Poach

You generally want social media if you want to reach out to the youth of today. The problem is Airsoft is ran by old men whose idea of social media is Facebook (and I say that as someone who probably falls on the "old" side of the young/old divide in Airsoft by now!). The second problem is the current trendy platforms for younger audiences (like Instagram and Tiktok) are extremely hostile to Airsoft: accounts get banned regularly for showing airsoft guns on them. In terms of actual actionable ideas, reaching out to groups that contain youngsters that might be interested would be the way to go. Chat to the local Cadet Forces and local Airsoft sites and see if you can't get a Cadet day going, for example. Buy a billboard ad on a road the kids use to go from school or college to the local cuisine vendors at lunch time. Rent a stall at your local Fresher's Fair. Chance your luck on Instagram with buying a targeted ad and hope Insta doesn't ban you for it.

Part 2 of our Enemy Down VIP game, where we take a few losses and things get increasingly dicey as both teams push hard to overrun the village. Additionally, though not one of our own videos, we've appeared in another of the famous Scoutthedoggie's videos!

The team were in action at Enemy Down, near Edinburgh, playing as the "VIP Team" for a special game mode. Dug into defensive positions in the centre of the map, the two far larger enemy teams were competing to capture us, with whoever captured the most of us winning the game. Being the game's main objective, in centre of the map, and being only 8 players against two teams of 30+ each, made for an extremely intense defensive effort!

The Team took to the interior of a former factory building in our visit to The Depot in Port Glasgow, Scotland's biggest indoor CQB site. Fighting indoors is a lot more positional than fighting in outdoor sites, where there's often ample room to manoeuvre. Indoors, frontal assaults on chokepoints are, in many cases, your only option. This makes for much tougher fights on the offence but an easier time defending. Have a watch as we try our luck forcing some chokepoints and clearing some rooms.

I do not, but as someone who plays in Scotland, likes to float about different sites to keep things fresh, and has clearly missed the news of a site moving locations last year (so the clue is totally lost on me!) I really would like to know because I'd think twice about booking to it, to be honest. If naming-and-shaming is off the cards, is a stronger hint by private message allowed? 😀

The Team are looking to grow in 2024! If you're based in central Scotland and are looking for a team that plays with tactics and coordination, consider applying. We play at sites across the Central Belt, mainly Section 8 and the Depot, but we also visit Enemy Down, Area 66, and the Fort quite regularly as well, plus making at least one trip south a year to play at an English site: 2023's trip was to Dirty Dog for the weekend to play their milsim, Operation Overkill.

Juggernaut game at the excellent Enemy Down near Edinburgh. Teams were tasked with attacking alongside, or defending their bases against, the Juggernaut onslaught. It's a terrifying sight being on the receiving end of the inevitable advance of a Juggernaut!

Or, worse, bringing in the sort of person that you don't want on site, because they act like KM does.

Hey all! We are a Scotland-based airsoft team (with a page on this site!) and I'd like to introduce our YouTube channel. Our newest video is from a recent Halloween charity event where the team came dressed as holy men (a Cardinal and his Monks), taking our role seriously in an effort to inspire our team to victory. We wrote a small piece about it on our website, too. We're not professional video-makers or anything, the channel has a small following, but we enjoy playing the game and hope to share some of the fun via Youtube. The channel's got plenty of gameplay footage from a bunch of Scottish sites, such as Section 8, the Depot, Area 66, Enemy Down, the Fort, and Fife Wargames, for anyone looking to check out any sites in advance of their visits, as well as a few trips into England to places like Dirty Dog and Level 2! We've also been lucky enough to feature in a few of the famous Scoutthedoggie's videos, like The Stargate, Krytak Trident LMG in action, and Royal Huntsman! Hope you enjoy!

A fully custom-built HPA rifle, from parts listed below: Body Stock: APS CRS Retractable Stock Receiver: EMG APS F-1 UDR-15-3G Full Metal M4 Receiver Set Handguard: 15 Inch TRIROCK M-LOK Free Float Slant Cut Nose Handguard (Amazon) Pistol Grip: PTS EPG-C M4 Grip Outer Barrel: ZCI M4 Aluminium Outer Barrel Muzzle: F1 Angled Black Muzzle Bolt Release: F1 Bolt Release Mag Release: F1 Mag Release Charging Handle: F1 Ambidextrous Charging Handle Internals Inner Barrel: ZCI 363mm 6.02mm Barrel Hop-Up Chamber: Maxx Model M4P PRO for Polarstar Hop-Up Rubber: G&G Green Bucking HPA Engine: Polarstar Kythera Integrated Grip Line: Amped IGL Standard Weave Trigger: Maxx Aluminium Advanced Speed Trigger (Style E) Gearbox: Guarder Enhanced V2 6mm Bushing Gearbox This was Calum's first custom build and it's turned out great, with good performance on site and plenty of interest from fellow players! If you've got questions about the build post a comment on the YouTube video for answers.

I've had some luck previously doing a bit of "shopping" during Skirmish days in terms of picking up random skirmishers. Some people are more inclined to want to work as a team than others are, and will listen to people who sound like they have a plan. I've both been the guy with the plan and one of the guys tagging along behind the guy with the plan, and it has varying degrees of success. Sometimes you end up with a handful of people getting some decent cooperation going on for as long as it takes for the group to get wiped out, but once you've broken the ice in that regard those people seem much warmer to teaming up again every time you run across them in the field. Some people don't or won't listen, which is fine: it's a Sunday Skirmish, people can entirely legitimately want to just run around shooting people where ever they feel like, teamwork with you, a random person in their eyes, isn't an obligation. There's also plenty teams going around, there's probably at least one at your local site or at a nearby local site, and teams usually make more of an effort to do, well, teamwork. Don't expect military levels of tactical cooperation, unless they're an ex-military team (who might not be that interested in non-ex-mil applicants), but it's something more than your average Sunday Skirmisher level of teamwork, if that's the sort of gameplay you prefer to experience.

While I cannot comment on the legality of any of it (though I'm confident in them as a long-standing and fairly well-known site, rather than some obscure pop-up run by people you've never heard of), I will say from having played there that the structures were all of solid construction, all seemed well secured (nothing bent, lent, or came apart despite people colliding into them rushing for cover), and Marshals were dotted around all the active areas for each game type. At no point was I milling about inside the castle without a Marshal wandering about the structure. With regards to warnings about unsafe buildings etc, it doesn't apply to this site, but another site I've been to has a particular structure within one of the game zones that is out of bounds and players are told during the game brief where it is, what it is, and not to make use of it, because of structural integrity concerns. Area 66 didn't have any of this, but had when I was there fenced off part of the woodland due to it having become a bog, and we were in fairness given a location, description, and warning that it was not to be entered. If any of A66's buildings ever entered such a state I therefore assume they'd do likewise.

They hadn't finished the upgrades when we were there, as you can see in the video, but they were talking about plans being afoot. Awesome to see they're actually underway! Might need to try to convince my friend to make another video from up there when it's done. 😃

Hope this is acceptable! A friend of mine who makes airsoft gameplay videos is doing some site review videos as well now, for anyone Scotland-based or considering trying out sites up this end here's his first video of Area 66, a site in the Glasgow area. Text-based summary if you'd prefer: - Good off-field facilities - Friendly marshals - Good game area with a lot of mixed terrain - The Castle (centrepiece, seen in video thumbnail) is an awesome piece of terrain that creates some intense mixed CQB+open battles as teams fight to both storm the fort and besiege it.