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Varsity
Posted 13th March 2007 at 1:26am by M1ke, tagged as University | Commenting Closed

The assassin's society has featured in a number of posts this year, mainly because despite the massive amount I have to say I've felt a certain lethargic streak take effect when I actually want to type it up. So on to yet another story about crazy people with toy guns (and I'm not talking about the American army; oh how witty) that happened over a week ago (Saturday 3rd March).

The Varsity match is an anual event, a game held between the assassin's of Durham and Cambridge (it used to involve Oxford too, but their society closed due to them all being eaten by a particularly savage old creaky wardrobe). This year it was the turn of Cambridge to come to us and come they did, armed with a lot of water guns and funny wooden things that fired elastic bands. We had our usual arsenal of foam dart guns, with our rubber pellet guns being banned because they look too realistic. Unfortunately whilst nerf guns are superior for assassinations the pitched battles involved in a Varsity game favoured the use of water weapons, which can be aimed upwards and sprayed for maximum area coverage. However before I tell you how we won despite their having a much higher body count I will describe the game rules.

The area of play was the entirety of Durham town, based around checkpoints. There were 6 Durham teams, each with a key. Cambridge needed at least two keys to deactivate the nuclear device aimed at their University, but the more they had the best chance of guessing where our control was located. To make sure we couldn't all just hide we had to move around between the checkpoints. The first encounter of the day came near the Maiden Castle sports ground where we found Cambridge waiting in ambush on the raised ground of the old railway. They retreated as we tried to surround them, and we pursued them a good quarter of a mile - I went into the raised forest area to make sure they couldn't escape and ended up facing three across a field but for some reason they withdrew.

We were on guard along the river but no more attacks came. We moved to engage them at the Court but to no avail, then I left my team to assist the key carrier from Blue team who's team, containing our president, had been attacked and nearly wiped out. Together we moved back to the sports ground and met up with two other survivors then went into the forest to try and ambush Cambridge at the science site - we thought that they would be unsuspecting because they wouldn't know the routes, whereas recently I have walked quite a lot in the forest. In the woods we had an amusing meeting with the Durham Treasure Trap (live action role-playing) society. Far be it from me to judge other people's activities, but it is quite funny seeing them in action, dressed in full medieval kit and even wearing pointy ears. I didn't say anything at the time because as we left their area there was a single guy hiding under a tree with a knife, muttering things and looking slightly derranged.

Unfortunately when we got to the top of the hill Cambridge were rudely not in attendance, and we went back towards Trevs college. We met more people here and even more down on Prebends bridge where we found my team had been attacked and the key taken (even though the person reporting the attack kept saying our team leader had been compromised, leading me to think Cambridge were now using rape tactics.

Finding the Cambridge team in a graveyard we attacked but they had two people hiding with water guns and our tommy gun carrier's weapon jammed, leaving him to a soaking from the southerners. One team member ran in on a last ditch attempt, though we suspect it was the draw of the dead pub that made him this heroic, rather than actual bravery. The other two of us pulled back to defend control under the command of a guy carrying a warhammer. Unfortunately he proved as apt a commander of a team as the rubber weapon across his back, stopping me from hiding to try and get behind the Cambridgites in favour of us walking backwards up Elvet bridge as he apparently ran off in another direction. The public location wasn't exactly my taste for a good fight, and their water once again proved superior to darts. I came very near to hitting the Cambridge leader, but sadly nerf darts are rather easy to dodge, wheras I would have had to fly or backflip in order to avoid his responding jet of water.

Rather glad to be out of the awkward fight I wandered after the Cambridge team to watch their assault on Control. After determining it was in a lecture theatre they proceeded to lock themselves in the antechamber to prevent our survivors from attacking them, meaning we could watch through the glass in the doors as they unsucessfully attempted to stop the missile. After a while of firing their ammo through the door they decided to use distraction tactics, sending in runners as the rest of the team fired. Having tried this three times they seemed to realise their team was depleted. Obviously fans of the First World War approach to tactics they hadn't stopped after the first time and seemed a bit confused. Nontheless they ralied and sent three more people storming in, all of whom fell to Durham, taking out only one of our defenders in the process. The final two made an attempt to run in but withdrew, to our amazement they had stolen the automatic defense gun thinking it was the nuclear control thingamajig. We laughed from outside as they tried to shove keys into a plastic toy, and were rather glad when the clock ran out and the game ended, in our favour.

I was knackered at the end, but it was a good fun day teaching a number of lessons for future matches. Firstly get a good water gun, secondly try and affect ambushes or sneaky assassin stuff instead of plain fights and finally don't listen to people who carry rubber warhammers in public.

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