EPIC STORY TIME: Hand Grenade Epic fail

The very grenade involved in this debacle

       Yes, this fail is so epic that it warrants two epics in the title of the post. Ok, maybe I'm being unfair to the people in the story since they were renters but this is another one of those stories that just HAS to be shared with the paintballing masses of the internet.

       This took place about two weeks ago, it was a midweek game, just two refs on the field and about 10 people playing in a private group, they were there for a birthday party I believe it was. We were playing a round of a game called doctor. The rules go as follows: the game is elimination with a twist, each team has a doctor, more than one depending on how many other players the doctor has to tend to, usually one doctor to every 9 or 10 normal combatants. When a player is shot, they put their arms up and call for the doctor to come revive them, the only means of removing a doctor from the game is with a headshot and the doctor can choose to bring his marker into combat with him. Hypothetically, a player could have unlimited lives if the doctor were beside them to constantly tag them back to life and progression of the game usually involves making the doctors the first priority targets, killing them, and then taking out the rest of the players when they have no means of re-entering play.

       One young gentleman approached me asking if he could use a grenade purchased from the field at an earlier date. I tell him he most certainly can as players seldom get injured by an old surgical tubing grenade, it's old paintballs which we don't like to see on the field. He's most happy to hear this and the two five man teams head to their bases with their respective doctors. The horn blows, the game starts, and very early in the game this gentleman throws his grenade. I'm not fortunate enough to watch this throw but when the grenade hits the ground, it doesn't go off in any way, shape, or form. It bounces, rolls a bit, and much to the dismay of he and his team (the armbanded team), the undetonated grenade is captured by the non-armband team for later use against them.

This, my friends, is not the fail.

       The armbanded team gets pushed back a little bit and tries to regain ground by pushing hard in the middle of the field, usually a good tactic if it weren't for them leaving too many remnants of the non-armband team on their flanks. Things look ok for armbands at first until the non-armband team moves in on them enough to start placing some good shots. One is tagged in a spot where the doctor doesn't have a hope of getting to him, two keep pushing hard in the middle, and another pushes so far to the right side of the field that it will take him too long to return and help his team mates entering the following situation...

       Armbands suddenly find themselves in a bad way. Their two leading shooters in the middle of the field get tagged and because of the sheer volume of fire coming at them, they opt to sit down to call for their doctor instead of stand up in the middle of the fire fight which is understandable. Their doctor is very timid at first, but after a moment or two, he makes an heroic sprint through the fire to rescue his two downed team mates and makes it. Both of his team mates enter the game again but are still in the same position they were in before: the can't stand up without getting blown away by the non-armband team. If they had the guts they could stand up, return fire, and have the doctor slap their ankle to bring them back in every time they get tagged but that's a ballsy move even I don't want to try, they'd be soaking up a lot of kill shots and bonus balls on top of that in order to pull it off. They stay huddled behind their piece of cover with another body there, the doctor, to join them now, and the non-armbanded team begins to move around it. They can't move too far though, or they'll be shot by the players behind it who are nearly invulnerable thanks to their doctor being present.

       It's a stale mate in the middle of the field at this point. The armbanded team is bunkered down and unable to move. If one of them were to let their foot slip even a little, non-armbands will have a view of their ankles and try to shoot to scare them into submission. Non-armbands could potentially move in and put a gun over the piece of cover to try and mercy them but it could mean subjecting their face to three markers being trained on it which isn't very desirable at all. There's a team of two young guys trying to move around the piece of cover to make an elimination on the three armbanded players but neither wants to get lit up by the three guns they'd have to stare down to make the kills. Fortunately, one of them has the grenade that didn't go off from earlier and has the awesome idea to try and get a triple grenade kill on the guys behind the bunker. They wave to me and make some hand signals to ask if it's a good idea so as not to reveal their plans to the enemy. I nod enthusiastically; if it works, it's going to be awesome to watch for sure, I'll definitely call a grenade explosion as a doctor kill in this case. The guy with the captured grenade pulls it out, gets ready to throw... and then the duo stares at the thing like it just spoke. It takes me a moment to realize that they don't remember that the grenade is primed and ready to throw and they start talking in hushed voices trying to figure out what they need to pull to get it ready. I'm confused as to what to do at this point, yell to just chuck it? Go over and help? I don't really want to leave the three helpless armbanded players in case pain starts to rain down on them and I need to intervene.

       Let's quickly refer to the picture of the grenade at the top of the page. It is wrapped in plastic, to prime it, you remove the plastic, then it's good to go. What sets it off is it colliding with a surface hard enough to off set the elastic (bottom of grenade) and the rest involves the paint goo inside spraying out all over in a spinning motion. The plastic on this grenade is already gone but these two players see the black cap with the loop on top and think “Ah, clearly this is the pin which we need to pull first.” They firmly grab the elastic wrapped end, and pull on the black loop, hard, ripping it off and exploding the grenade in their faces. They are very confused and blinded by paint goop on their masks; between chuckles I inform them that they just killed themselves. The armband team is overjoyed to hear, but not enough to try to come out of their cover and fire back at the non-armbands.

       Though these two did not manage to grenade kill the three armbanded fellows behind the bunker, this fail was entertaining to watch in it's own rite. These players were pretty young and the doctor on their team was one of their chaperone’s. He was brave enough to waltz up to the bunker, stick his gun over the top and say “Mercy.” Armbands decided to take it instead of being capped in the top of their heads and this effectively ended the game for their team.

       I think that Epic Story Time is a good piece for the blog. FLASC ended up really liking the post about their Cannoniser barrel tip. A lot. Enough to link to the blog from their website among other things, so I think this section is sticking around for the entertainment value is holds. I hope you enjoy it!

       P.S. This will be the last, possibly the second to last post on the blog for a week or two before the unveiling of the Eight Pound Ops' super secret project.