They say that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.   While putting a high-end paintball gun in your hands won’t give you any sort of power on the field, it can change your game and change how you play the game.

I got a phone call from my friend Joe tonight, and he asked me to go over to the X7 Owner’s Group forums to check out a Buy/Sell/Trade thread.  What I found was not only entertaining, but touching in a way that I haven’t seen in a very long time.

I am a South Beach Pimp.  The Pimps (or F#&*%’in Pimps to a lot of teams here in the SE) have been together for a couple of years now, and we’ve made our presence felt at scenario games in Florida, Georgia, and of course legendary Camp Blanding.  I’ve got a well-known affinity for English paintball guns, as do the rest of the Pimps.  We’re a Planet Eclipse sponsored team, representing PE here in the Deep South.

In 2008 we were at LCP’s “Revenge of a Nerd” where I was the general opposing Greg Hastings.  Yes, I was the Nerd.  On Sunday morning I was in the command tent for my side, and a decent sized force was coming in to try and take my base out.  One of the guys right in the thick of it was this guy covered in tattoos, shooting a maxed out Tippmann.  I don’t know why, but for whatever reason the normally reliable Tippy went down on him right in the middle of the firefight, so I handed my personal Ego 8 under the netting to him.  What happened next has become a bit of campfire history:

Guy:  “Damnit!  My gun went down!”
Dale:  “Here, take mine!”
Guy: “What the hell is that?”
Dale: “It’s an Ego 8…it’s already turned on and ready to go..just watch the trigger!”
**pop** Guy:  “Oh, you’re not kidding…”

At this point, the guy, who I later came to know as Joe “Sideshow” Holleran of Team IYAOYAS ripped off a massive burst from the gun, which of course led to the “High Rate of Fire Giggle” that another friend “Georgia” Joe Hamilton of the Doom Troopers coined after using another one of my guns in a final battle at a NOCER game a year or so prior.

It turns out that Sideshow and I live literally 2 miles from each other, so we became friends and that friendship led to an alliance between IYAOYAS and The South Beach Pimps.  Along the way, I was asked to teach some basic skills to the “Yo-Yo’s” so that they would be better able to accomplish their real strong suit, running and completing missions.

In the meantime Joe sold all of his gear and upgraded to electronic guns, first Invert Mini’s, then his own Ego 8.  He even went to a tech class for Planet, learning all about Eclipse guns and offering his tech services to teammates and customers, a lot of whom were leaving the Mil-Sim guns behind and upgrading, mainly to Etek II’s.

As the ’08 season ended, I did some swapping, and got a Vicious Ego 7 to back up my new primary, an Ice Ego 9.  The new owner Terry Black, did some minor upgrading to the 8, but for the most part he just used it and enjoyed it, all the while demonstrating the power of using a “Space Gun” in the woods.

Now the Ego 8 is up for sale again, since Terry wants an Ego 9.  His Buy/Sell/Trade thread on the X7OG forums has sparked the creative side of the players looking to buy the 8.    There’s a movement afoot in the OG forums for players to go to the “Dark Side” and start using high-ends in the woods.  I wasn’t aware of it until recently, but among the players I’ve ‘corrupted’, me personally and my personal guns are held in very high regard.  In the OG world, I’m referred to as “Emperor”, while Sideshow is now “Darth Sideshow”, corrupting sweet, innocent Mil-Sim players to the ways of the Dark Side.

Such is the power of the Dark Side that grown men play paintball wearing a Tigger suit, hardened combat veterans are reduced to goo, and a movement that started in the Deep South is making its’ way across the country.

Check out the thread HERE, and enjoy it like I have!