*** Official 2005 IAO Pics/Stories Thread ***

[zackzel]

from left to right is DJ89, Me, Robbie, Lohman, and AGDlover

[Thordic]

Team Robbie and the Rest of Them did good, congrats.

And AFTICA placed exactly where we planned. We didn't want to play friday because that meant we couldnt drink as much thursday night.

[AGDlover]

ya all of us at team AO give props to robbie exicuteing great runs and getting us most of our points lol

[Alley]

Again my thanks to team AFTICA for letting me play! I had a great time. I have many pictures of the guys doing what they do best at the Sheraton. I will make the available for your all to see ASAP! It was an honor and a privledge to play with you guys and place 9th! As well as becoming a true AFTCIA and getting all drunk at the bar!! Have a safe trip home and I'll see you all in Canada!!!

~Alley~

[edweird]

Eh, my mission was compleate also... shoot as few cases as possible, keep the drunks from making a scene that leads to jail time, and get em back in one peice. done and done.

Oh and the flight home was terrible, got upgraded to first class to sit next to the biggest [female dog] in the world and the one parent who must have breed with a car alarm to birth the loudest screaming child ever. They are lucky my less than harmless weapons were in my checked luggage.

blood grows good grass.

[Lohman446]

Yeh, I copied this from the other thread

All of the players of Team AO did exceptionally well and the failure to take first place is fully mine. I made two game and score changing errors in the finals well the rest of the team did as much as I asked of them and much more.

In the preliminaries Robbie helped us to an awesome start by having ten eliminations in the first two games. His talent and leadership abilities throughout the day were a valuable asset to the team and greatly prized. Going into finals we knew we had to be more organized, and by then we were trying to make a game-plan that would push us foward.

On the day of finals we would be playing on a different field as announced to us the day before by Kevin. The Tippman field had leaky bunkers that required the refs to do extended maintenance about every three games, which created more work for them and slowed the day some. The field was also not level and one corner stand up could not even see the opposing tape line. Kevin, whose efforts for the owners groups division, cannot be overstated, was able to get us moved to the NPPL field which appears to me to be a better field.

The NPPL field had a snake in it that at first appeared much more powerful than the one on the Tippman field we had originally played on. Walking the field early with POG Brass I declared that snake a deathtrap, and it proved to be during the day thanks to the coverage of it by DJ (DJ89), Zack (Zackzel), and Drew (AGDlover). I told the team that if they covered that snake that Robbie and I would push the opposite side of the field and they need only defend.

The first game against Air Power (autocockers) proved the theory correct. Despite my early elimination (I failed to even make my first bunker) Robbie was able to bump up the doritos without me and, with the help of the left side, cleared the field and hung the flag - I can't say exactly what happened because I was staring at the back of the dead box.

The second game was against Matrix Owners.. I looked left when I should have been looking right and was bunkered. The player shot me twice and apologized for overshooting me?? We were shooting Blaze that was proving to be very bouncey and I thought two shots was extremely nice. That was just how the owners group was.

By the way, anyone ever tried to shoot Hellfire through a mag? I did in the first game of prelims, I ended up with a liquid line in my Reloader B and a mess in the breach. Drew has pictures, but it is a lesson I won't need to relearn anytime soon.

Our third game was against Shocker owners. In an odd twist the quarterfinals had become very tight, and it was apparent that Airpower was going to go to semis- after a dramatic victory over both the Matrix teams and the Shocker team. This meant that the second spot in the semis was going to either ourselves or Shocker owners (who held a victory over MOG). Having been trounced by the Shocker owners the day before I was apprehensive about this. We pulled together as a team, and moved on to the semis.

The semis were a best score after three games against Air power. The first game was won by Airpower, giving them 100 points and us 15. It was a two on two with DJ and I in which I missed a player moving up the left side, turned too far towards him and allowed the Air Power tape player to come up my tape. It left us needing every point we could muster, and a decision was made to send Zack immediatly up the middle on the second game for the flag pull. It seemed Air power had the same idea, and Zack and his counterpart reached for the flag at the same instant, the Air power player won the tug of wore, and the pull. Due to an error with tanks on my part my marker was down - the bolt stuck partially forward. I had failed to turn on the air tank and as it had shot down the excess air it had just stuck and was at the point that I could not get it to reset by turning on air. I made a flag run - both players having since been elimated in the midde, the rest of the team cleared the field and we were able to hang the flag.

It left us behind going into the third game against Air Power, and we again decided we needed the flag. Zack once again went up the middle, but this time we had a surprise for the Air Power player. Drew had been pulled off his snake protection duties and protected the flag - which proved effective though lost us our back corner player. With the help of a pause and lane from Robbie on the way to his bunker the flag was protected, and neither player secured it. Zack was called out when he took the flag and it was rehung It did give up the snake though... Robbie made a play for the flag at that time, and attempted a run up the middle. It turned us from a 4-3 position where we were stuck to a 3-2 position where we had the offensive. With the players distracted by Robbie I was able to move up and take two of the Air Power players - I bounced the third in the snake and was forced to duck down for cover, which happened to be their back stand up. With a player in each stand up and the Air Power player in the snake he had no choice but to try to fight both sides. DJ took him, and I made a desperate attempt to find the flag now hanging on a nearby bunker - yeh, I apparently do not look up. Finally found, and hung, we advanced to the finals.

The first game of finals... The team played well together, the snake protected in a series of moves that resulted in players trading with the players of the Rainmakers Owners Group. I allowed myself to be drawn into a snap shooting contest where I was in the fifty with the player in the center stand up. It was a poor decision on my part, and poor execution and I was eliminated in it. It caused a pause, and though Robbie once again cleared the field of opponents he was not able to hang the flag.

It left us ahead, and the second game should have been a winner. I was able, due to remarkable help from my team, to make the fifty tape opposite the snake unnoticed. I had great shots on two rainmaker players and tried for both of them... and bounced paint. It was an error on my part, I should have settled for taking one, and concentrated on one - I knew the paint was bouncey when I pulled the trigger, and it was overzealous on my part to try to take both. We were pushed back, and it ended with a RMOG flag hang, and us needing to go out for a pull and hang in the third game.

The RMOG knew what they needed to do, and they did it in the third game. holding out against our push, countering it, and winning the finals in an excellent display of teamwork. They were truly a high quality team, and well I fully ackowledge that it were my mistakes that led us to fail to win, I take nothing away from them. They overcame the same factors that we did in regards to paint and playing field, and adapted better than we did. The players on Team AO did everything that was asked of them... maybe I should have pushed the snake harder, maybe I should have made them more offensive and less defensive. Regardless of the mistakes, they did exactly what I asked of them and often more, and if that was not enough it was from a failure of my execution on my side of the field, or of my planning to begin with.

I cannot say enough about the Owners Group. I greatly enjoy the company of the people I play with on a regular basis, we play for fun, and sometimes the competetive spirit gets too high. The entire Owners Group seemed to play for fun, and the Sportsmanship of the groups, the effort and planning of Kevin, and reffing as close to faultless as I have seen in a long time. The hospitality and sportmanship of the Sport(wo)man award winning Cameo, in opening her home to those who needed a place to stay was not the exception to the owners group. I would like to thank the Palmers teams especially, I was unfamiliar with IAO, the surroundings, and the owners group as a whole. These great guys (and girls) showed me the ropes, and had me enjoying the three day party every moment of it. The players, the event organizers, the refs, and everyone else associated with the owners group that I met were friendly, outgoing, and a joy to play with or simply be around. If I had to pick a single tournament to play every year, it would be this one. One way or another I will be at the next OGD tournament, when Kevin tells us when and where - for now I expect him to take a break, for we know that the event he pulled off requires everyones contribution, and his bringing it together is a task that no doubt takes much effort.

OGD was awesome.... Robbie definetly held up his end of the bargain in playing :)

The Devilmag pictures, yeh, it met Hellfire, I wasn't smart enough to stop shooting - I should have gotten a picture of the liquid line in my loader - LOL. We traded off the Hellfire for Blaze to AKA who then used it to wipe the field with us .

[Maclete]

Congrats guys, we changed our strategy and you guys took advantage of our miscalculation. it was a great game. As much as us Shockerowners wanted to win it, as you know, our support was behind you guys once we were out.

Hope to see you next year!!

[Thordic]

http://www.thordic.com/images/IAO2k5/

Here are my pics. They are mostly of AFTICA and Team AO. I have much higher res versions of all the photos, and these were balanced using a photoshop macro, so if you see one you really like, I can use the original file to make it look a bit nicer and give you a higher res copy. I also didn't crop any of these photos, so thats obviously possible.

Many many many stories to come, but I'm exhausted and hungry.

[Lohman446]

http://www.thordic.com/images/IAO2k5/

Here are my pics. They are mostly of AFTICA and Team AO. I have much higher res versions of all the photos, and these were balanced using a photoshop macro, so if you see one you really like, I can use the original file to make it look a bit nicer and give you a higher res copy. I also didn't crop any of these photos, so thats obviously possible.

Many many many stories to come, but I'm exhausted and hungry.

VERY impressive photography there - its better than the ones Skirmish took

[Captain Canuck]

I just got home myself... long arsed drive, long arsed wait at the damn border lol

I too would like to offer my congrats to team AO on their 2nd place. However, I would like to take this moment to thank and congratulate ALL the eams that played the OGD... You guys really are the best group of standup ballers I have had the opportunity to play against(except for that guy from MA that got suspended for 3 games that we... err his team wasn't going to be playing ).

Looking forward to next time!

My pics and what little I remember will be up sometime soon.

[Dayspring]

How'd you get the aerial shots and who was the blonde chick?

[Thordic]

I wish I knew who the blonde chick was :)

As for the aerial shots, somehow Kev got us a boom/lift truck all day Friday for the finals, so a bunch of us went up in that and took aerial pics.

[Dayspring]

Bunch of drunks in a cherry picker...

Recipe for disaster or at least some shenanigans if you ask me.

[Thordic]

It was a little scary, if you moved too fast it swayed. We just figured try to aim your fall for the airball bunkers...

[AGDlover]

lol good to hear your back from the 4days of drinking er...i mean paintball Mehem Thanks again man for loaning me a gun when they called my tank unsafe cause of that 90* I had on the Fill nipple. Even though they called break and i got my stuff back up and running.

lol thordic thanks for all the reload pics. My friend who i was barrowing the halo from forgot to buy a rip so i had a coupple jams i had to maualy feed with my finger