All Activity

Just got home from this season's 'Namsoft at Gunman Eversley Alpha and... it's a strange one. I didn't really enjoy it all that much if I'm going to be completely honest, but have I got any complaints? Not a single one. And would I recommend them? Absolutely! Josh puts some amazing games together and this one was no exception. Didn't see @Tactical Pith Helmet this time though... The good points were... most aspects. The weekend was really well run and Josh's enthusiasm is infectious. The scenario was great overall, with the opening scenario being incredibly chaotic as the Australian forces and US special forces had to locate and rescue all the US platoons that were stuck out there alone and with no radio. VC and PAVN had to find these platoons and destroy them and we were met with... actually more success than I thought. We got utterly hammered, as with our low numbers it was incredibly difficult to win any firefights, as we'd get in a gunfight with one platoon, and while we were fighting them another group, either Aussies or the US special forces, would come in behind us and wipe us out. I also got full auto'd by one of the LMGs in one of the US special forces groups. In the face. From less than 10m away. So that wasn't fun, but remember this US special forces group because they'll come up later. Speaking of later, after I went back to respawn, we headed out from our respawn, which was just over the road from their respawn, though the path between was to be treated as a solid wall, with it being completely out of play and neither team could engage over the path and had to go wide around the site to get to the objectives. The US special forces saw us leave our respawn and then just... decided to not go wide, walking up right behind us and shooting us in the back, half of their group engaging from the path that was out of play. I managed to shoot two of them with my 1911, but neither took the hits. However, we actually managed to steal one platoon's radio equipment during this part of the scenario scoring us a point, and kept the US forces occupied enough to where they never managed to rescue one of their platoons, soring us another point. After this we split off in our groups. The PAVN group brought a bunch of mines and tripwires, so they were tasked with sneaking to the other side of the site and just setting up loads of traps, then goading the US forces into attacking them through their traps; they were incredibly successful in doing this and kept a stupid amount of the US forces occupied, who were all too keen on trying to squash them. Meanwhile, while the US forces were trying their hardest to kill off the PAVN, there were two VC groups going around the rest of the site and performing objectives. We had to set up ambushes that the US had to clear through, however with them so pre-occupied with the PAVN, we were able to just... farm up points. The ambush group I was in didn't even get any contact, and if the ambush wasn't cleared in 30 mins, we got a point (or the US lost a point, I'm not sure but it was a net +1 for us either way). The ambushes were signified by these bluetooth speakers playing jungle sounds, so we'd deploy the bluetooth speaker on max volume, then the US needed to deactivate it to clear the ambush. All through the day, however, there were so many complaints about the US special forces group I mentioned earlier. There were two special forces groups in play, one special forces group was full of great players who played the game phenomenally well, while the other group put the speshul in speshul forces. It's a shame, because all of the other US and Aussie teams were fantastic players and there were no complaints about anyone else on either the NATO or NVA teams, but this one special forces group were consistently shrugging off hits, spraying full auto up close, ignoring the 1 second burst rule for their full auto and ignoring objectives in favour of racking up a body count to the point where they actually tried to spawn camp us at one point. Josh spent a lot of the Saturday coordinating with his marshalls to try and deal with all this, and I don't envy the job he had to do. From what I gathered, they were a new group who hadn't played any Vietnam games at Gunman before; at least a bunch of us regulars didn't recognise them. Anyway, we spent most of Saturday doing this, sending groups out to set up ambushes and farming points if (well... when) they weren't cleared. I can't comment on Sunday as I didn't play, as I wasn't too motivated to play, and my friend wasn't able to play at all since he played more on the Saturday than he should've because he was enjoying it so much and was paying the pain tax on the Sunday. However, the scores at the end of Saturday were NVA had +3 on the morale-o-meter, and the NATO forces had -7 on the morale-o-meter, so a *very* successful Saturday, despite feeling like we got kicked around the site all day. So, why didn't I enjoy myself personally? My friend really enjoyed it, and everyone else seemed to really enjoy the games, but why didn't I? It was just an unfortunate combination of things that all fed into each other, honestly. I can deal with a group of shitty players, as I've played airsoft long enough to know how to deal with them, so it wasn't that. One of our group dropped out at the last minute, leaving just two of us, but the other guy is significantly older and can't play as much or as hard as me and the guy who dropped out. Also, there have been new rules added to the Vietnam filmsim ruleset at Gunman since I last played... around 2 years ago (heart issues caused me to miss a bunch, though I was still there for the social I just couldn't play). The rule in question was the "no one goes to war alone" rule, which is basically there to stop people coming down and treating it like a skirmish game as people should be moving around in squads. However, this combination meant I was unable to go out and do my sniper thing, since I didn't have my spotter (or shooter if he wants to use his bolt action, then I spot for him) as you need to leave in at least a two-man team, and can only perform objectives with at least four people, but also that I had to group up with other squads as I couldn't go out alone and hunt the GIs solo. The guys who play VC and PAVN forces are phenomenal guys and I love playing alongside them, but especially since we were outnumbered around 2.5 to 1 it meant that all of our regular squads were very focused on doing objectives. The issue is a lot of these objectives were in parts of the site where a 30m MED just meant that my rifle was useless and so I went around with a pistol all day Saturday. I spoke to Josh about it on the Sunday morning, and since he knows that I'm not some weird speedsofter and actually play the sniper role properly (as it's what I always did at Vietnam games), he's happy to make some accommodation if it happens in future, but it needs to be part of the scenario so that the Americans know it's not just someone flagrantly disregarding the rules. I will 100% be going again, whether to the one in April(ish?) or Josh's next one next June. If I get the feeling I can't snipe, or simply if the sniper ban is in effect, I will just use my m16 (or m14 if I have it done by then) from the start. Hopefully we'll be back to a group of 3 or even 4 though, which will make it a lot easier for us to operate as snipers and support the other squads with intel and overwatch, rather than going into the thick bushes with nothing but a pistol again

Full agree with this. It's the old eBay syndrome where prices are pushed up because of greed.

Just came across these guys on Facebook...

I didn't say the sport of airsoft would have been banned. I said airsoft RIFs would have been banned under VCRA though I should have clarified the sale of them. Indeed it was a Labour government but that's an oversimplication given that policy under Starmer differs significantly from that under Blair at the time.