As it turns out, someone brought a camera to Waterloo's recent game - and they took some really good pictures. Link.
I'm the person in the orange shirt with two Stryfes; you can see me getting stomped by the tank, and a sockwhip-user coming to my aid just a little too late (mostly my fault; I really should have turned and ran, or noticed the armbands sooner and switched to socks).
Those duck tape magazine holders that you can see me wearing deserve special mention. I've been experimenting with different ways to make duck tape magazine holders for a while now, and I've almost reached the stage where most of my dissatisfaction comes from the design of the magazine itself rather than the holder. Duck tape holders are fairly quick to make - the ones that you see me wearing were made the night and morning before the game - and will be the subject of a future post.
More pictures of the magazine holders can be found here.
Credit goes to . . . um, darn it, I didn't get the name of the person
who took those pictures for me. (If you're reading this, please speak up in the comments. )
The blue bag was supposed to be a dump pouch, but it didn't work as planned. Magazines didn't fall out of it when I tested it by jumping around the house, but they did fall out during the game. This goes to show that HvZ is very, very unforgiving of cut corners in terms of equipment security.
Sounds interesting, but man those sock whips are kinda ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteSeconded on the sock whips, they look a bit douchebaggy to me. What's wrong with bunging a rolled up sock? If I used sockwhips at my games I would get a ton of injuries through misuse. How come they ended up being used so widely? I usually have socks for specials but don't feel the need to have them dangling from my gear!
DeleteWaterloo's rules state that sockwhips must be made entirely out of socks - the ones that you see in the pictures were made from two long orange socks (one composing the whip, which was tied to another which went around my wrist) with one rolled-up sock in the end.
DeleteSo, no, these sockwhips are not dangerous. Waterloo's standards regarding potentially injurious gear are very strict and they would not be allowed if they were.
I agree that allowing humans to use sockwhips gives the human side an advantage - but not an unfair one. They are especially useful when checking corners in narrow corridors, as they can be swung blindly around the corner whereas a blaster could be grabbed by a lurking zombie as soon as you stick it around the corner. However, given that Waterloo's campus' geometry gives the zombies an advantage, and the human side is often required to split up, they don't give the humans side an unfair advantage. Besides, Waterloo's games have tended to be rather horde-heavy despite the use of sockwhips for years, so they can't give the humans too much of an advantage.
Although sockwhips are popular at Waterloo, throwing socks aren't - I'm not sure why.
I chose to use sockwhips rather than throwing socks because this is what other players in Waterloo's regular games have found works best. I did find these whips to be rather awkward and hard to control - either I need more practice, or I need to come up with another strategy for dealing with tanks. Perhaps I'll try throwing socks during the next invitational.