Tiviachick Loves Laser Tag: Armageddon 2025: Days 2 and 3

Day 2 started with our team getting ready for three team competition in Zone.

We were playing at Q-Zar Toledo and it was my first time back there in three years. Surreal for reasons that made my day a “challenge” to say the very least, but being here reinforced the most important part of the Armageddon…the sense of community and friendship from my teammates who are always there to prop you up when you need it. As for the actual tournament, we had a decent showing.

Having headed into this day ranked in third place, our main objective was to not lose ground. We accomplished this with holding steady for the most part. Since Zone plays with three teams at a time, the numbers and game points are a bit different and we had six games to play instead of four. We held second place in four games, took a hard third in the one game I sat out and an expected loss in the other.

Honestly, that other game grated on me, but it was absolutely not because of the loss, as I can recognize when a result is expected. No, the reason it grated on me had to do with an anomaly I experienced, demonstrated and reported to refs to no avail, as I was told it was a “known issue” not significant enough to warrant action. I respectfully disagree. From my firsthand, personal experience I will say with confidence that I had a pack that consistently would completely stop shooting and when it did so the sound would simultaneously stop randomly and intermittently before coming right back into the game…and then doing the same thing again, rinse and repeat.

Since it likely would not have changed anything in the outcome, I do not want this comment to be perceived as grapes, sour or otherwise, BUT I do not believe that calling this a “known issue” and “not significant” is empirically the correct call. However, I also am not disputing it. I realize that every system has the occasional pack issue. Things happen and this had nothing to do with my angst over this day. But you know what? Through it all I had the support of my teammates, my friends, my tag fam. And that trumps anything else that threw a whammy into this day.

Love to all these Plausibles! And now, a segue into another item of note. Tysin is doing an excellent job as the new owner of this laser tag facility. I wish him only the best and appreciate his welcoming the Armageddon tournament to be here. I am also delighted to share that a truly special piece of both pinball and laser tag memorabilia will remain with him at this site, but warrants a peek if you have never seen it before.

This is the Laser War pinball machine from the Laser Tag Museum Collection.

I have precious little info about this other than to say that it is a VERY rare and unique piece. What makes it even more special is this.

This pinball machine was signed by pinball industry giant, Gary Stern and father of laser tag, George Carter III. That makes it all the more cool of an artifact of two games. I am truly delighted that this item will remain in Tysin’s care and be available to be seen at Q-Zar Toledo. This is the right place for it to be enjoyed and appreciated!

From here I needed some “chill and relax” tag (more on that in another post) so I spent the night with my tag fam doing our Tivigeddon.

Fast forward to Day 3…Laser Storm at Skyway Laser Storm in Warren, OH.

I’m not sure everyone realizes how special it is to be here under this Stargate, but our team enjoyed the unique opportunity.

This system humbled us. Suffice it to say, we lost the system hard. At least we’re still having fun.

Our first game was not particularly notable, our second game was a respectable showing, but still a loss. I sat the third game and had to watch our team get floored by a team we had particularly hoped to overtake. Then in the fourth game…well, for me this game was the very definition of “spray and pray”, but considering this was against the actual “Storm team” we held our own respectably (ie we thought this one would be a complete bloodbath, but relatively speaking, it was not).

Still having fun!