Gunman Eversley 10-11/6/23
Namsoft
Another great weekend at the Eversley site, in glorious weather. The summer has bought the rhododendrons into bloom, and prompted a furious work party regime in Wild West (the ‘village’ in the gamezone).
First impressions as we arrived on Friday were of seriously low numbers, the usual number of campers was well down, and we choose a spot easily. This was deceptive however; as work on buildings has seen many more water tight and habitable. That seems a decent guess that accounts for all those sleeping under hand cut shingles rather than canvass. What it meant was a much more spread out arrangement that allowed for a bit of quiet if you wanted it, or the ability to make a bit of noise if you felt the need.
The Worthing Massive were camped next door in a palatial bell tent type affair, complete with gazebo and some serious cookware.
@Impulse had a fondle of the Snow Wolf K98 and I drooled over his mate’s Tanaka Woodstock version with the stamped markings. Friends in the 173rd stayed in their newly constructed shack in the firebase. Their task this weekend besides playing, was building up the sandbags to a decent height and deepening the dugouts so that tired old knees wouldn’t ache so much in game.
Saturday started with Josh giving an ultra-high energy safety and game brief. Seriously, we were all laughing at the same bloody stuff we’ve all heard before, but the game was as always different to the previous with some new themes written in, and the delivery is brilliant. This time we had dog tags issued with different colours for different players, and different colours for different values e.g. gold tags were worth five times the plain white tags issued to the Vietnamese team.
There were several new faces and quite a few missing faces. I think the game was even-ish at about 15 players each. This was quite a way down on last years I seem to recall. That said, about eight people booked and couldn’t make game day.
First game was about setting the atmosphere and getting into the mindset. The VC and PAVN had to transport loads across the site passed three US strongholds with patrols between each. Helped by the low US numbers, we managed to really ace this, avoiding the other team and setting up our cache in the bottom corner of the site. Repairs bridges and a drained swamp made this a little easier too.
As Mrs TPH had forgotten her magazine and had to go back to camp for it, we were last to arrive at the start point. We were tasked with harassing the strongpoints along with another Worthing straggler and a son and Dad duo we often team up with. This was exactly what we wanted to hear. Using the radio, we managed to locate and attack the US team all morning. Unfortunately, the SF squad were patrolling between each stronghold and we attacked just as they arrived three bloody times! Once we were pincered, once we fled as they reinforced from the other side of the position, and once we watched them arrive just as we were in position. The same US player managed to shoot me three attacks in a row, much to our mutual amusement.
The third time I swore revenge and crept back to the stronghold to revive the others in my squad. I was too late, not being able to call loudly enough to them to wait for me to crawl up to them. I decided to stay on alone. This played off as believing us neutralised, they spotted a VC team in the distance and formed up to attack. I opened up with the RPK, and they were forced to medic players and then winkle me out again. I had however saved the carrying party, so job done.
Afternoon was similar. We hunted, our team split up and Mrs TPH and I formed our usual seek and destroy squad of two. We enjoyed hunting larger squads and carrying out fast hit and runs. We enjoyed in particular attacking the improved fort and moving between shots to emulate a bigger squad.
By days end, we were extremely hot, we’d drunk all of our spawn point (1G) water and some that a VC carried round to all players in a damn great Jerry can. We were down to the canteens on our belts and had still not really drunk enough despite a good fill before heading out.
Saturday night was a very chilled affair. Going for a piss at 1:30 it was eerily quiet. I seemed to be the only one awake, at least on the main camping part. We’d had a drink and multiple hotdogs with a site member/good mate, and a wandering VC. Missed the drunken singing of Jefferson Airplane but awoke without the usual hangover the next morning as a result.
Sunday was brutally hot. This time the US was on the move and we had to intercept them in mobile groups. Group Baboon (VC) was the largest and had an uncanny ability to sniff out imperialists, our team of two moved around a sight less noisily tbh, and we managed to get on the tail of one US squad in particular. I revenged myself on the player from the previous day twice and shot the same tail end Charlie about thrice myself, twice whilst being medic’d leaving both players KIA.
My favourite attack on Sunday was on the bulk of the US team moving multiple items. I hit the back, CYMA chugging away as usual, Mrs TPH hit the flank. We managed to split the squad, leaving the carried items vulnerable to the rest of the VC who heard the firefight and zoomed in like sharks on a blood trail.
A memorable moment was finding the back of a group of players in contact with Baboon VC group. I could see a US player crouching behind a tree and shot him neatly in the back, moved to new cover and waited for more targets. I could vaguely make out more players in green around him, and when a similarly dressed player sneaked up I shot him too. It was revealed then that the US guy was part of a squad who had been hit by the VC and moved out leaving him behind among a bunch of dead PAVN (in green PAVN uniforms). I’d hit a PAVN player moving up to survey the damage.
I also manged the perfect support gun shot at last. One slow chug from left to right and I hit an entire squad in one burst. I have never before had such a perfectly presented target and all five or six fell to the single sweep of the barrel. Shows why it’s worth lugging the damn great thing around.
Sunday ended early. Too many US players had dropped out through heat exhaustion to carry on, and nearly everyone was wilting. At close, the scores were US 13 dogtags, VC 11. Completed objectives were about even. We applauded the US team as a late VC player turned up festooned with tags and the Vietnamese team were victorious again. This was seriously funny, and very good natured. I shook hands with the chap who killed me thrice, and was told that I was a pain in the arse by the laughing tail end US player.
Hurrahs:
Great gameplay, great social, great ruleset, great scenario, great site, great laugh, great to see mates from the airsoft scene and of course from the forum. I even loved the weather, working in North Africa desert was something I enjoyed too though, so no criticism of those that dropped out.
The lack of sexist patches and ‘banter’ makes taking my wife a good thing too and our daughter has become jealous of the fun so she’ll be making her airsoft debut at some point this summer.
Moans:
Bleed out time was possibly too short. We were caught cold on Saturday at the end of the day. Caution on the part of the US players saw us dead and on our way back to spawn before they should really have got our tags. Then again they knew the rules and saw us time ourselves by looking at our watches.
Fucking contact lenses! Can’t play without them, can’t see my BBs to walk them in until I actually hit something. This weekend seemed particularly bad, and I got frustrated at the speed at which I could hit at distances over 20 yards. Gunman rules state all support guns fire either deployed or from the hip. I do deploy mine on a knee when I can (easy with a real RPK) but despite my years of hip shooting, it is never as accurate as shooting from the shoulder. I nearly got an AK out tbh. It is also harder to spot incoming BBs with the contacts. I know that testing in the garden with specs, that I can spot BBs easily, and have even seen lead shot at 1300fps in some conditions, when a shoot is on over the road.
I’m booked on the next one, likewise the next post –apocalypse game. In fact we’ll do a few bike rallies and airsoft games this year and ditch fucking about with holidays as such. We like sticking to the UK and Covid seems to have made our favourite out if the way places too popular. Dartmoor was like a theme park this April.
Du ban GI!
