We normally find that when it's lower numbers the folk there are more up for a good day and no agro . So play is better and often more tactical . The GBB game was basically the hard core of our local players , some of who have moved to gas from hpa . So we all wanted a fun day of hard fought games with other folk they knew would play fair .
Fewer people usually comes from circumstances, like the above mentioned gas only game or more commonly inclement weather.
Those circumstances then filter for those with the dedication to play on regardless of restrictions, which then makes for better gameplay.
I have no actual proof to back this up and certainly there's a critical mass for a site when there's no room to move, but equally the opposite can be true that too few means engagements are more random chance and always won by he who was not moving at the time.
Those are very good points about specific events and weather and I'd say they probably do have some impact. For me though it's more about having the space to move, when games dissolve into a WW1 stalemate with both teams stretched out in a line going nowhere they get boring quickly.
You're right that too low numbers can also ruin a game but at least then the site staff should adapt the game accordingly, eg moving boundaries
Played my local Apocalypse site on Sunday and a work meeting found me round the corner from the Bespoke airsoft range yesterday so spent an hour there as well.
First Apocalypse. Great day started cold but warmed up quickly. Got there a little later than usual and managed to bag one of the last tables to set up, must have been 140-150 players on site.
I have recently had my LCT AK12 and RPK serviced and tuned by Adam at Adzzzys armoury so keen to see how they performed.
First game was classic capture the flag, blues base was Stockade and reds was Village. Great game with chaos and rolling battles happening all over the site. No idea who won I know at one point each team had the others flags but no idea if either made it back to their respective HQ. Spent most of the game parked off the back of Stockade trying to stop the reds from flanking around us.
Second game was a twist on downed pilot. 10 blues started with a flag in punisher pit and needed to hold onto it when the reds arrived to take it long enough for the rest of the blue team to arrive and reinforce us. As an extra part one of the Marshalls was also on field and you had to grab him as well, get him and the flag together in your HQ to win. No idea who won, we held the flag long enough for the blue reinforcements to arrive, I moved towards our HQ at stockade with a couple of players from the original 10 only to end up stuck between our blue players shooting out of stockade and the reds shooting in. Great fun!!
Didn't stay for the last game as I needed to unpack and repack the car for an early start on Monday.
Took the opportunity to head to the range at Bespoke Airsoft on Tuesday morning for a bit of target practice, mostly using the AK12 but did get the RPK out for a couple of games. The record for targets hit in 10 seconds is 17, I managed 15 but couldn't get more than that. Played the hostage game for a bit as well. Enjoyed my hour and sent a kg of BB's down range.
Both guns were excellent with special thanks to Adam for making them run smoothly again. The RPK must have fired nearly 500k BB's since its last proper (gearbox opened) service, a good shim and a new, more efficient, brushless motor means it can also shoot 2 drum mags full of ammo on one battery rather than 1 and a bit. The AK12 is savage as well now with a finely shimmed gearbox, it just sounds right and the Bullgear hop unit, prometheus tight bore barrel, nub, and hop rubber means it hits the 70m target with nearly every shot.
Went to the usual fortnightly game over my local field dirty dog. Had a great time the colder weather was welcome as I could run around in me full kit without liquifying in the heat! Apologies again to the gent I accidentally full autod in the balls. Lastly I learned king arms AS Val mags are colossally shit!
Another great afternoon at Blackstone. With the school holidays finally over they've moved back to running morning and afternoon sessions which means I don't have to get up at stupid o'clock which is always a bonus.
Numbers were lower than average with 26 playing and the staff did a bloody great job of dividing the teams as quite a few games were draws and those with a winner were close too. Personally I like those numbers as you're still going to get into firefights but you still have space to move.
There was a handful of cases where people seamed to have a very loose interpretation of the rules on hit taking and overkill but to the marshalls credit they dealt with it and after that I didn't hear anyone complaining. The only other slightly negative issue was that my hpa valve on the 870 would sometimes leak. Who the hell designs something that's supposed to be air tight and makes it completely circular so you can't get a decent grip on it?
All in all an excellent day and I'd highly recommend a visit if you like CQB without the speedsofters
Chill day, only 7 people on the field but bagged some sneaky kills on unsuspecting people.
National finals due in two weeks so i took the chance to try my revised ssg m4, brought the rate of fire down from 43 to 32 via new gearset and it's definitely approved for competitive play, doesn't empty mags too fast while still providing a decent stream of plastic..
Also zeroed my new thermal on both M4s and it appears to be holding with negligible deviation.
I went back to Worthing Airsoft today for another skirmish day, but I decided to bring my bolt actions because I plan on using them next weekend and then at the end of the month at a 24h battlesim, but it was definitely a mistake. I went out with the m40a5, but it was weirdly inconsistent across mags, so I think there's something up with the fitment. Did something similar with the long mags, so I'm starting to think it's a gun problem and not a mag problem (as my AICS works flawlessly with the long mags and the m24 works flawlessly with the short ones, though the m40 worked flawlessly a few months ago on them so I don't know...)
However, the real reason why it was a mistake is we played the morning at the bottom of the site. It was incredibly rough playing down there with a bolt action, as ranges tend to be very short down there, and anywhere you can get a bit more range there are usually a bunch of twigs or other foliage in the way so having quicker follow up shots is necessary. The games themselves were really good, a king of the hill at the killhouse (whoever had more players inside at the end wins), a different style of king of the hill at another spot (box with clocks where you have to hold down a button to increase your time), and then a game with 3 flip cans (flip cans where half is one team's colour, other side is other team's colour, and captured it by making sure your team colour was facing upwards). They were good games, but there was literally no instance where I was glad to have a bolt action; a DMR would've been a better option, but honestly a 1.1J would've been the best option for the whole morning.
Afternoon saw the games come back to the top of the site, which is better for long distance (still not the best, but it's doable), however there was no instance where I was glad to have a bolt action over a DMR. I think next time I will just ask if the games are up top or down bottom and just adjust the NPAS accordingly. If the games are all at the bottom, I'll just 1.1J it, then if the afternoon games are up top, then I'll change out and re-chrono at lunch.
Furthermore, I think I need to put the winter hammer spring into my VFC PDP, which was my sidearm for the day. These are built for the Asian climate, so with temperatures starting to dip a little it was struggling a little bit and was a little inconsistent. When it shot, it shot fantastically, and for most of the day it was fine, but it struggled early morning, and it struggled right at the end. Hopefully that'll sort it.
On the plus side, I really liked my new holster setup. Put some velcro tape on one of my kydex holsters and put it in the back portion of a JSTA pouch (saw some real-steel shooter video where a guy did it and it was really nice).
Trying a new site next weekend, so I am hyped for that. But I think I'll go with the m24 or the AICS instead, and keep an MWS on hand just in case. The m40a5 was just not it, and for Worthing I'm once again vindicated in my decision to focus more on DMRs.
Had a brilliant day at Gunman Battle Lakes on Saturday .
The site was already great as a regular of many years, but the addition of the new massive killhouse we built has really added another dimension to the gameplay.
Having the chance to clear rooms, work your way through buildings and then push out into the woodland village made for a really nice change of pace throughout the day.
It gives you a good mix of CQB and woodland rather than feeling like you're doing the same thing all day, and the new killhouse is seriously impressive, if anyone played the MK1 Killhouse that K42 built, this one is twice as big.
There are loads of opportunities for room clearing, close engagements and generally getting yourself into situations where charging in like an idiot seems like a perfectly reasonable tactical decision.
If you've played Battle Lakes before but haven't been since the killhouse was added, I'd definitely recommend grabbing your team and getting booked in.
More people need to get themselves down there now that the killhouse is in. It adds a whole new element to what was already a cracking site.
Great day, great games, and plenty of bangs. What more do you want from an airsoft day?
Went to black ops in Bristol today first time there had a great time took the TM saiga 12 out for her debut game I must that riff is an absolute beast was really surprised on the range of it, definitely my favourite riff I own.
The site it's self was good fun a mixture of long range all the way to close quarters, the teams were about imbalanced though and it's very easy to get spawn locked. There wasn't allot of non hit taking either which was a refreshing changing.
Although one of the guys on our team in a very confined space under a bunker whilst we were waiting for the game to start through a impact grenade, which landed and my misses feet and she had a panic attack over as none of us expected it as wasn't game time. I did call him allot of choice words as the misses was in floods of tears.
Feeling the need for a break from Airsoft Plantation, I set off bright and early this morning for Splatoon, a site about which I have very mixed feelings. The site itself is great and has potential, but I have never been convinced by the way it is run.
Player numbers were low compared to when I have been there before, which meant that there was plenty of space to set up. Not long after, Austeyr arrived with his entourage and we discovered how to open a shipping container.
After a long wait, the first game was briefed; this used the container field and the middle field, each of which has a spinner. The aim was for each team to have their colour facing up on the spinners when the game ended. Having being briefed, we left the safe zone to wait for the marshals to take us to our start points; we waited, waited a bit longer, waited even longer and eventually were led off to them. We fairly quickly took both spinners, after which very little happened; there was some desultory shooting, a few attempts at reaching them by the other team, but nothing much really. Eventually, the game ended and we went back to the safe zone.
After a fairly long interlude, we were briefed for the next game, which sounded interesting. Six smoke bombs, three of which were ours (Green), with the others being red for the other team, were situated with a marshal in the training field at the far end of the site. Each team had to try to get theirs to three locations in the container field; however, only could be in transit at any time. Again, there was a longish wait outside the safe zone as we waited for the marshals to take us to our start points. I went with part of our team which quickly grabbed the first target point; our first smoke bomb was soon delivered, followed not long after by our second one. After a longer wait and a bit of a fight with the other team, our third one arrived and we won the game 3-0. It hadn't been as interesting as it had sounded at the briefing.
During the next break in the safe zone, which Austeyr spent trying to make his rifle work properly, we were briefed for the last game before lunch. We would start in the training field, while the other team would start at the back of the container field. The aim was to control the spinner in the middle field at the end. After the now traditional wait outside the safe zone, we set off and the game started. We grabbed it very quickly and controlled it until the end of the game, despite some good runs and sneaky infiltrations from some of the opposing players.
On returning to the safe zone, Austeyr discovered that, in addition to the earlier problem with his rifle, the hop rubber had decided that it felt much happier being in multiple pieces; perhaps it was as fed up with the day as I was.
Having spent the lunch break chatting, we all decided to leave; several players had done so at the start of the lunch break.
If I had to sum up the morning in one word, it would be "underwhelming"; boring and disappointing would also be applicable. The games could have been so much better, but it felt like the marshals were making them up as they went along and weren't really that interested.
I should have known better than to go back.
Weapons used:
King Arms PDW (with a ridiculously long suppressor)
Classic Army MP5K
ASG XP18 Commander CO2
Honestly summed it up perfectly though, it really does feel like more of a "social get together" than a "Lets play airsoft" for us now.
It was good to finally meet at a site and not a car boot for once though and fight along side each other! Even if it was for a few minutes before my m16 decided it wanted to throw a tantrum
