Breaking in the New Gear
Photos by Line-of-Fire Paintball
Words by: Jason 'Foolybear' Lineberger
With warm temperatures forecast and a
cloudless sky overhead, I threw the gear bags in the car and took my daughter,
foolycub, to Line-of-Fire Paintball for a
day of walk-on games. While she’s now
playing half a dozen one and two-day scenario games a year, she informed me
that this would be her first actual walk-on day of paintball. It turned out to be a great one.
Normally rec days don’t inspire me to
write, but this one was the exception. A
number of groups arrived early, boosting the numbers from ten on a team to
twenty, and eventually to over 30 players on a side, with a mix of experience
from tourney players to first-timers. These
large games played in Line-of-Fire’s urban field made for non-stop action, and
the referees kept the games coming with only a couple of minutes of downtime
between each round. Players had to
scramble to refill paint and air if they didn’t want to miss a game.
This hectic pace gave me the opportunity to
really test out a few new gear items.
Now, I’ve worn out more pairs of paintball pants than I care to count,
and since 2009 I’ve been abusing Planet Eclipse gear on a regular basis. I thought the HDE pants were the best that
Eclipse had produced yet, but the 2013 Distortion pants have emerged as a
strong contender. They’re easily the
most comfortable paintball pants I’ve owned, and they have plenty of padding in
all the right places. Pure quality.
On the subject of quality - I’ve been
writing about paintball and paintball gear for ten years. In the hundreds of articles I’ve published,
I’ve never reviewed a t-shirt. Until
now. Let me preface my review by stating
that at a typical scenario event I will pack six shirts for each day of
play. (A metabolic disorder causes me to
perspire a lot when I’m exercising.)
Even at a walk-on day I’ll take three shirts with me. The new Pro-Formance ELogo shirts are a major
game-changer. They’re made to release
body heat and breathe more, which keeps them dry. Total shirts worn at our walk-on day =
one. The Pro-Formance ELogo shirt looks good and
performs like a champ. Now I just have
to decide what to do with all the space I’m going to save in my gear bag!
Finally, the ETHA shot smoothly, all day
long, which I’ve come to expect. In one
game I broke down the far tape, an alleyway on the edge of the city. In the space of less than a minute I had won
my gunfights and had cleared all five enemy players from my side, which allowed
me to cover some of the first timers who were eager to run up the wire and
surprise our opposition. In the next
game though, I sent my daughter up the line.
When she came around the back row of buildings to the other team’s home
base, she turned the corner and almost ran into their last player. One quick shot later and the game ended, and
I have to say – taking down the last player in a game is great, but seeing your
daughter do it is priceless.
I capped the day off by handing out some
ETHA and team Capital Offense stickers to the younger players. A graduate of my summer paintball skills
camp, Cory, played the day wearing the gloves he earned from camp, and he was
psyched to adorn his new loader with a sweet Capital Offense logo. Fun times!
Follow
@foolybear and @foolycub on Twitter to read more on their paintball adventures
or to find out when they’ll be playing a scenario game near you.
Foolybear always carries an extra ETHA, and if you want to test it out –
just ask!
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