First skirmish in 10 months (ffs!). I should have been at other sites, but never got off my slightly-fat arse to go try somewhere new.
So Special Ops opened up again, and I'm back on the field. I had a selection of new guns to try, so I basically took 'em all, except for the M14. I wish I'd taken that too, but no room in a long gun bag for it AND the sniper rifle, so the sniper got the nod.
I made a spreadsheet to try to get a grip on all the bits I needed, and what I could do to check / fettle before the big day (I posted it on another thread, I won't repost here, I look like an OCD loony enough already). That approach actually worked quite well, I remembered everything I needed. However, the sheer quantity of stuff it enabled me to drag along became
overwhelming.
To cut a long story slightly shorter I had intended to take some time fettling my new VFC GBBR and the Tippmann, but with the very large number of people on site (87 players?) I didn't get around to spending very much time on-range. I ended up firing a few shots with each, didn't really do anything to them, and then concentrated on getting Ol' Faithfull (the magnificent Double Eagle M906C) and the TM AUG HC (shorter range spray'n'pray) ready for combat.
So what had been intended to be a major effort to fix my two most expensive (and potentially fun) guns instead became a rush to sort out my kit 'just to play'. This really wasn't helped by the kit overflowing off the one small table I had to set up on. I spent too much shuffling kit on and off to make use of the limited space.
Lesson learned : If I'm going to try to sort out a gun or two - just take them, plus the DE
My mood took a distinct turn for the worse when someone started firing their gun *on purpose* in the safe zone. As the first shot actually fired a BB that pinged off a tarp very close to me, I very nearly lost my shit. I'm going to draw a veil over what followed, because the chap came over to me and apologised profusely and shook my hand afterwards. He realised he'd messed up big time.
Lesson learned for him : just because there's no mag in the gun, doesn't mean the barrel is empty
Hmmm. I've typed a lot already and we've not got to the chrono'ing yet
The chrono'ing took forever because of the sheer number of people. There were already mutterings of discontent. (I don't suppose I helped, turning up in the queue carrying 3 rifles and a pistol, but I got through it quickly and painlessly)
The safety briefing kicked off maybe 30-45 minutes late? Carlos and Will did their usual good humoured job explaining the site rules and splitting the players into teams.
Eventually the skirmish kicked off. Zombies game to start, as a warm-up, then onto the normal stuff.
The morning was a bit disappointing for me, and by the louder mutterings, quite a few other people. Basically there were just too many players given the limited vegetation cover - so it all bogged down too easily. People got tired of the long treks back to spawn after getting zapped by long shots from unseen players (as much 'too many angles to cover' as 'man disguised as tree with sniper rifle')
Those mutterings of discontent got louder and more frequent. I don't think I've hear people complaining at Special Ops before.
The good news was that a lot of people left at lunchtime (half-dayers and/or malcontents). Yet the next games didn't go brilliantly either. There was an unfortunate game where the out-of-bounds area was misidentified by a marshal, so a bunch of us were moved from our defensive positions just as we were being attacked in a 'no respawn' phase of a game. That didn't go down well.
After that game, a bunch more left, and between the reduced player count, and a different style of game, things got a lot better. I finished the day much happier. I'd got killed (probably mostly by Dan from these forums, including a pistol shot to the back of the head!) an awful lot, and racked up relatively few kills myself, but I left happy enough.
(If I'd gone home at lunchtime I would have been very disappointed with the whole experience)
Personal highlight of the day : My first attempt at sniping, with my Rossi M40/VSR clone .. first 3 shots = 3 kills at 60m.
(I could have had a few more with that but I'd loaded up some of the mags with 0.25's for no sensible reason, and couldn't get the hop adjusted. Also the safety lever kept falling into safe at
very inopportune moments, so went back to my AEGs)