It’s about that time –

Once more unto the breach, dear friends! In the Midwest, a good number of folks that Nerf in IL shelved their blasters since Nov/Dec 2009, due to school, weather, weather, and no indoor venue to play. Well, it’s warmer now and a new round of Nerf/foam blaster battles have begun! Minnesota and Wisconsin had their events last weekend, and some of the folks in Chicago just theirs underway as well.

This event didn’t carry the same kind of weight that the usual wars carry. This was conceived in all of two-three weeks, when a fight usually has a date set months in advance to give attendees enough notice. Some of us were getting a little restless but were not able to make the trip up to the MN event that weekend. Snake, one of the Chicago Area Nerfers here took it upon himself to host a small local “warmup” to get off his butt and hopefully indoctrinate some new faces to our little slice of hobby heaven.

He took a different path from some of the past events. He actively banned a lot of specific types of mods and blasters (some homemades, for instance) and even ammo. The basic rules:

“If you don’t like it, don’t show.”
“Run your war how you want to run it.”
“The host has a responsibility to make sure his attendees have a good time.”

The focus was to get back to running around in super close quarters with epic dodging and some sword/shield/axe blocking. Not being paced off at huge distances behind sparse cover with tons of No-Man’s Land. There’s been talk of a power creep in the midwest but that’s a topic for another day. Snake wanted to explore what going back to our roots with short ranges and stock ammo would be like after the previous few fights where this wasn’t the case.

Either way, there was a decent show of people. About 12 people from the surrounding Chicagoland area showed up, some with a few fights already under their belt and a few who haven’t been in a good fight yet. It was a good mix!

I personally had a good time. We were all laughing at numerous points during the day just out of the craziness of the action. The close ranges led to a lot of running and even though Oak Lawn has its own issues with cover the fact we could run and dodge pretty much compensated for that. The blasters of the day varied; the N-Strike line (Raider, Longshot, Longstrike, Recon, Nitefinder, Magstrike, etc.) all saw use in addition to one or two homemades, furyfires, and other off-brand blasters. The N-Force melee weapons also saw some action, coupled with shields. We didn’t use “larger ammo takes out shield” rules, mainly because we forgot, hah.

We were in and out of rounds really quick, too. Last Team Standing, Last One Standing, Capture the Flag (lots of capture the flag), Protect the VIP, and Center Flag Push were all orders on the day along with switching teams every few rounds. It was quick, fast-paced, and only really slowed at lunch or when we needed water. But we were all running, so much for each game. Heck, at one point we even got to use the park/jungle gym, which adds a nice dimension to CtF. If anything, we needed more gametypes to throw in.

It was a good first war for a lot of people, and they say they’ll be back for the next one. As far as being a good introduction for people into this hobby, I’ll say, “Achievement Unlocked.”

See you on the field!

-Vas The Stampede