The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[ghostwalker]

Played at battlestations on Sunday. Always a good site with decent marshals and always trying to find new games to spin.

Mostly decent day, a few hit taking issues over the day especially in the afternoon when a fresh faced group of rentals in shorts and t shirts rocked up. 

Had a moment or 2 though of 'hmmm is someone shooting hot' after a mate had their mesh lower face pro dented by a bb and then I had the flip up lense protector on my rifle cracked right through.

But a decent day all in. Back into the woods in webbing and hat instead of plate carrier and helmet in a couple of weeks.

 

[The_Lord_Poncho]

This last Sunday I had the first rather average morning I've ever had at Driver Wood. They seemed to be experimenting with a longer (2.5 hrs) game  rather than two shorter games and a break- fine - I'm happy with that.  At least 30 minutes extra game time packed into the morning, and of course people free to head to the safe zone for a break whenever they wish. What was less good was the decision to relocate the team spawns to the far corners of the playing area in order to spread people out all around the map. The Orange team spawn  was hidden in a dense maze of rhododendron right on the edge fo the map - I genuinely spent 15 minutes walking in circles trying to find it, and even the times I managed to locate it first time, it was a tedious 5-10 minutes trudge from the middle of the playing area there and the same back.

I know there is a balance to be struck -  ultra quick re-spawns can be equally frustrating if you are trying to dominate and take objectives and the enemy players that you take out are re-emerging under a minute later (knowing exactly where you are). But being taken out of a game for 10+ minutes once you are hit is just boring. Driver Wood doesn't seem to suffer endemic cheating, but yesterday morning was different - with most players choosing to retreat a few hundred meters when hit, wait in a bush for a few minutes, and then come back into play rather than trudge off to try to locate the spawn. And frankly, I sympathise!

Lets hope that they stick with the 2.5 hour games to maximise playing time, but have a careful re-think about spawn locations and suitable playing area size for the numbers.

 

[Impulse]

I didn't really play this weekend, as I spent all of Saturday settling my little sister into university as it's her first year. After dragging a heavy suitcase with broken wheels, and carrying a bunch of heavy food shopping through London, I didn't want to take my chances on Sunday with my heart and play airsoft (still waiting on the arrhythmia clinic to talk about treating my atrial fibrillation) but I still went down to Worthing Airsoft to chat and tinker with my MWS on the range, since having a 100m range isn't something I have access to in the middle of Brighton. Anyway, I first helped a guy put together his ZCI hop unit and try and troubleshoot why his new (2nd hand) AEG was acting up. Wasn't the hop up, with a new ZCI rotary unit and a G&G green bucking it was firing very nicely when it fired properly, but it was horribly inconsistent. Eventually we worked out it was either his mag alignment or, more likely, a poorly done gearbox. With my aversion to gearboxes, I wasn't going to help him pry it open and tinker it though! Also my friend's m700 was acting up (again) and I realised his gas router was installed upside down, so after changing that over he just had to tweak the power a little bit to get it under 2.3J.

Anyway, once everyone headed out to games and after a bit more of a chat with the staff, I got the MWS out and took it to the range. When I took it to Southdown Airsoft last weekend it was shooting all over the place and was totally unusable, so I swapped out the Maple Leaf autobot rubber for a very old Maple Leaf MR hop rubber that was in my parts box for the past three or more years just to see if it was the type of hop rubber and... it was; I brought all of my VSR hop rubbers and all of my nubs as I was ready to experiment to find the best combination, but the old MR rubber with the Jaeger Precision nub was working really nicely. Even with the really old MR hop rubber it was shooting really nicely at 1J on .32s and was pretty accurate and consistent, so it's now my go-to 1J gun. I forgot to bring my .4s so I couldn't open up the NPAS and experiment at DMR power (1.64J at Worthing Airsoft), plus my friend forgot to bring his dremel so I couldn't modify the fire selector anyway. Will get that done during the week. Anyway, I was originally planning on replacing the old MR hop rubber with a silicone one like I have in my AKM (that performs really nicely too!), but with how it was performing this weekend on the range I'm happy to just keep the old rubber in until I need to swap it out. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

Once I finished up there, my friend had come back and grabbed his m249 as there were too many snipers and it was getting boring. Apparently on his team alone there were at least 8 bolt action snipers and about 6 ghillies (not necessarily the same people either), so he wanted something with a bit more punch. At this time of year the site is still very thick, so having so many rifles with an MED was really grinding the game down and had all the snipers vying for the same spots. I next saw him coming back early before lunch and apparently it's because the marshalls were running games on semi-only.

This is something that is really grinding my gears about Worthing Airsoft these days and this is coming from me; I pretty much only play on semi-auto and believe that full-auto is a crutch for people who can't aim (a generalisation, but one that is mostly accurate, pun intended), so if I wanted the game to cater to me over everyone else I'd be wholly endorsing semi-only games, but I hate it. Semi-only games have their place, but that place is not woodland skirmish days. Furthermore, it screws people over like my friend who like support guns, since his m249 only fires on auto and even feathering the trigger he was told he couldn't do that because it wasn't semi. Plus someone moaned when he hit them with two BBs from feathering the trigger. It's also a decision made on the day, so what happens if someone brings their support gun for a skirmish game only to be told "sorry, you can't use that because we're playing semi-only today." As I said, I don't mind semi-only games and love playing filmsim and battlesim games where everyone is restricted to semi-only and support guns have to be deployed, but can shoot full auto, however a woodland skirmish day is not filmsim. Apparently the reason for it was that the gameplay was too close, so during lunch I went for a wander down to where the game was being played, as I know there is an area of the site where semi-only is needed, as the Clearing area of the site is basically like playing in a woodland killhouse (used to be clear, now the name is pretty ironic and some call it Coppice). However, the area this game was being played was no thicker than the other areas of the site. There weren't going to be many close range firefights where the game was being played, and some of the foliage needed full-auto to punch through. I think the players and the marshalls are getting a bit too precious about full auto, and they do nothing about people with hair-triggers who spam semi-auto faster than some people have full-auto since it's how a few of the marshalls have their own guns set up. I get no full-auto under 10m, but limiting entire games in a woodland skirmish setting where most engagements are between 20 - 50m to semi-only is ludicrous!

I love Worthing Airsoft and I would consider a lot of the staff and regular players as friends, but it's lost what made me fall in love with the site in the first place. Once I've got my driving licence and my own car, I think I'm going to start trying other sites around. Haven't heard amazing things about Dogtag or Driver Wood, but I'll give them a go since I also hadn't heard good things about Southdown Airsoft and I had more fun there last week than I typically have at Worthing Airsoft and it was by no means a perfect day of well-managed skirmish! Yes, part of it was because it was a new site to me and it was way better for sniping than Worthing is, but the fact remains that I enjoyed myself more. The big one I'll probably look to do is the open filmsim weekends at Gunman Battle Lakes in Kent, as that's not too much further than Worthing Airsoft from where I live.

Sorry about the rant, but I'm upset

 

[The_Lord_Poncho]

 Haven't heard amazing things about Dogtag or Driver Wood, but I'll give them a go since I also hadn't heard good things about Southdown Airsoft and I had more fun there last week than I typically have at Worthing Airsoft and it was by no means a perfect day of well-managed skirmish!

Dogtag is adequate, Driver Wood is pretty good in my view. But then i haven't been to Worthing or Southdowns, so i can't form a comparison for you I'm afraid. My slight whinge in my post above aside, I'd be interested to hear what other negatives that you've heard for Driver Wood.

 

[RostokMcSpoons]

Good day out at Spec Ops yesterday.  I'll probably leave Dan to review the games, but basically after worrying at the outset that the teams looked unbalanced with more regular/experienced/sniper/HPA players on the other team, it actually turned out to be reasonably well balanced.  (Though we did lose most of the time in the end!)

Decided to travel light again for this event, so went Double Double Eagle + gas gun

* Double Eagle M906C (approving comments on the new paint job were much appreciated)

* Double Eagle M904G (backup)

* VFC HK416 A5 GBBR

This was my first chance to test the two DEs at range after swapping gearboxes and barrels + hop units between the two.  All worked fine.  Ran the 906C with an 11.1v battery and it didn't get hot.  Good result!

I chose the HK416 for the first games, but having only three working mags, and then seemingly having a problem with another, I switched back to the 906C. 

Some very pleasing long range hits, but the best moments were (as always) sneaky flanking attacks where I got nice and close before 'unleashing hell' (or indeed a few small bits of plastic)

A bit of crap hit taking from the kids .. mostly people getting shot in the feet and ignoring it, because they no doubt thought no one could see it happening.  It got called out by the marshals, seemed ok after that.

Great to see lots of friends, weather was good, burger and chicken was tasty, a decent day ?

 

[Impulse]

Dogtag is adequate, Driver Wood is pretty good in my view. But then i haven't been to Worthing or Southdowns, so i can't form a comparison for you I'm afraid. My slight whinge in my post above aside, I'd be interested to hear what other negatives that you've heard for Driver Wood.

I can't in good faith recommend Worthing Airsoft at the moment and Southdown Airsoft can't run through the winter due to the local wildlife, so I'm more than willing to give Driver Wood a try. Honestly, seeing that they're experimenting with longer games at Driver Wood only encourages me to try it more as I like longer games. What I've heard about Driver Wood is:

- Marshalls that don't really care and don't enforce rules

- Rampant cheating

- An example of someone using metal BBs and shattering someone's eyepro and blinding him

- Long pauses between games

- Imbalanced teams to help regulars

Honestly, I'm critical enough to not believe it all and the truth is usually in the middle of the positive and negative viewpoints. I reckon there is some cheating as you'll always have non-hit takers anywhere you go unfortunately, but especially after going to Southdown despite hearing similar negatives and having most of them being pure fiction I reckon there's definitely some tribalism affecting what I've heard about other sites.

 

[The_Lord_Poncho]

I can't in good faith recommend Worthing Airsoft at the moment and Southdown Airsoft can't run through the winter due to the local wildlife, so I'm more than willing to give Driver Wood a try. Honestly, seeing that they're experimenting with longer games at Driver Wood only encourages me to try it more as I like longer games. What I've heard about Driver Wood is:

- Marshalls that don't really care and don't enforce rules

- Rampant cheating

- An example of someone using metal BBs and shattering someone's eyepro and blinding him

- Long pauses between games

- Imbalanced teams to help regulars

Honestly, I'm critical enough to not believe it all and the truth is usually in the middle of the positive and negative viewpoints. I reckon there is some cheating as you'll always have non-hit takers anywhere you go unfortunately, but especially after going to Southdown despite hearing similar negatives and having most of them being pure fiction I reckon there's definitely some tribalism affecting what I've heard about other sites.

That's really interesting. I have a fairly positive view of the marshalls there - there is usually 4 or 5 per game, and 2 or 3 are usually older, more mature, and happy to get stuck in to sort issues out. The younger ones, much less so. I've been rather a lot, and only have seen one proper incident of aggression between players that left a bad taste. To be fair, the marshalls were right on it that time. Cheating, I've not really much of a barometer, but generally not something that I feel happens enough to spoil a game.

The teams are never deliberately imbalanced in my strong view, but I can see where that accusation might come from - briefing takes place from a stage, and then the players are divided down the middle, counted, and the requisite number of people asked to volunteer to swap to the other side. BUT - it is always the case that significantly more young kids and rental players always stand on the left hand side (when facing the stage) - not really sure why this is - but probably because there is more space, and its less intimidating to be a little further away from the regulars/more seasoned players. This does therefore mean that there are usually more rentals on one side than the other - definitely something that the site ought to sort out!

Re. pauses - I only play mornings - yesterday's 2.5 hour game aside, usually you get two games in a morning - 09:30'ish to 10:30, 30min break then 11:00 - 12:00. I presume the same pattern for the afternoons, but I wouldn't know! I'd definitely like a shorter (or no) break - 10 mins to grab a quick drink and bomb up the mags would be plenty.

 

[Cannonfodder]

Marshalls that don't really care and don't enforce rules

I've only been there once for an evening game and that was the impression I got. After arriving late due to trains being cancelled the guy running the place seemed more interested in moaning about covid (it was just after lockdown) than actually answering any questions. For example when I asked about pyro rules the answer I got was "I wouldn't bother, nobody takes them". 

I'd definitely like a shorter (or no) break - 10 mins to grab a quick drink and bomb up the mags would be plenty.

Agreed. I've paid to play not sit around in the safezone chatting 

 

[Rogerborg]

then the players are divided down the middle

One of the many great things about the Depot 1.0 site (really must try 2.0) is that the direction of their "down the middle" slice changed from day to day: horizontal, vertical, or one time along a diagonal.  It's a small thing, but it demonstrates that they weren't just doing things by rote over and over.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Had another good day as Spec Ops MK on Sunday.  Despite being the only field we've ever played at, we never seem to get bored of its compact woodland map and if anything familiarity is starting to create some new gameplay options (beyond running like a headless chicken into or away from fire).

Game two was a good case in point, being a flag based bridge building game. The assault team are tasked with placing three flags in three corresponding barrels spaced equidistant along a line dividing their half of the map from the defenders, only once all the flags are in can they advance across the imaginary bridge.  

As soon as the start whistle went me and the boy knew precisely the point we wanted to get to; a defensive barricade in a metal shack village named PingPing City that provides overwatch on one of the barrels, attackers either have to cross our line of fire at 90 degrees or skirt some buildings and come at us head on.  This little set up allowed us to keep the barrel flag free and rack up the kills for what felt like an age.  In the end an enthusiastic rental youngster ignored a hail of BBs pinging off his body and placed the flag.  I mentioned it to the marshals, but let it go as by that point we'd been overrun anyway.

After lunch the boy decided to swap sides so he could play with some of his mates who were on the arm-bands team.  First time we've played opfor aside from the usual Zombie games.  I got the first kill on him, basically trading BBs at 40 or so meters until one of us got hit.  After that though he racked up his tally, killing me three times during an attempt to clear his team out of a defence.  Then later delivering one of the most painful shots of the day, shooting me right on the tip of my nose.  

Bit of drama on the day, caught the tail end of an angry exchange after some chap's tooth had been shot out at close quarters by some other guy.  Not sure if he'd been wearing face protection or not but it all ended quietly if not peacefully.

Food was excellent as ever.

Double Eagle was reliable as ever.

Might start thinking about some winter gear as we head into the October games.

 

[Dan Robinson]

As a fellow Spec Ops player this weekend I am feeling all the runs on the lower back and knees still.  A fun day was had of course.  Baby Specna is not firing consistently, but then that's why we have backups and backups to the backups, then the friendly pew to keep them company.  So The Double Eagle, L85, and Rando Long Specna we bought from here for £120 were guns of choice with the latter being possibly the most fun due to its fancy scope and laser like firing - marred by a few lockups.

The bridge building game seems to be the marshalls new baby and it is a great game as there are three distinct phases for both sides to attack and defend through.  My only wish to change is the respawn point for the defenders when they are holding the tents during the second phase needs to be a bit further away (not often you'll hear me saying that).  At the moment the attackers have very little chance of breaking through unless you have a very speedy and or stealthy boi to get in and out - I think @Gunboat Diplomatwas the closest to achieve this.  As the dead players are back in hte game too quickly.

When we were attacking I was one of the bridge builders and did a pistol only juggernaut charge through the trees and planted the flag somewhat amazed that I wasn't shot.  Out of breath, I promptly tripped over a root and knocked what little wind I had out of me.  Even after slowly picking myself up and looking around (think of the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan looking around shell shocked) I realised I still wasn't dead, and the marshall looked at me with the "why are you not shooting people" look, so I spun around with the pistol and promptly shot someone less than 15 feet away.  He half challenged me thinking I was dead to which i replied "well you should have shot me then".

The rest of the games seemed to flow pretty well, and I thought the hit taking was pretty good on all sides, with the exception @RostokMcSpoonsmentioned where some of the newcomers considered being shot through slots to not count.  I know at least two on the blue team will have a nice collection of welts.  One was the father of the "player of the day" who was hiding behind a barrel.  I was pinging him with my pistol (BB's flying so slowly there was no doubt where they were going) with no call - so out came Mrs AEG and her high cap of 0.28s ?.

His punishment was also that his daughter was nominated beast player of the day winning a free game day - and she was pretty handy for a first timer at the age of 12.  So now for her to have the prize he has to come back and pay for his day - and by default I am sure, the younger brother will insist on coming because talking to him - he had a blast of a day too.  He took great delight in coming up to me laughing at how he got me from under the sniper tower.

The rolling retreat game was also a lot of fun - the defenders (a lot of whom were young kids) were well set up in the tented city; to the point where we were struggling to break through.  I managed to clear two particularly troublesome tents by again dropping the rifle and going in with my pistol.  It was good to see the younglings having fun and taking part - although a few on our team did want to have a chat at respawn instead of charging back in.  One tent had a disgruntled man in there who, when he was finally shot out, complained that one of us wasn't taking his hits - well the marshall who was playing on our side in the afternoon was thinking the same thing about you - good job I got to you with my pistol before he did with his LMG ????, because he was the next player coming up behind me.

Had an interesting chat with some South Africans who played the game there but with the added bonus of having choppers flying players around the game zone - makes RIFT's Snatch Land Rovers seem a little meh by comparison LOL.

Next game day already booked for two weeks time - hopefully my aching bones will be ready for more punishment by then.  Once the leaves start dropping I will be taking my SVU so I can try some sneaky peaky roles instead of my typical Juggernaut Tree Felling charge style.

 

[gavinkempsell]

Well I had a blast at Players of War near Falkirk, it's my local site & I'm finally getting used to the layout, not a huge turnout but more than enough to be a good day, My L85 Carbine performed well. (last time the motor screw unscrewed mid game(locktite FTW)) but I deffo felt the extra weight. My Polymer Scar-L was as reliable as ever. Took my P90 too as I've finally got enough mags to field it properly but it stayed in my gun bag all day (truth be known it's only been re-racked in the past hour or so).

Tried a rotation of mid caps in one game, then hi caps in the next & pretty sure I prefer the hi caps, not so much spray & pray as in earlier game days but certainly used plenty of BB's.

I'm a big unfit chap so usually prefer to creap forward until I'm in range of actually hitting some 'enemy' but noticed a lot more forward progress in my last attacking game... (must try harder in future).

I have noticed I seem to lose my motivation in the 4th game in the past few game days so I'm going to focus on staying hydrated & getting shot less as the walk to & from the spawn point is doing my head in.

 

[Dan Robinson]

the walk to & from the spawn point is doing my head in.

I hear you there brother.

I think dispensation should be allowed for bigger/older players to get well out of contact with the fight, but wait the requisite amount of time before going back in.  As long as they are offsetting the walk by the effort they put into the game. ?

Just seems a waste of game time and energy sometimes traipsing up a dirty great hill LOL.

 

[gavinkempsell]

Aye, but where does it stop?

I'm not dissabled, just fat lol.

&

'Older'

mainly fat tho.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Aye, but where does it stop?

Yep - I wrote that half in jest, half seriously - you'd need a marshall at the back of every game just to make sure people didn't take the piss.

I'm 45 years old, 6'7" and 130kg usually wearing a full plate carrier and camelbak.  That's a lot of gravity to drag around all day at full clack. ?

I can't in good faith recommend Worthing Airsoft at the moment and Southdown Airsoft can't run through the winter due to the local wildlife, so I'm more than willing to give Driver Wood a try. Honestly, seeing that they're experimenting with longer games at Driver Wood only encourages me to try it more as I like longer games. What I've heard about Driver Wood is:

- Marshalls that don't really care and don't enforce rules

- Rampant cheating

- An example of someone using metal BBs and shattering someone's eyepro and blinding him

- Long pauses between games

- Imbalanced teams to help regulars

Honestly, I'm critical enough to not believe it all and the truth is usually in the middle of the positive and negative viewpoints. I reckon there is some cheating as you'll always have non-hit takers anywhere you go unfortunately, but especially after going to Southdown despite hearing similar negatives and having most of them being pure fiction I reckon there's definitely some tribalism affecting what I've heard about other sites.

Driver Wood is a great site - my criticism would fall in line with the above about the respawns being a long way from the action fro no real reason.  Certainly in high summer where the line of sight can be pretty short. Ic an see a reason in the winter when there is less coverage from the trees.

The safe zone is one of the best, I've been to possibly along with High Wycombe.

Having only been the once, and having a "personal down day" I can't really fairly comment on the way teams are put together and the marshalling, but I didn't notice anything too bad.

 

[Impulse]

Driver Wood is a great site - my criticism would fall in line with the above about the respawns being a long way from the action fro no real reason.  Certainly in high summer where the line of sight can be pretty short. Ic an see a reason in the winter when there is less coverage from the trees.

The safe zone is one of the best, I've been to possibly along with High Wycombe.

Having only been the once, and having a "personal down day" I can't really fairly comment on the way teams are put together and the marshalling, but I didn't notice anything too bad.

Guess I'll find out myself as a few of us are planning on going to Driver Wood this weekend. I see their DMR rules are 1.88J and a 25m MED so the MWS is going to be set up for that for sure!

 

[The_Lord_Poncho]

Guess I'll find out myself as a few of us are planning on going to Driver Wood this weekend. I see their DMR rules are 1.88J and a 25m MED so the MWS is going to be set up for that for sure!

which day? I might try and nip along myself if i can one morning.

 

[Impulse]

which day? I might try and nip along myself if i can one morning.

We'll be there on Sunday

 

[The_Lord_Poncho]

We'll be there on Sunday

I'll explore whether i can get a pass....!

 

[son of dan]

Hope the boy doesn't read this....but it was a real banger of a day at Special Ops.

About 50 - 60 turned up, but a lot were new players and  younglngs.  One of the Marshalls had their kid's 15th birthday there so a lot of teenagers rocked up which was a little worrying at first sight, only for them all to be really great kid's who made the most of their time. 

A lot of regulars were missing, which was shame, but not a surprise given the heat.

Games were the usual fair....zombies to warm up, then some attack and defend.  We on the skins side had the most familiarity with the site, so the day was a total wipe out, with one game won in 90 seconds, which on turnaround  I think we timed them out....  the objective being to run through the church entrance, get the bomb and then get it to the tent.

Had a few awkward moments, one being during Team Deathmatch,  where I snuck round a tarpaulin barricade only to find a poor solitary teenager.  I decided to switch to my pistol to be kind, only to find it wasn't cocked....but poor lass didn't see me until I put my RIF down and cocked my Glock and ....well...??.

The next was almost a carbon copy but with said teenager's friend....all I could see was a face mask....so face mask was what was shot, again though, I could tell it was a youngling, so switched to the Glock because the L85 was right in the limit again.

Baby Specna and Double Eagle didn't get a run today as I was using the boy's Longer Specna we picked up secondhand from here.  A very good £120.  Thing is as we bought it, plus a good LVPO and bipod and was shooting like a laser.  Only problem being a little mag fussy.

L85 was a little temperamental, but that was due to overspin because I put an 11.1v in it.  Switched to 7.4v and it was a dream until the riser came lose without my noticing - apart from having to aim into the next county to hit anything.

Lunch as always was free, tasty and plentiful.  Water was guzzled by the gallon (11 litres by my count) but I'm still thirsty as anything and peeing treacle.

View attachment 115053

Fan powered antifog Once again was flawless,  although the battery died about halfway through the afternoon. 

Looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks. 

one cheeky bastard using my specna.  break it and ill find away to whoop your arse from 6000 miles away.