Another paintball season is well underway in Norway. Slagen Paintball was hosting the season opener once again at our home field. Some of our players already got a tournament under their belt after a great trip to the Med league in Greece, but for most is was the first taste of competitive paintball this year. We made some changes this year and let some of the young new players who have earned it create a second elite squad. Throw in a few grizzled veterans into the mix and there you have Slagen Bandits Silver!
Slagen Bandits Gold had only six players this event as our snake player was still recovering from his injury from Greece. That meant a lot of reps for everyone involved as there were two brackets with five teams in each playing race to 3 x-ball format.
The elite division in Norway looked quite different from last year with more teams stepping up and some of them with very young roosters. When we evaluated the competition top contenders this year looked to be Stavanger Mayhem and new powerhouse Izmir Collision consisting of many former Menace players.
Saturday was div. 1 and 2 with almost brimfull divisions and nice weather. And with nice weather follows great paint, the GI Sportz paint was brittle and we, already then, really looked forward to using it on Sunday. 16 teams in div 1 and 19 teams in div 2 was a great turnout. Drammen Solid was marshaling, and the whole day went by without a hitch. And as you can see, some welts was made from our teams already on Saturday, the paint lived up to its expectations:
Congrats to Slagen Bandits White for taking third place in div 2.
On Sunday it was our turn to test the paint and see if it was as great as our other teams described it – read the results for yourselves J
Fielding two elite squads at the same time was a logistical challenge but with everybody helping out it turned out fine. Luckily we ended up in separate brackets and didn’t have to face each other in the prelims. And thanx to a great staff at Game-On everything went smoothly.
First game of the tournament is always a little more nervous than the others because it sets the tone for the rest of the day. Coupled with the new snake kit, which none of us had played other than a few practices on, things were about to get real interesting.
Slagen Bandits Gold was matched up with Molde Xtreme in our first game of the day. Our game plan, which was basically committing three guns to the dorito side, seemed to work and we won 3-0 shooting people off the break in almost every point. Next up was Stavanger Mayhem which we had some though matches against last year. This time was no different as we traded points back and forth with them taking the lead and us catching back up. In the end Mayhem won 3-2 in overtime. This meant we probably had to win our two remaining matches to make it into the semi-finals.
Against newcomer 50 line it was over quickly, as we took three quick points in a row. The last match in the prelims was against Rebels. Another back and forth match with us taking the win in overtime 3-2.
Relived we made it to the semifinals we started preparing for our match against Izmir Collision, who were undefeated in the prelims. We decided to keep our original game plan with a few tweaks after analyzing their patterns and tendencies. We lost a stupid two on one in the first point but rallied and again the match went back and forth, and again to overtime. In the end we shoot the last guy out of the snake and advanced to the final were we would meet…. Slagen Bandits Silver?!
They did exceptionally well for their first tournament together and went 3-1 in the prelims with only a loss to Izmir. In the semifinals they took a strong victory 3-1 against Stavanger Mayhem.
So the final was an all Bandits and all Planet Eclipse affairs. Ten Ego an Geo wielding players, with a lot of GI Sportz on their backs, took to the field to determine who would have bragging rights for the next practices.
Silver took a quick first point but from there on out it was all Slagen Bandits Gold who took three quick points in a row and took first place on our own turf for the first time ever!
Needlessly to say there was big smiles and hugs all around after the most successful NPL in Bandits history.
