53 replies to this topic

[Ice Nine]

Two months to go before the war. Hopefully everyone is excited. If this is your first war, worry not, there will be plenty of people to help you out and there will be lots of rule clarifications. Since there's a lot of cover and field variety at the location, superstock blasters can actually do okay (while the same is less true of Apoc).

 

If you're interested in getting some blasters together before the war and want to get an NIC primary together, the Buzz Bee Extreme Blastzooka is a great choice. Throw an RSCB on it and you'll be good to go; you can barrel an RSCB (explanation here) to fire stock darts as well as stefans/slugs/whatever. I have it on word from Gears that the BoomCo Burst Wave can fire out of a hopper, so that's viable too. As always, SNAPs are a great choice for wars, and the Mark 8 writeup linked above is a great choice for a first build.

 

this year im going to try to encourage people that are filming to post them on their own in addition to giving the footage to someone that wants to edit everyone's together. 

 

I second this. Anyone who is planning on filming at the war, please post the footage as well as sharing it with whoever is going to edit it all together. I know Baghead has been super busy with work and other projects, but his videos from previous years have all been excellent. (We appreciate you, Bags.*)

 

I'll be bringing my gopro.   As always, raw/lightly edited footage uploaded way late on my youtube channel. 

 

Thanks Hoongfu. First-person footage is always fun to see. 

 

A couple reminders:

• Bring sunscreen. It WILL be sunny, and if it's not, the clouds will just make the burns come from UV rays instead.
• Bring eye protection. I cannot emphasize this enough. You will not be able to play without eye protection. If you are not wearing eye protection and you are playing, we will be following Kane Rules: any shot you fire does not count and any hit you take doesn't count, and this rule is in effect until you put on eye protection.
• Don't hesitate to ask any questions, either here in the thread or during the war. There will plenty of people willing to help you out and answer questions.
• Bring something to drink. There are fountains on-site and I'm going to bring a bunch of water bottles again, but it's best if you take responsibility for your own hydration.

Looking forward to it, everyone. This is the last year that Armageddon is a minor so let's make it a memorable one.

 

*Here are some videos from previous years:

Armageddon II (2001)

Armageddon IV (2004) (Horrible quality video)

Bags's Videos:

Armageddon X (2009) (Personal favorite)

'Geddon 'Leven (2010)

Armageddon XII (2011)

Armageddon XIII (2012)

Armageddon XIV (2013)

Edited by Ice Nine, 13 April 2016 - 05:01 PM.

[Minislayer5000]

Hi, I will be attending with KiritoNerf.  

[Ice Nine]

Hi, I will be attending with KiritoNerf.  

 

That's great. It's always good to have new faces.

 

Ohhhh snap! Armageddon is one month out as of today. I have confirmed travel plans for:

• JLego
• Zorn's Lemma
• Ryan201821
• CaliforniaPants
• Daniel Beaver
• Hoongfu
• koree

This is wonderful. It's especially great to have East Coast representation, since that was the whole reason that Armageddon started 17 years ago. Here's a quick list of recommended things to bring to the war if you're planning on coming:

• Water
• Sunscreen
• Eye protection (please bring eye protection)
• Comfortable shoes for running on concrete/grass
• A good and friendly attitude

If you have any questions about rules or just questions in general, please ask them here and as soon as possible so we can get it all cleared up. Get pumped.

[Zorns Lemma]

See y'all there nerds

[Irish8]

I completely forgot to post here this year because of all the war prep. I'm coming down as well as 4-6 more of my Fresno CVN guys.

[Draconis]

Sorry folks, I won't be able to attend this year.  On a related note, I appreciate all of you leaving your mothers with the afternoon free.  I have like twelve dates lined up for next Saturday.  I apologize if some of your rides home are late arriving.

[baghead]

We appreciate you, Bags.

^ Quoting this to prove Hell hath frozen over. 

About Video stuff:
 

I don't know what happened with last year's video but I put Pilz on it and I don't think anyone other than me ever sent him footage even though he tried to collect stuff from people like I did the year before. Then again he's owed me a theme song for my next web project for like... 2 years now, and I pester him about it quite frequently. So who knows if he'll every get around to it. I know Apollo has his stuff still, but he also has footage of literally every SoCal war since he started shooting head cam, so again I don't know if you guys will ever see it.
 

As for Armageddon 15 I don't have a better way to say it: The External Hard Drive I'd backed nearly every Nerf War I've shot kicked the bucket. So that year's content may just be lost forever, if any of it turns up I'll still put something together while I have some downtime. 

About the War:
I'll be there and have at least 4-6 New Orange County area players joining me. 

Also IceNine I'll be shooting you a message later about this, I've figured out a fix for using the bean bag CTF flags from last year that gets around the problem of Stanton having few places good for hanging flags. 

-Bags 





 

Edited by baghead, 01 June 2016 - 06:06 PM.

[CaliforniaPants]

time to reveal the secret: this war is the day after my birthday. 

[hoongfu]

Happy Birthday Pants!

[Ice Nine]

JLego is flying into LAX tonight so the hype is already ramping up. My preferred weather forecasting is from the National Weather Service and they're saying Saturday will be:

Mostly sunny, with a high near 81.

The heat out here is pretty much always dry so it shouldn't feel any hotter than it is. This is pretty pleasant and similar to last year. I'm going to be bringing a ton of bottled water and there are drinking fountains on-site. Make sure you bring sunscreen.

 

time to reveal the secret: this war is the day after my birthday. 

 

The U3 will give you the traditional U3 birthday party on Friday, in that case. I'll let you assume what that entails, if you catch my drift.

[apocalypticamerica]

super bummed - I wasn't able to take the time off work needed to make the trip.  Have a blast, maybe I'll make it out for Christmastravaganza. 

[CaliforniaPants]

does anyone have a telescoping n-strike stock that they would part with? mine seems to have disappeared entirely. blue would be preferred but I'll take any color.

 

NEVERMIND GOT IT

[Avatar of WoeBrian]

Sadly won't be able to attend this one. Hope you guys have a blast, maybe next year or "YANO" in the future!

[Groove]

See y'all there tomorrow. 
 

[Ice Nine]

See you all on the field. If you're posting stuff on social media, try and tag it with #geddonnerf so it's all under the same heading. I'm taking of the NH Twitter feed today so I'm going to post a bunch of photos and stuff directly from the war.

 

HOT YOUTUBE ACTION

 

Man, that was incredible.

[mysterio]

Oh man, I get to be first to post a recap

PROS

-my stuff mostly working

-huge turnout

-meeting new people/seeing their cool blasters

-the hat

-darts not curving around people like they used to

-cool weather

-winning ctf

-Brad getting more hits with an atom blaster than some people with homemades

 

CONS

-accidental headhunter

-stuff breaking, as always

-cool weather, didn't feel like a real geddon

-hitting my butt directly on the ground

 

10/10 would nerf again, great war.

[Ice Nine]

ARMAGEDDON 2016: COLD SNAKES

 

Thanks to everyone who made it out this year, we had at least fifty around lunch time and probably closer to sixty (I'll wait for a full group photo before we make that declaration). It was crazy to host an Armageddon that was both a little rainy and seventy-ish. It was truly excellent weather for a Nerf war and I think everyone was feeling it because the amount of running I saw people do was insane.

 

• The morning's mechanical counter deathmatch game was one of the best rounds of Nerf I had ever seen, along with some of the most exertion I've seen from people. It ended with the score being 151 to 148.
• Huge props to everyone who traveled: we had people from Philly, we had people from Wisconsin, we had people from Minnesota, and we even had someone visit us from Australia.
• Lots of new faces. I'm consistently impressed by how mature and talented the young kids are at these wars.
• Lots of blaster variety.
• None of our China darts worked after getting consistent performance in the garage the day before. That's how you know it was a real quality Nerf war, everything from the night before doesn't work.
• ROCK MODE.
• Getting the U3 together for the first time in, like, four years.
• Groove and Zax together are always a plus.
• The second round of freeze tag where Ryan and Jlego chased me around the school and I started a chain reaction that made the game go on for another few minutes was pretty fun. Zorn got some good photos of me turning a baseball slide into a summersault.
• Beaver broke the pump handle on my SuperMaxx 2000 pretty much instantly. I could just switch to a Small Soldiers 5000 pump handle but it's not yellow.

 

If you post photos or video on social media, try and use the hashtag #geddonnerf because that's what I was using when I was live-Tweeting from the war from @nerfhaven. Here's one of the few action photos I took: Beaver and some people chasing down a suddenly fleeing Groove and Zax.

 

[CaliforniaPants]

this was fun, this was lots of fun. when I woke up this morning I was genuinely a little sad that I didnt get to do it again.

 

pros:

-so many people. there were so many adults and kids and just PEOPLE. battle parents with rival blasters made me happy

-everyone was in an extremely good mood the entire day, nobody got (significantly) angry. except for me. 

-the death clicker for deathmatch was extremely fun and the first round of the day was way closer than I wouldve guessed

-lots of young people running around having a great time and being super good and chill. to the kid that said RIP to me after I was shot in the crotch: you made my day multiple times

-cameras: lots of people had them! please post your stuff 

 

cons:

-darts. scary domes, slugs, FVJs, and poorly made silicone domes felt like being shot by rocks repeatedly, especially in the face and head. which leads me to...

-getting shot above the neck. it happened a lot, and I mean a LOT. and almost all of them were from under 30 feet away. thats not cool, thats really not cool. I was genuinely worried for my teeth after awhile. it was happening to other people I talked to over the day as well. please do your best to be careful and dont try and get off ant wild game making shots from ten feet away, its just a game. we're all here having fun, please be considerate. 

 

it was a wonderful time and I wish I could do it again next week. I'll be posting my videos soon

 

geddon 2016: a refreshing cold one

Edited by CaliforniaPants, 12 June 2016 - 10:21 PM.

[CaliforniaPants]

The second round of freeze tag where Ryan and Jlego chased me around the school and I started a chain reaction that made the game go on for another few minutes was pretty fun. Zorn got some good photos of me turning a baseball slide into a summersault.

I dont have that one, but...

Edited by CaliforniaPants, 12 June 2016 - 11:31 PM.

[Cartaya]

Pro's:

*Nice cool weather.
*My new Brassed Dual-Strike Magnum needed a couple of adjustments, but once dialed in, all my other blasters rusted in disuse including my Longshot, 2k, and even my usual super sprung pistols.
*Good to see everyone again, getting the band back together!
*I like the new gametypes, team CTF (wish we played a few rounds of that) and click of death TDM, keeping a point system and respawns on hits reminds me when I used to play Quake with my College friends, no body feels left out waiting for the next round.
*Recovered nearly all of my darts, I usually count on losing 50-75 in a war like this.
*A lot of new faces, good to see the word getting out and people giving the NIC a try, whatever I can do to help, please don't hesitate to message me, I want to see the NIC grow and in the right way.
*Also a lot of cool East Coast people came out, Hoongfu and Koree, just bitchin players, so are the Wonder Twins and a few other people here that are my favorite players in the NIC.
*No rounds with eliminations (except speedrounds) meant no bogeys that were picking up ammo that you couldn't figure out if they were in or out of the game. Snoop wrote an excellent post on this on FB about a bunch of dick modded stock kids at a local war who hovered around the play area looking for darts with no hands up and it's quite annoying, I agree.
*A lot more players working on better effective range and shooting some great shots from a distance.  I saw some pretty long kills from others as far as 150' and maybe farther.  Very cool! 

Cons:

*A lot of young kids made me somewhat nervous of accidentally nailing them with an X-Dart or FvJ at too close of range, I'm usually at a distance when I shoot anyways, but I know the darts  still hit somewhat hard even then. 
*One idea of having a Smart AR that switches to megas is so that if someone comes close, I can switch to something that hits softer at closer ranges.  For the most part, worked, but in a couple of cases, I accidentally hit the singled barrel while trying to fire mega's.  Usually I just dry fired it, but in one case, engaged the brass barrel, nailing Baghead in the face (sorry).
*I wanted to call time out when Pants got nailed in the crotch, but didn't know if it was appropriate for me to do so or if I was allowed to, he got hit hard. That is my own confusion, other than that, everything else was clear and very well organized.
*And yea, same deal, my darts worked great at home, and when I got there, not as great.  But no excuses I did well and loved the game.  Pretty moist humid day.
*Pulled both inner thigh muscles, I don't know how.
 

Edited by Cartaya, 20 June 2016 - 09:31 PM.

[Daniel Beaver]

+ Hanging out with Koree, Hoongu, JLego, IceNine, Ryan, Zorn, Pants, Bags and others. I wouldn't be nearly as enthusiastic about going to big nerf wars if it wasn't for the cool people I get to spend time with.
+ Driving around LA on Sunday and eating a ton of food and ice cream.

+ Minimal faffing. We nerfed a lot.

+ A lot of footage was taken. Hoongfu's helmet cam footage of the first Carpe round is now my go-to war footage to show people who don't know what nerf is about.

+ Pretty good weather. The overcast and drizzle wasn't the best, but I suppose that beats dying from heat exhaustion.

+ Tiny children wrecking shit.

+ Decent play area. The outer areas of the school were sparse on cover, but I liked that you always had an option of trying to sneak around the buildings and try to get behind the enemy team (rather than just having a continuous line of line of scrimmage).

+ Our Airbnb house was super cool.

+ I saved Zeke from having to use his Supermaxx 2k by breaking the handle right away.

 

- Fucking darts, man. I need to stop being lazy and make some good darts, so I don't get angry when I can't hit anything.

- Some of these hard-tipped plastic darts hurt. This was the first war where I felt there was a real regression fun factor due to darts.
- Air travel sucks, there's not any way around that.

- Holy hell was I stiff the next day. That kind of nuked our Airsoft plans for Sunday, but we got to do a bit of sightseeing instead.

 

 

 

Beaver Seal Of Approval

 

Edited by Daniel Beaver, 14 June 2016 - 09:16 PM.

[Ryan201821]

Great war. It's been 7 years since I've been to a 'Geddon. It was cool seeing a bunch of people I haven't seen in years, and also meeting a bunch of new people I've never met. The war location is excellent for a war this size. I especially admire the perfect symmetry allowing different games to be set up easily and accurately with little effort. Thanks to Zeke for putting up with everyone's bullshit for the weekend, and the time and cost that goes into hosting a nerf war, especially one this size. 

 

Things I liked:

• Death clicker gametype is a perfect mashup of Deathmatch and Meat-Grinder. I need to get some mechanical counters.
• U3 trains
• Other general trains that were rollin'
• Rock Mode, of couse.
• I took a nice cold one.
• Double ESLT is super effective, still...The blowgun is the perfect attachment for shooting little kids, or rushing fools while making poop sounds.
• Little kids who were smarter than a lot of the older people.
• Lots of ideas for potential future projects to revolutionize nerf once again.
• Weather 

Things that could've been better:

• Staging area was too close to field of play. Maybe we should just tell people expect to be shot at all times, within the gated area. (i.e. wear safety glasses)
• Decent cover, but a couple smaller mobstacles in the more open areas would've made it perfect.
• Not having to fly on a plane to get there.

Things that need to change:

 

• FVJ darts, and other not-even-close-to-soft domes = not nerf. These things are straight rocks, yo. I saw some pretty nasty damage to some people from these darts and at points it was generally frightening to walk into certain situations. I think this was also amplified by the most likely over-powered blasters they were using. 
• Loudspeaker would be a nice addition. Sometimes it was difficult to wrangle people to the next game. Especially since none of us were very good at yelling.
• Darts in general. Maybe by this time next year we'll finally have the end-all solution.

 

I definitely plan on going next year. Sorry East Coast, but it is better than Apoc.

[Langley]

• Loudspeaker would be a nice addition. Sometimes it was difficult to wrangle people to the next game. Especially since none of us were very good at yelling.

 

I appreciate the euphemism, but 'loud asshole' is the proper nomenclature.  I'll try and make it next year. 

[hoongfu]

The Good

1. Hanging out with friends
   1. Seeing old ones KOREEEEEEEE, Jlego, Ice9, Pants, Beaver,  Cannonball, Zorn, Ryan, Groove, Zaxbys!
   2. meeting new ones - Pete, little kid, Apollo, Bags (If I forgot your name I'm sorry)
   3. Actually nerfing with Beaver after gazing at his majestic presence walking around at Apoc 2011.
2. Ice9 hosting the war - Super well run, lots of rounds in, good crowd control despite people not listening, good game types.  
3. Good footage - I was so happy when I watched some footage that my gopro wasn't aiming at the sky ala Apoc 2013.
4. Food - Pastrami, chili cheese fries, In n Out, Ice cream sandwiches, croissants, and Korean Tacos for days!  
5. Hanging out all day and night and experiencing Art - Thanks Beaver and Ice9!  
6. Duels with Cannonball - Man ever since the Christmas war 2 years ago I've been itching to duel Cannonball again.  I lost pretty much every duel we had that day except for one, which I hope I caught on video (haven't watched through everything yet).  That's one thing I like about east coast wars, despite 40 people around there is always sometime and someone to duel.  
7. Wonder Twins dota - heroes and minions duking it out in lanes
8. Freezetag - So much fun in a perfectly balanced field with a speedloader
9. Pull back and a Speedloader - I used it most of the war and had more fun than using any pump action with a hopper
10. People having fun and being effective with near stock blasters
11. Balls to the wall:  Man it was so coooool seeing a good percentage of the players utilizing Nerf's latest invention, the Apollo blaster.  And they were effective too!  
12. Carpe was a lot of fun, even though I felt like we were losing the whole time because of the pressure put on by the Twins/Cannon ball/Bags.  Screaming at people to pick up balls (I'm sorry I called you an old man Pete!  You're super cool).
13. Last round of Carpe was so much fun because it wasn't about winning.  Rather it was about winning in our own terms, which we did to the max.  It's always fun to play against your friends but even better to play with them.  
14. Weather was almost perfect for me, I didn't sweat a ton.  Overcast works really well with the GoPro because it has a harsh and delayed transition from shadow to sunlight.  Any footage in the center square would have been unwatchable if it was sunny.  
15. Bright Pink polo from Goodwill - Keeping it Cali
16. Ryan invited me to come over and mod and use the 3D printer <3
17. Not being sweaty on the plane
18. Not being tired at all during and after the war , even after the massive lunch, also not pulling any leg muscles
19. Grabbing In n out for breakfast
20. Dart recovery was amazing as always
21. TSA was super chill, even in LAX.  
22. Super cheap range time.  
23. Little kid was super interested and Dad allowed him to join after a while.  I think he had lots of fun.  
24. Dad's playing and having fun.  I hope to join your ranks some day.  

 

 

Not as good

1. No Langley/Gears 
2. Beaver kept getting his food first, I kept getting my food last, like 10 minutes after Beaver finished. 
3. People including myself not respawning properly during Carpe
4. People shooting way too close, like that one guy who shot Koree from 0" away.  Even I waited for the kid to run past about 10-15'
5. Silicon or rubber tipped rock darts, ridiculously dense darts 
6. Fell asleep too early.  Missed the hugs.
7. Boom o rangs and other flying melee.  It sucks bad to get hit in the face with one as Bags found out.  Thanks Ice9 for not allowing them the rest of the war.  
8. Red eye flight and work 

 

Raw War footage:  https://www.youtube....OMm6xPtozxVK7Zg

 

I'll be working on a highlights video soon, my first one so it will take a long time and will suck a lot.    I'll post it in here after its done.  

Edited by hoongfu, 15 June 2016 - 11:17 AM.

[Cannonball]

What a great nerf war! I was looking forward to Armageddon all year and it did not disappoint! Huge thanks to Ice9 and all the other people who made sure the war ran smoothly.

I think I should apologize for all those China darts I was slinging around. Just got them and was rotating through them and my K'nex darts. Would've put them away for good had I know it was harshing the vibe. My bad everyone!

My only other Con is that this war is only one day a year.

PROS:
1. Familiar faces- nerfing with you guys is always a blast. Thanks for making the trip out again.
2. New guys - always amazed by the new people showing up, young and old. You guys are a blast. Keep it up. Come back next year!
3. Clicker deathmatch was excellent.
4. Dueling Hoongfu all day. I got a few lucky shots in!
5. Freezetag is always great, even when the CVN guys are lighting you up when you foolishly decide to take cover behind the picnic table closest to them. I've still got welts...
6. Three team Carpe was awesome. Our "runners" did work. Freed me up to try and steal from the corner team. I got one!
7. The weather was great.

This war was awesome. Plenty of cool stories to tell. I'm having a hard time remembering them all. I can't wait for next year!