Battle Lakes meet up 7/12/24

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

I'm sure there's a Namsoft game at Battle Lakes next year.  I think that one was cancelled there this year?  

I've only heard good things about the site and I live bloody hours (and hours) away!

 

[VictorFourTwo]

Hey folks, Val/Tony, Site manager of Battle Lakes (not owner).

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge and say thankyou for your kind comments in this thread - it means a lot at this time for unrelated reasons.

As some of you already know I have been part of Battle Lakes for a considerable amount of time, through the good patches and the not so good patches, driven on purely by my love for the game/hobby/spobby. I have written many games and themes over the years that have been held at Battle Lakes.

Ever since it's original inception by my predecessors, Battle Lakes has always been a site that 'offers more than a regular skirmish', with a staple of that being the 2x 2 hour game times, with the second half being either a reversal, or a continuation of the mission/storyline as opposed to having 4-6 shorter based plays.

It has also long been 'a semi only unless LMG' site in order to provide better Firefights and reduced overkill through less hosing of BB'S.

I think the only reason The Lakes has seen such a slower and sneakier rate of game play is down to the lower number of boots on the ground, than the filmsim playstyle itself.

I have been told in the past the term 'filmsim' and the different ruleset can be off putting to players - (especially the LARP aspect) but also rules such as the semi only rule (n/a LMGs), the ammo limits per deployment, where you can/cant reload your mags, box mag restrictions.

Feedback has also shown that players find some of the game briefs confusing, with too much going on.

For this reason we opted to run the faster paced Battle Field event (domination followed by fall back) one week and then a more story line driven, slightly more mind working event the next.

Despite this, numbers have still been low on both counts and we were forced to drop to one event a month.

Whilst I know Battle Lakes isn't as developed as many other sites structure wise, there are materials on site that I am slowly working through in order to bring it up to date to meet players needs, and I'm always willing to listen to suggestions from players. 

In regard to social Media, I'm not the best at it (having only just joined this airsoft forum),

But I do intend to implement this forum more, starting with getting a Battle Lakes forum up and running in the appropriate channel.

Our dedicated Gunman Battle Lakes Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/share/15RAdYzKne/

Our new players hub group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/959490256013175/?ref=share

And we have Instagram - @Gunman.battle.lakes (for ease of uploading pictures I take on site during events).

And

@gunmanbattlelakes (managed by other gunman staff).

I have always been, and will always be appreciative of the players that play at and support Battle lakes as a site.

I shall put the question to the forum -

What do you guys want to see from Battle Lakes?

What sort of games/events would you prefer to see happening?

Thankyou for reading.

 

[Tackle]

Evening guys, I thought it was popular enough to merit its own thread so moved the relevant posts here.?

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

Not sure if this will help or scare people away but I'm now one of the marshals there again so watch out for some sneaky wet Willie's, I mean....

No that's what I meant ?

 

[VictorFourTwo]

Not sure if this will help or scare people away but I'm now one of the marshals there again so watch out for some sneaky wet Willie's, I mean....

No that's what I meant ?

Appreciate your assistance, bud.

 

[Asomodai]

Just to add here. 

I really like Battlelakes in terms of natural features. Yes it could do with updating otherwise. Both times I have played (With a 6 year gap between them) The numbers we so low that we only used part of the site. I would love to play all parts at somepoint if possible. 

Sadly I am in Bulgaria for the meetup in December. But do hope to get down there at somepoint again!

Went to Gunman Battle Lakes on Saturday with @Asomodai. We'd both been once before (myself about a month ago, Asomodai about four years ago) and it was a bit of a mixed bag.

The elephant in the room was that there was only 12 people playing, which included two player marshals. They did cut the site down and the owner apologised in the briefing for the low numbers but it did make it tough at times. I enjoyed the morning, with some sneaky action, but there were long portions without seeing anyone from the other team.

The afternoon was more difficult. The other team had three or four people in ghillies, which with just six a side made progress all but impossible. The site owner joined our team but with about an hour to go on the main objective, and two of our team out with broken rifles it was a slog. 

I had a bit of a chat to the owner and he said the site has been struggling for about six months with player numbers slowly dwindling. It's a shame as it's otherwise a really excellent site, the owner is a nice guy who runs the site well and I've never even heard whispers of cheat calling. Their next game is early December, so if you're reading this and local I think we should all make an effort to get there before they're forced to throw in the towel.

 

[Anonymoose]

What do you guys want to see from Battle Lakes?

Full-auto.

I didn't buy 3 select-fire rifles and a pair or Glock 18Cs to fire one shot at a time. ?

Seriously though, as a total newbie to it all, simpler games; locate/capute/defend games. Whether that's capturing a structure/area or capturing a person, even a person/hostage extraction would be good. Or retreiving an item (possibly a two-man carry so once it's captured the team need to defend it and the two carrying it.)

It'd also be good if once a player's hit they just drop down, don't shout "hit" and alert everyone else, allows a bit of stealth for the attacking players. Then back to respawn after a few minutes.

Also, night games.

Did one last week and loved it. The paradox of needing to use a light, but not wanting to give away position made it more fun, the sneaking around and being stealthy. Using muzzle flashers and tracers is great fun too!

 

[MrTea]

Full-auto.

Must admit i'd like to see more fire mode restricted events from more outdoors sites. Semi-auto only games to encourage *some* trigger discpline from certain individuals but i'd also beg for this to be mandatory in night games from my previous experience(s).

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

Full-auto.

I didn't buy 3 select-fire rifles and a pair or Glock 18Cs to fire one shot at a time. ?

Seriously though, as a total newbie to it all, simpler games; locate/capute/defend games. Whether that's capturing a structure/area or capturing a person, even a person/hostage extraction would be good. Or retreiving an item (possibly a two-man carry so once it's captured the team need to defend it and the two carrying it.)

It'd also be good if once a player's hit they just drop down, don't shout "hit" and alert everyone else, allows a bit of stealth for the attacking players. Then back to respawn after a few minutes.

Also, night games.

Did one last week and loved it. The paradox of needing to use a light, but not wanting to give away position made it more fun, the sneaking around and being stealthy. Using muzzle flashers and tracers is great fun too!

Night games near a lake isn't the best idea ?

 

[VictorFourTwo]

Full-auto.

I didn't buy 3 select-fire rifles and a pair or Glock 18Cs to fire one shot at a time. ?

Seriously though, as a total newbie to it all, simpler games; locate/capute/defend games. Whether that's capturing a structure/area or capturing a person, even a person/hostage extraction would be good. Or retreiving an item (possibly a two-man carry so once it's captured the team need to defend it and the two carrying it.)

It'd also be good if once a player's hit they just drop down, don't shout "hit" and alert everyone else, allows a bit of stealth for the attacking players. Then back to respawn after a few minutes.

Also, night games.

Did one last week and loved it. The paradox of needing to use a light, but not wanting to give away position made it more fun, the sneaking around and being stealthy. Using muzzle flashers and tracers is great fun 

Silent hit calls don't work - at regular events if players aren't calling thier hits then the shooter doesn't know they've been hit, therefore shoots more, then we start getting overkill, and players simply cheating.

The standard filmsim rules keep you quiet if you are knife killed, as well has having a mandatory wait time before you can call 'dead man' and go to regen. 

We have done all those types of games as well.

Night games are a no go at the Lakes - far too hazardous unfortunately. 

 

[Anonymoose]

Night games near a lake isn't the best idea ?

Good point. ?

 

[Anonymoose]

Must admit i'd like to see more fire mode restricted events from more outdoors sites. Semi-auto only games to encourage *some* trigger discpline from certain individuals but i'd also beg for this to be mandatory in night games from my previous experience(s).

I like the idea of limited/realistic ammo, rather than having hicaps and thousands of rounds. So say 30 rounds per magazine, you can carry as many as you want but a realistic limit per mag and you can only reload them at a team "base" (not a respawn point) support weapons would be say 200 rounds/mag, etc.

So even if someone carries 10 mags, that's only 300 rounds, similar/less to a single hicap. If you want to go full auto and empty a whole mag in 2 seconds then you're gonna run out of ammo fast, so you need trigger discipline.

(Maybe i'm biased, my rifle only takes 32 rounds per mag and carrying 6 of them gets heavy fast.)

 

[DaktariT]

I think I'll have to turn up for this one as I've not been out for months

 

[ButcherBill]

I don't play often & live far too far away but I'd actively avoid any skirmish that limited play (other on safety grounds), I get the whole Milsim/Larping thing & understand why players enjoy them but it's not for me.

My reactions are very 56yr old I hit very little but love wasting ammo.

 

[Cannonfodder]

I'd be up for this if I wasn't working that day.

Personally I like games with ammo limits as it forces players to think about what they're doing rather than just hosing every bush they can see in the hope that they hit something 

 

[Tackle]

I'd be up for this if I wasn't working that day.

Personally I like games with ammo limits as it forces players to think about what they're doing rather than just hosing every bush they can see in the hope that they hit something 

Yarp, agree 100%, fed up with the amateur hose fests we get on your average gameday, ammo limits or single shot is waaay better, what's the point of all this realistic kit & then the average player fires the equivalent of 1.5k "rounds" in a 60 minute game.

In a real world comparison I don't think there's any army that would deploy a squaddie with more than 300 rounds on their person.

That's not to say I want to go full milsim & wander around for 36 hours before we have a contact lol, but a regular skirmish day where players actually have to use their heads, that'll be a bit of a revelation. 

 

[VictorFourTwo]

Yarp, agree 100%, fed up with the amateur hose fests we get on your average gameday, ammo limits or single shot is waaay better, what's the point of all this realistic kit & then the average player fires the equivalent of 1.5k "rounds" in a 60 minute game.

In a real world comparison I don't think there's any army that would deploy a squaddie with more than 300 rounds on their person.

That's not to say I want to go full milsim & wander around for 36 hours before we have a contact lol, but a regular skirmish day where players actually have to use their heads, that'll be a bit of a revelation. 

That's pretty much what I've been doing at the lakes since I started managing it.

The only difference between the Zed Adventures days and the Gunman days is the ammo limits and filmsim rules. I have always tried to maintain a more tactical, sandbox style of gameplay.

The site doesn't lend itself to the fast sprintery of a typical skirmish due to its terrain and natural hazards.

Sometimes players get confused by the briefings, because there was either too much going on or they weren't paying proper attention during the brief

(Admittably, I am the kind of player that has a pen and notepad in my rig, despite not being a milsim player).

I will also soon be trying out a 'real cap' event next year for those that want the extra bit of realism in thier airsoft, as well as plans for a bootfair.

For everyone's information, here is a link to our filmsim rules, should you wish to have a read.

https://gunmanairsoft.co.uk/rules-for-filmsim-open-days/

Please note some rules may vary across sites (At the Lakes, DMR ammo limit is the same as boltaction for example), but all is briefed at the start of the day. 

Whilst I don't enforce people to fall to the ground and roll about larping it up, I do try to encourage Players to have a bit of fun with it.

Thanks for reading

 

[Colin Allen]

I have booked.

I'd be up for this if I wasn't working that day.

Personally I like games with ammo limits as it forces players to think about what they're doing rather than just hosing every bush they can see in the hope that they hit something 

Same here. I cannot remember when I last used full auto; I very occasionally use a three round burst.

 

[Anonymoose]

I've booked Sat + Sun.

Hopefully my electric gun arrives in time or i'll be struggling with the GBB in the cold.

 

[Colin Allen]

I've booked Sat + Sun.

Hopefully my electric gun arrives in time or i'll be struggling with the GBB in the cold.

If it doesn't, I can bring a gun for you for the 7th.