherever I was playing on the field.
CPL Field
We watched the pro games and put some side bets on the winners / the final scores to make it more interesting to watch. The highlights of the day included:
- Some guy who's name sounded like En Garde! from some OD2 team that no-one knows coming 2nd in the 1v1 tournament, beating 3 CPL players including Dec from Nexus and Greg Siewers from Houston Heat!! Getting beat by Oliver Lang.
- Art Chaos getting a surprise beating from Outrage Valence. I think everyone had money on Chaos making it into the finals, but instead it was an all American matchup between heat and impact. I had drawn Heat out of the hat for the sweepstakes the team put together for the final 8, but Impact were playing solid all weekend so unfortunately I didn't win the megabucks!
I enjoyed my first time in France. Hopefully the Firm can make more use of me next time in Bitburg, I can understand a potential player looking to work his way onto a team is unlikely to see many points to start with, but as I was asked by them to come out and play, I was hoping to be used a bit more. But nontheless way a big thank you to everyone on the team for having me along and accommodating for me and also to the lovely people at Empire for supplying the goods!
Also cheers to Pete of Full Bore Images for the feedback and taking snaps.
Shot count, I can only estimate on this one but I would say I shot 1.5 cases overall, I was rolling my gun a lot.
Total: 54,000 so far
Tor Martin Hamgaard :) Bear was calling him Hambone on the live stream lol
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing the promo picture released by mills that lang would be playing some young kid in one of the final 1v1 games. honestly thought that there was a slight chance he might just throw the game, but apparently 4 zillion tournament wins and series titles isn't enough haha.
ReplyDeleteAhh I have comments! I didn't have the commentary going as I was watching in the flesh so I had some French guy reading out the names - sounded like 'En Garde' which I thought was a brilliant name for a 1v1 player :P
ReplyDeleteWell Ollie did lose a point to him to be fair.. but I think everyone expected him to drop the game on purpose, not sure if it's bad sportsmanship or not to drop a game just because it's a young player - I mean whenever that kid would say "I beat Ollie Lang in a 1v1 tournament" everyone would just be like "yeah well he threw the game on purpose for you". Would have been a fun final to watch though if it was between the youngun and En Garde.. the underdogs!