Today was another trip to Tower Airsoft in Essex; for those who don't know it, this is a small, wooded site with a castle, a church, a village and a bridge complex.
Last time I was there, 150 players turned up, which was a few too many for the site, resulting in the gameplay being rather constrained; this was due to Airsoft Plantation, which is run by the same company, being closed that weekend. Today, around 40 players attended, which meant there was much more room for manoeuvre and sneakiness. It was a great day of airsoft, played in a positive spirit with no arguments or allegations of non-hit taking. It was good to run into the Reaper Ops guys for the first time in several years; the last time was when I was marshalling at Battle Lakes.
My personal high point was an epic last stand in the castle; a young lad and I were the last players there and held off the attackers for a considerable time. Not long before that, I had been in the woods, working with others to stop the other team, who were the attackers, crossing the track. A BB hit me very firmly in the back, so I shouted "Hit", stuck my hand up and started walking back to the castle, passing the player who had shot me; I raised my thumb to him to acknowledge his skill in sneaking round us and into a position behind us. At that point, we both noticed that we were both wearing blue armbands!
The low point was my VZ58 eating its piston; however, it is an Ares and their pistons seem to be designed to fail. It needed opening up anyway as the power was low; those wonderful Ares compression parts!
I need to decide where to go next weekend now.