Tommikka

Pretty much what’s been covered here, but the UKPSF & Dye have published a statement on the FMAs

If you want an authentic bag for every pattern of loadout, then it’s black, Black & Black:

You don’t need them in every pattern that exists, just the patterns that you have A more practical solution would be to find suitable bags and attach luggage labels or key tag Print off a picture of the each pattern and slip it in the luggage label

It’s news as per yesterday ..... so the consequences won’t be complete yet ..... and if I was looking for the services of a security company, I won’t be choosing one who can’t manage to risk assess a training exercise let alone deal with reality

PS the bit that I forgot The game is not about winning or losing. People would rather win then lose (but winning against a crap side is not winning) If one side is winning all day long then it’s boring for them, and demoralising for the losing side Good organisers will manipulate game flow, adding advantage to losers, making it harder for winners. In extreme cases be ready to totally change missions - and plan a contingency in advance to allow that. ** Balance out the game, watch if there are players that are unhappy (I don’t care if you’re a miserable git, but if an entire side is moaning then something’s gone badly wrong) ** the same goes for commanders. At NvS there was a tradition of the South losing, one year the commander put in a whole command structure, handed out command radios on their own frequency, had his wife at respawn handing out maps and telling people where the action was, key objectives and sending the keen ones to the command bunker for missions This broughtsucceafull missions all day and a win for the south. But as a ‘sub commander I knew the contingency plan. I wanted us to lose, because the plan was that he would pick up a mega phone, play the ‘Ride for the valkyries’ and walk clockwise around the site ..... southern players would be collected as he passed to build a force and lose by gunning down everyone in sight

Everyone has their own definition of milsim. From playing in the woods to fully orchestrated door kicking. That means games have to cater for everyone, and players have to recognise people are different I can see 3 people who are/could be at fault, (I don’t know the specifics of the example so now it’s Commander Billy at an ABC event.....) Its the players fault. Don’t walk off muttering to yourself that you won’t do the task you just accepted, let the commander know what type of thing you want to do - or that you don’t want to be sent to do anything, you’re just interested in wandering around and finding your kind of action It’s commander Billy’s fault. Leading is not about bossing people about, plan for different players and ask what they are after - do they want a sneaky mission, a fire fight, to be told what’s going on generally or to be told nothing, then they can do their own thing and you can allocate tasks to those who will want them Its ABC events fault - They need to understand their customer A ‘big game’ or Scenario is not about opening up the whole of a skirmish site and putting more players onto it. Standard mini games can’t just be scaled up. The worst case is one big battle with a front line that may be nearer to one side of the field than the other. Plan to have firefights, objectives that must be gained at one point but don’t have to be defended / held forever (eg award points for capture or holding at set time points, then have different objectives at different times in different places) Keep game flow moving - but do make sure there are good firefight opportunities Have multiple objectives - whether at set times or things to find / do at any time (ideally both) The Commander can set some plans, can hand out missions to fit the players looking for missions. Specific objects can be searched for by scavengers or secret missions behind enemy lines - to gain an advantage or build a super weapon. General objects can be collected by anyone who spots them, this can be just plastice bottles with coloured ‘toxic chemical’ water etc and is a balance for anyone who just wants to wander around shooting people, they can pick it up or ignore it. Have them sent back to base etc - players can hand them to others heading back if they are super ninjas that never get eliminated. Pile them up at base camp, then have Marshall’s count and put them back in field to be found again For Scenario paintball I can construct a game design around a site, select from my various rule sets (and make up a couple of new rules to try out), and plan how to manipulate the game. * For Airsoft it’s a different matter. There are similarities but also differences, I don’t know the player mindset enough, I’ll leave that to others who are out there enough to have an idea what is and isn’t going to work for airsofters opening their wallet to play * I think I can still do that!!! We haven’t run a full scenario for a few years and are going to go back to a ‘basic’ classic scenario one day game this year. Ask me in October how that turns out!

@Federico and certainly do not go off and play where land looks abandoned or remote...... it’s always less remote then you think and can result in a criminal record!!!! Play on real sites

It depends on what you consider to be a 'large event'. The way I have seen airsoft is as a form of 'scenario walkon' I began playing paintball just in time for the hey day of scenario paintball with events typically being run by players for players at their local site, these were generally one scenario event per month at various parts of the UK, these varied in scale and there were a very few 'big games' For the past few years things contracted in size. There was an organiser that tried to monopolise and take over the world, but went from well run games to overly hyped games, and with the recession people began to be more careful with how they spent their disposable income, most likely to be playing walk-ons locally and only travel to whats really worth it. There are special cases such as hiring active Army training sites, that is novel at first but still needs a good quality organiser capable of keeping it fresh (let alone be able to take the financial risk of booking such a site and hoping people turn up or that you don't have your booking cancelled for Defence priorities) We have had great paintball events on such sites, but other than Swynnerton have only been able to do so with specialist clear paint, and these sites are 'easier' to book for airsoft as the mess just needs to be swept away rather than cleaned away. There two paintball big games that now also run airsoft alongside. Paintfest / airfest by NPF and North Vs South by Warped. They are well established organisers with Paintfest having run for 10 years. The site NPF ran the first Hyperball tournament in the world in 1996, and the owner Ged Green has been running things since paintball came to the UK in the mid 80s. He is also responsible for how modern tournament paintball is run having taught the Americans how to do it at Huntingdon Beach in 2003. They have had airsoft on site for many years and added airfest alongside Paintfest two years ago. Warped have been running North vs South at Swynnerton since approx 2008/2009?, and elsewhere for years before. To run paintball on an Army site though Swynnerton is more 'rough' a training area than Copehill etc they have to take over the site in advance to set up and keep on site during the week after to fully clean up. I'm one of those people who looked at other organisers and thought that I could do that too. It's far from easy, and we run events in other peoples sites, and collaborated with other organisers. We have run large and small games - hundreds of people and 6 to 8 people (the 6-8 were 'special experiences' with one-to-one. There are people that I would trust and wouldn't trust to run different types and scales of events (and there are things that I would not be happy about committing us to do) I've seen events go horribly wrong, with the ways those were managed being handled very differently. One event destroyed a brand new group of organisers, their team and friendships. A lot of money disappeared. With pure luck there were no injuries resulting to very dangerous circumstances This is a pretty spot on description of scenario paintball events. The other issue is that 'normal marshals' may not be able to manage large rolling games as opposed to standard short games/skirmishes. But that comes with experience. We have run most of our games opening up the entire site, which changes the dynamics of a sites designed game zones, and often used site staff as the 'safety marshalls' and ourselves as 'event marshalls'

Here's a case of people not thinking ahead about what they are doing in public..... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/16/fake-kidnapping-causes-police-force-send-armed-teams-helicopter/

Note that stripping down to parts and sending them piece by piece could be smuggling This used to be offered (I don’t know if they still do) by some dodgy Hong Kong sellers It was one of the things customs would keep an eye out for Its not necessary in this case as they are legal to import and are the property of @Federico which he intends to bring in for use in ‘airsoft skirmishing’ which is a valid VCRA defence Playing the required number of games as a rental and registering under a UKARA site would mean he gets a UKARA number to import with ease. Contacting customs would enable the question to be asked about an already established player importing their gear It should not be necessary to be UKARA registered. This gets asked every now & then, it would be handy if one of the previous question askers could give feedback on what happened next

I’m doing something at the moment, so can’t really post much Ive noticed the Dye i4s have had a mention They seem to be very popular in airsoft, which may be because they are a small Paintball goggle. (Eg low profile on the head and unlikely to get in the way of a stock) They are often highlighted for reasons not necessarily unique to them. Such as for better anti fog performance They are a premium goggle, with good dual pane lenses as standard, soft rubber material, etc. But they can still fog up. If in the wrong conditions or depending on head shape, breathing, sweating you can find them foggy too I still have i3s which are pretty much the same standard (the i3 also had an airsoft edition) I also wore them this year when I lost my main goggles in a ‘safe place’ for a day at Paintfest The i4s are useless to me as I have a big head and would be regualarly shot in the mouth Unless you are a child or small headed & small chinned the i4 leaves a lot exposed Paintball goggles come in basic, premium and very premium designs at varying prices. Any premium goggle over £30 / £40 (and a few at those prices) will have the features needed I also have a few pairs of ‘cheap’ rental grade hard plastic goggles. My Sly Annex ones have a perfect fit on my head, so are comfortable and work as a good solid camera platform A nice rubber based set of goggles, with a reasonable lens (dont abuse the lens and don’t put any anti fog treatment on it until the factory features give up, in which case consider replacing the lens due to age),the right fit for your head, and the right venting for your breathing will serve a player well Idealy look around and ask to try on people’s goggles

Quite to my thoughts too But I was thinking more BBguns4less, BBgunz4lezz is sparking my curiousity

Ask the site about rental guns and you will save on budget Don’t trust web shop gallery photos on coloured guns, they may not be the colour in the pictures on the website, and note that dark blue is not an approved colour under the VCRA transparent bright red bright orange bright blue bright yellow bright green bright pink bright purple

There are two main parts to filming, getting the guns themselves as RIFs and the filming itself Filmwork is a valid defence to purchase a RIF, and would also be valid for ‘modifying’ an IF by painting it black. However ‘filming’ itself is not likely to persuade a seller, it would need to be for part of a proper production. Please note that not particularly with airsoft but the film work element was abused by an individual who used the secrecy of Bond films to allow him to be vague about his purchases and to obtain and illegally modify blank firers, deactivated firearms for reactivation in DDS his position in the criminal arms dealing world Retailers will be cagey about ‘film’ purchasers Youtube isn’t suitable for the defence and student filmmakers don’t meet the criteria that most sellers would want, though university media departments may. Loan props can be obtained via the course Filming in a public place does not legally need permits or licences, but most/many ‘public’ places are private locations with public access. (E.g. a park is probably owned by the council) There may be signs not allowing you to film, or an ‘authority’ might tell you not to. Making arrangements in advance (with the owners) and notifiying other interested parties (like the police) plus having documentation about those would justify that you have permission Doing it with guns ups the ante - even if they are dayglo IFs, and there is a legislation that can drop you in a lot of trouble https://www.theiac.org.uk/resourcesnew/filming-in-public/filming-in-public.html On the ‘reality’ element in a film, we enter a cinema to accept that things are not real. It will depend on what you are making but a student film for example is judged on creativity and technicality - the realism of a gun is very low there. Look at some films such as Jesus Christ Superstar - the Romans’ weapons and uniforms are far from period, and that is covered in the opening scene with a coach load of performers Or Star Wars, which for Hollywood was a very low budget film that sourced weapons from prop departments, hence an abundance of WW2 & 69s/70s weapons with SciFi things stuck on them. This then followed into the series War films in the 50s/60s had Germans driving American half tracks and British scout cars, and in the 80s the Russians flew gazelle gunships Filling with airsoft guns in public is not the best idea, check out filmmaking forums, ask your university lecturer - and if you aren’t a film student then find your nearest film students to find out who to ask for better advice Popping into the local police station would be helpful as if you go ahead it is them who will be getting calls or having a bobby pass by and Ben curious

They are branded as FMA and come from Hong Kong dealers etc Beware