The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[Colin Allen]

Will do! I tend to be the one running around with a pew pre 1980's, or an m16a1 in pieces ?

I will keep an eye out for someone swearing at an M16A1!

A lot of mine are of a similar vintage; I quite often wander around with an L1A1.

So last night I took a trip down to Future Survival in Gravesend for some mid week CQB. 

On arrival I got signed in and found a free spot in the quite small safezone to sort out my kit. There was around 15 players there and while I didn't find myself struggling for space, it did feel a bit crowded. 

After kitting up it was off to chrono. This was done quickly and without fuss. Interestingly I did notice on their site rules the limits are slightly different depending on bb weight used, 340fps (1.07j) for .2g bbs or 310fps (1.12j) for .25g bbs. Tbh though the difference is that small that it doesn't really make any difference 

Games played were a mixture of types including deathmatch and king of the hill and the turn around between games was nice and quick but didn't feel rushed.

One rule I did fall foul of was when it comes to grenades. Their rules state "no pyro or flash bang grenades" which I took to mean disposable paper pyros, but actually includes BFGs. Something which I only found out after tossing one into a room. The marshal did say he'd forgotten to mention it in the briefing though.

The only other negative was some of the other players. Quite a few (on both teams) seemed to have a difficulty understanding what dead men don't talk means, fortunately though they could easily be ignored.

TL,DR:

It's a well run site and I'd say the game zone is quite well laid out and  IMO only needs a couple of tweaks to improve it. A solid 3.5 out of 5 overall

Looking at their rules, I can see why you were confused about grenades:

No pyro or flash-bang grenades
Keep all grenades under head height
Grenades hit a 3-5m radius, barrels and curtains don’t protect you

 

[Cannonfodder]

Looking at their rules, I can see why you were confused about grenades:

No pyro or flash-bang grenades
Keep all grenades under head height
Grenades hit a 3-5m radius, barrels and curtains don’t protect you

Glad it's not just me

The marshal was great, rather than getting arsey he just asked me not to use them anymore and apologised for forgetting it in the briefing

 

[Enid_Puceflange]

Suns out

Gas guns out , tomorrow ?

 

[Egon_247]

Well that was one day of airsoft that I don't want to repeat. 

By lunchtime I'd packed my gear up and was no longer shooting as the locals appeared to be made from Teflon and were impervious to hits. 

Play was stopped after some numpty threw a LOG over a wall, shouting grenade and nigh on knocked some poor unsuspecting bloke out. ?

I laid 15 rounds into a guy (3 shot bursts) every single one bouncing off him, including a few off his noggin with a marshal watching and nothing. Nada.

To prevent fatalities I gave up. Went back to the safe zone and grabbed a coffee.

The Marshalls couldn't give two shits if you complained..unless you were a regular. 

If a 13 year old comes back to the safe zone telling me he doesn't feel safe out there, then there's something wrong.

Genuinely never going back.

Sorry dogtag airsoft in Crawley, unimpressed.

 

[Colin Allen]

Well that was one day of airsoft that I don't want to repeat. 

By lunchtime I'd packed my gear up and was no longer shooting as the locals appeared to be made from Teflon and were impervious to hits. 

Play was stopped after some numpty threw a LOG over a wall, shouting grenade and nigh on knocked some poor unsuspecting bloke out. ?

I laid 15 rounds into a guy (3 shot bursts) every single one bouncing off him, including a few off his noggin with a marshal watching and nothing. Nada.

To prevent fatalities I gave up. Went back to the safe zone and grabbed a coffee.

The Marshalls couldn't give two shits if you complained..unless you were a regular. 

If a 13 year old comes back to the safe zone telling me he doesn't feel safe out there, then there's something wrong.

Genuinely never going back.

Sorry dogtag airsoft in Crawley, unimpressed.

I'll cross that one off the list then!

 

[Ian Bru]

I'd like to thank the 2 members of the opposite team that revived me at Team Black Thistle in Dunragit yesterday!

Mistaking me for one of their own, they took their hits well afterwards.

 

[Egon_247]

I'll cross that one off the list then!

Both my boys did airsoft with me, the youngest gave up because of an uncontrolled twat at dogtag. 

The eldest hasn't even unpacked his pews yet and that's usually the first thing he does, unpacked, cleaned and ready to rock.

I get it, you have bad days with anything you do but this was a bit much.

 

[Impulse]

Well that was one day of airsoft that I don't want to repeat. 

By lunchtime I'd packed my gear up and was no longer shooting as the locals appeared to be made from Teflon and were impervious to hits. 

Play was stopped after some numpty threw a LOG over a wall, shouting grenade and nigh on knocked some poor unsuspecting bloke out. ?

I laid 15 rounds into a guy (3 shot bursts) every single one bouncing off him, including a few off his noggin with a marshal watching and nothing. Nada.

To prevent fatalities I gave up. Went back to the safe zone and grabbed a coffee.

The Marshalls couldn't give two shits if you complained..unless you were a regular. 

If a 13 year old comes back to the safe zone telling me he doesn't feel safe out there, then there's something wrong.

Genuinely never going back.

Sorry dogtag airsoft in Crawley, unimpressed.

Ok, so before I say how my game day went... what the hell? Like, that is one of the worst things I've ever heard at an airsoft event, and I used to play in Spain in the late 2000s when there were no sites, no rules, no health and safety and we never did anything as stupid as throwing a goddamn log over a wall! I will say that of all the sites down near me (Driver Wood, Worthing Airsoft, Southdown and Dogtag), Dogtag is the only one that I've been to that I will never make any effort to go back to as my experience of it, while not as bad as yours, was pretty awful.

Anyway, for me today at Worthing Airsoft was simultaneously glorious and horrible conditions for sniping with my lovely gas guns; schroedinger's airsoft?

I brought my m700 and mk12 MWS with me today as those were the guns I was planning on bringing to Shift Your RIFTs next weekend and wanted to make sure they were working well. Weirdest thing with my m700 was that the scope was off and all my shots were going to the right. Easily fixed by... rotating the rear scope ring 180 degrees? So now my lovely 3.5-25x56mm overkill scope is nice and straight again, but having one scope ring with the bolt one side and the other with the bolt the other side is doing my head in a little, but I can suffer the asymmetric nature of it since it's shooting lovely and straight now. The mk12 MWS is not coming with me to Shift Your RIFTs because it was not happy hopping .45s, even at 2.32J which seems to be their DMR limit; it was only going to be a backup gun anyway, so I'll just swap it out for my m14 scout instead. I plan on using the m700 anyway, and that was shooting like a dream, so no drama there.

In terms of the gameplay, I only played in the morning. Lately my heart has been acting up (the symptoms are very light at least), so I didn't get as much sleep as I would've liked last night as it kept me up until 2am. I went out with the m700 and it was glorious. The weather was amazing! 18 - 20 degrees all day, barely any wind and lots of sun. Perfect airsoft weather! The thing that made the conditions horrible was just how much Worthing Airsoft has bushed up. Using anything with an MED right now is just difficult and a lot of the site is just impractical with a 30m radius of "no shoot". It's even more bushy than last year and it gets more bushy with every year it seems because it's largely uncontrolled. We have a lot more bushes sprouting up everywhere and it's making sight lines impossible, especially when firing from prone as I tend to do when sniping. I still managed to get into a spot where eventually one of the marshalls just told the enemy team where I was and I got hosed, because I was singlehandedly stopping them advancing through one part of the site. I almost ran out of ammo, and with 4 mags with me that never happens at a skirmish day as I'm very disciplined with my shots (still only about 100 total as each mag is about 25rds, but I tend to only shoot if I know I'll hit). Very pleased with the new belt kit setup and extremely pleased with how well my new £97 ghillie cape and boonie setup worked. Taking that next weekend for sure!

All in all, very good day. Would've played the whole day, but I was pretty tired and I needed to make sure the m700 was shooting well (only fixed the off-centre scope after lunch) and had to test the MWS, which was lucky I did or I would've taken that to Shift Your RIFTs and it would've been dead weight. I need to pick up some .43s for it at some point, but I just don't want to spend the money yet.

Looking forward to Shift Your RIFTs next weekend. This was weekend #1 of 5 consecutive weekends as I have Worthing game days every 2 weeks, and in between I have Shift Your RIFTs and a Vietnam filmsim weekend. Roll on next weekend, and I hope the weather holds out!

 

[Colin Allen]

Both my boys did airsoft with me, the youngest gave up because of an uncontrolled twat at dogtag. 

The eldest hasn't even unpacked his pews yet and that's usually the first thing he does, unpacked, cleaned and ready to rock.

I get it, you have bad days with anything you do but this was a bit much.

Dogtag does seem to have something of a reputation.  Hopefully, it hasn't put your eldest off.  My eldest used to play, but gave up because of frustration over non hit taking and rule breaking.  A few years later, a friend of his persuaded him to try Dogtag; he left at lunchtime and has not played since, although he has started making noises about possibly giving it another try.

 

 

[Cannonfodder]

Well that was one day of airsoft that I don't want to repeat. 

By lunchtime I'd packed my gear up and was no longer shooting as the locals appeared to be made from Teflon and were impervious to hits. 

Play was stopped after some numpty threw a LOG over a wall, shouting grenade and nigh on knocked some poor unsuspecting bloke out. ?

I laid 15 rounds into a guy (3 shot bursts) every single one bouncing off him, including a few off his noggin with a marshal watching and nothing. Nada.

To prevent fatalities I gave up. Went back to the safe zone and grabbed a coffee.

The Marshalls couldn't give two shits if you complained..unless you were a regular. 

If a 13 year old comes back to the safe zone telling me he doesn't feel safe out there, then there's something wrong.

Genuinely never going back.

Sorry dogtag airsoft in Crawley, unimpressed.

Wow. Definitely sounds like one to avoid, I'm guessing things like this are the reason it was called dogshite in many faceache groups

 

[Egon_247]

Dogtag does seem to have something of a reputation.  Hopefully, it hasn't put your eldest off.  My eldest used to play, but gave up because of frustration over non hit taking and rule breaking.  A few years later, a friend of his persuaded him to try Dogtag; he left at lunchtime and has not played since, although he has started making noises about possibly giving it another try.

 

Hope he does, it's awesome dad/son stuff and parenting is hard enough at the best of Times!! He's just got out of the shower and has shown me some of the dints he's got. 

I didn't know about it's reputation. Seems fair though.

Wow. Definitely sounds like one to avoid, I'm guessing things like this are the reason it was called dogshite in many faceache groups

Didn't know this either. ??

We will soldier on. 

The boy is too good to not get back on the horse, lock n load and raaaaa into the distance ???

 

[Cannonfodder]

We will soldier on. 

The boy is too good to not get back on the horse, lock n load and raaaaa into the distance ???

Good for him. I say treat it as a learning experience and vote with your wallet by playing elsewhere 

 

[Tackle]

Good for him. I say treat it as a learning experience and vote with your wallet by playing elsewhere 

Agree, never understood why anybody would stick with a shite site that's full of cheaters ?...............

Unless of course it suits their playing style ?

 

[Colin Allen]

Hope he does, it's awesome dad/son stuff and parenting is hard enough at the best of Times!!

I doubt that he will; I am not sure when he would find time with his army reserve and cadet instructor commitments and often working weekends (He was at the Etihad today looking after the rigging for the flying camera that he installed yesterday and will dismantle tomorrow).  His younger brother plays regularly when he is down from university.

Good for him. I say treat it as a learning experience and vote with your wallet by playing elsewhere

Agreed; that is why I will never go back to certain sites.

 

[Skullchewer]

Saturday a bunch of us went to a filmsim day at Gunman Eversley Alpha.

I'd never been before, but most of my group had, several times. 

It was a very fun experience. 

The site is approximately 66 acres, with various POIs, like small village areas, "the wall" which is like the front of a Fort, bunkers etc, but for the most part it is tracks between very dense, very tall rhododendron bushes. Like 15 feet high bushes EVERYWHERE. 

So, you have two options:

Walk the paths and end up potentially blundering into a firefight.

Or.

Crouch/ crawl through the less dense parts, sneaking around a lot. 

We mostly opted for the latter, with great results. 

The main objectives of the day were the three bomb sites, with the usual bomb devices that can be captured by a team and then start counting off how long they've been held by that team. 

Only the designated team engineers, four per side, can capture the bombs.

Medic rules were a two minute bleed out, but anyone can medic you in with a 10 count within that 2 minutes. 

You can crawl to a friendly to be mediced, but if you're shot again during the crawl you're dead.

I had a really fun day, this being the first time I've played anywhere other than Red Alert in a couple of years, and the incredibly dense foliage, with high humidity, lead to a very strategic, slow paced and sneaky day, interspersed with moments of utter chaos as fans met shit. 

I was REALLY glad I put my camelback on my rig again!

Marshaling was great, the brief was short, to the point and well presented.

The on site kitchen did EXCELLENT burgers at a very reasonable price. 

Apparently Gunman Alpha only runs once a month, doing these special events on a Saturday, while their Beta site, just around the corner,  is the usual Sunday skirmish.

I'll definitely be going along next month for another filmsim day, although I need to borrow some stuff as it's a nam event, with kit restrictions. 

If you're close enough to Eversley I'd check them out. 

And then Sunday I marshalled at Red Alert as usual. 

Bloody lovely day, great sun, only one incident of "he's not taking his hits!" (He was).

We had a father and son who usually play at another, infamous, site come try red alert, and they had a great time, though I think they were surprised by the rules ?

I joined in one game in the morning, but all the crouch walking through the bushes on Saturday had taken its toll on my right achilles tendon, so I went back to marshaling.

The ankle is strapped up today. Nothing too bad, but better safe than sorry, especially as I'm off to a music festival this weekend. 

So yeah, go to Gunman Eversley (and obviously Red Alert ?)

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[Impulse]

Apparently Gunman Alpha only runs once a month, doing these special events on a Saturday, while their Beta site, just around the corner,  is the usual Sunday skirmish.

I'll definitely be going along next month for another filmsim day, although I need to borrow some stuff as it's a nam event, with kit restrictions. 

I'll be totally unbiased and say "go VC/NVA because it's cheaper and more flexible to get the kit and it's more fun!", totally not because I will be there as VC and I believe Mr. @Tactical Pith Helmet will be as well. At the last one I almost walked across the fields to the Bravo site because I heard airsoft noises in that direction while I was sneaking about. Fortunately I turned back because I also suspected I could've been heading off-site. At least I didn't have any guns on me because I was roleplaying a civvie with a radio so if I did wander off and bump into someone I would't have anything worrying on me  

But yes, I agree with everything you said about Gunman. Top site and top blokes running it.

Also, don't suppose you would know if they had enacted their sniper ban at Eversley yet? I suspect they have done so or will do so soon, as during the summer they tend to have a sniper ban due to lines of sight being restricted (I find it amusing because it's nowhere near as rough as Worthing!). I'll still be bringing my bolt action, but it'd be good to know if I should be setting it for 1.1J or 2.3J.

 

[Skullchewer]

Also, don't suppose you would know if they had enacted their sniper ban at Eversley yet? 

Not yet, but Johnny said it's imminent.

The ferns are getting high, and the rhododendrons are thick, so it needs to happen soon. 

Most of my guys will be US I imagine, but I am VERY tempted to turn up on the day as vc.

Stop reading this, Mark ?

 

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

Yep Mrs TPH and I will be at the next Namsoft, as will @RebelScumI hope?

 

[RebelScum]

Yep Mrs TPH and I will be at the next Namsoft, as will @RebelScumI hope?

Yup.  I'll be there to be shot at by the sneaky VC all day.  The Firebase has had a lot of work done to it since the last 'Nam game, so I'm looking forward to testing out the upgraded fortifications.

@Skullchewer - I'm really glad you enjoyed the game on Saturday.  I was there as well on the blue team and had a cracking game.  Top marks to the lads on the green team that held the mortar pits all morning.  They made our lives so difficult, it was ridiculous - even more so as there were only a few of them hanging on to the timer.  We seemed to get our act together by the afternoon and managed to turn it around, but regardless of the result everyone seemed to have lots of fun, which is what makes these events memorable.

It's worth saying as well that if you like the filmsim genre Gunman hosts all sorts of games at filmsim.co.uk, including Nam and Cold War, although I have to say the highlight for me this year was the "Outer Rim" game a few weeks ago on May 4th (it's really Star Wars but don't tell Disney ?).  The effort everyone made by everyone was extraordinary.  Courtesy of Chris Thomas Photography these are a couple of pictures from the event, including a Tusken Raider, a hirable Battle Droid and finally me as an Imperial Trooper.  I can't quite bring myself to post pictures of the New Republic Forces as it's all rebel propaganda ?:

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[Cannonfodder]

Is that an Iraqi Fedayeen helmet or do you also cosplay as Dark Helmet?