Reffing at Tombstone

Ok, so I reffed. Probably the most difficult part was finding out what fields were open and getting the private group there before someone else did. The private group had the name of Franzoni, last name of the birthday boy. They played pretty well, and there was a tolerable amount of ill will. The little bit of ill will was between the adults big suprise there... and was mainly over who shot who and where and when, and possibly wiping hits off. The adults are concerned with the hits and become overly concerned with "playing fair" (their perception of "fair"). The kids just want to play. Anyways. I didn't have much trouble dividing up the teams the first time, but as rentals began to fail (some to a degree of comedy) and people ran out of air at odd times, the teams became tough to balance. probably the second greatest challenge I was underestimating a group of little kids that hung around the birthday boy. Then I looked over on trenches, and saw them calling cover fire to eachother and moving up in a suprisingly organized fashion! Nice! I had to break them up though, because they were owning too much. Whenever a team was dominating, I'd switch it up a bit, and give the losing team tips on how to play the field, and the important areas. This usually caused the team to win, and then next round I'd give the other team tips. There were some great plays, usually flanking, bunkering (I made sure he was going to ask for surrender, instead of run in shooting), and in the case of a group of young girls... returning fire.

It was jungle and there were two girls behind the house hiding from an enemy in the next bunker up (20 ft away), they were just hiding, but I got right next to them, and urged them to shoot back, and told them where to look out and shoot. Their teammates were cheering them on, and they were afraid, but returned fire anyways. But one ran out of air, and the other ran out of paint. Anticlimactic? Yes. But exciting? Definately. Afterwards I heard the girls talking about how much fun it was. That's what it's all about, getting the young ones to enjoy the sport

It got rather hot that day, and I (by instruction of a more seasoned reff) stuck to the group, who offered me water and food at every turn. I gladly accepted the water, but thought food would be an imposition. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to play town, but I'm actually happy we played the fields we did, because Easter Saturday was the busiest I'd ever seen Tombstone. There were 11 private groups, and an advanced, intermediate, and beginner walk-on. Wow. Which, as a matter of fact, totaled to more fields than tombstone even had to offer. So, balance and communication was the name of the game. Unfortunately I had to take them to boot hill for the last round, which was bad, as expected. But unavoidable.

Anyways, the kids seemed to have fun, and it was fun to see the adults shrink to little kids. if only for a day

My girlfriend played the day by herself, and had a good time. She got quite a few eliminations, but was unhappy with the way the day ended. As I usually am. Near the end of the day, groups meld together, and things get rather loose. This is usually when I try to escape the walk-on groups for some private group that doesn't mind a walk-on. But she had a good time, and got some good eliminations. Oh, and she was playing really aggressively! this makes me happy. this is the one guranteed way to increase your game, play aggressively! Apparently the reffs were mocking the rest of her team for staying back, when a girl was in the front doing all the hard work. She really seems to like this.

For my reffing, I got a $30 tip, very nice of them two cases of mid-grade paint and I'll be damned if it wasn't ONE NOTCH above mid-grade, and a month of free entry that's $30 a weekend for three weekends. I normally wouldn't bother with the paint, but with my girlfriend playing, paint is necessary, so I did kinda do this for her, too.

I do plan, however, to use the paint on our next outting. I didn't get a chance to try my Frantom I barrel, so I checked for the best freak insert for the mid-grade paint and filled my tubes monday morning. I have some old Evil paint, which should still be good, but I have another motive for using the mid-grade, it has a different fill color than the shell. Purple shell (which looks cool by the way), and yellow fill will allow me to better ascertain when my paint has broken on a target. There have been cases in the past when my orange shell orange fill Evil seemed to not break on the target, or seemed to get cleaned off shortly after the break. And I, being the fair player that I am, cannot say anything besides I know the ball hit, but I don't know for sure that it broke. But with a different fill color, I'll know for sure when someone needs to get out... Excellent. I am still bringing the evil along this saturday just in case the paint (which does not have a gel shell) is reluctant to break on softer targets. The evil is a smaller bore than I would be comfortable shooting through the frantom (I don't have an insert that small) and would have to use the stock barrel and a detent ring. Maybe I could use the frantom with the smallest insert with a detent ring... I may try that.