The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[Keldon]

20 hours ago, Cannonfodder said:

So after months of life getting in the way, today I managed to get to South Herts Airsoft just south of Hemel Hempstead. Despite getting royally buggered by the gods of public transport it was a really good day. The site is well run with a relaxed atmosphere and an emphasis on making sure you got a decent amount of game time but without feeling like you're being rushed. The games themselves were well thought out and worked well with both the layout of the site and the numbers (they were fully booked but had a number of last minute cancellations, total was 23 iirc). Hit taking was also really good with no "wtf?" moments.

 

On site facilities weren't great (portaloos and tables under gazebos) but they're still a new site and are planning on making changes so I can't really fault them there. They also had a selection of drinks for sale and Combat UK were there with bbs, gas and pyros for sale.

 

All in all I think I've found my new regular site 

Thats my new local too, let me know when you are going next. If im able to i can pick you up for the last part of the journey. 

[Cannonfodder]

 

3 minutes ago, Keldon said:

Thats my new local too, let me know when you are going next. If im able to i can pick you up for the last part of the journey. 

Thanks, it won't be till the new year though as I'm working every weekend in December 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Cannonfodder

[RostokMcSpoons]

Special Ops are going to have one more skirmish (Dec 2) and will then go on hiatus as Carlos builds up his new CQB site (which he hopes to open early Feb) ... so I might well feel the need for a new site to visit.  South Herts sounds like a good stop-gap


Good day on Sunday... well not personally I got killed a little too often, I didn't get many clean or memorable kills, and my left knee occasionally hurts like a bastard, as I exacerbated a football injury.  
But it ended better than it started... the last couple of games played in twilight (and then almost total darkness) were really quite fun!

Here's Dan and me before we got muddy

 

(Quite pleased with my gun's camo paint - a video I watched recently said the most important thing was to camo the gun against your own kit.   The colours might be more urban / desert than originally intended, but the overall effect still works well against my multicam)

Edited November 20, 2023 by RostokMcSpoons

[Dan Robinson]

Oooh look we have matching boots 

 

24 minutes ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

I got killed a little too often

 

My new Elcan worked well even though the sights look like they were drawn on with a blunt sharpie; but I managed a record shot for the L85 by getting a dude hiding by the control tent all the way from BBC - he was as surprised as me I tihnk.

 

You and me were more or less equal on death count. LOL

 

Booked my gameday for the 2nd, will volunteer for the following weekend, which gives me a weekend left to get ready to go away for Xmas. 

[Badgerlicious]

It was a good day at Worthing. Glad I went as I was on about 2 hours of sleep. Thankfully I could get a lift, if I'd had to drive myself I'd not have gone. It was a smaller turn out than usual due to it getting colder I presume, but after everyone had warmed up with the first two games the fights got a lot better. TAC was shooting well, even in the wind. I also ran an AAP01 i bought off a mate, barely used, with a couple of extended mags and managed to shutdown some pushes with it. Hop up was finicky to set, but once it was dialed in it performed quite nicely. Definitely looking forward to adding some extras and fine tuning it a bit, I get why people like it so much. It was also the first run of my new mimtech S-RCS ghillie. It was pricey but it's a solid bit of kit with really, really, good colours on the base. For the morning I ran the green side, even though it's still quite green at the site, I think it was a bit bright for the time of year. For the afternoon I ran it on the brown side, which worked out much better. 

 

The first two games were pretty lackluster as @Impulsesaid. No one on our team (yellow) really pushed. I tried at the end of the second game, after we switched sides, with just a pistol but it didn't work out that well 😂I was mostly busy that game landing some nice shots on their players moving up that were peeking over a barricade thinking they were safe.

 

The juggernaut game was a lot of fun. A gaggle of ghillies (5 of us) decided to flank up a path that put us right outside the patrol zone. It was a bit of a waiting game, trying to not be spotted by an LMG wielding marshal, and waiting for the bell that disabled the juggs for 30 seconds to be rung. Fortunately blue team were on it, and managed to ring the bell, unfortunately they were a bit slow on the push, so I managed to get into a good window and just spray into their push while some others on our team grabbed a can. It was first to two cans wins, and blue rung the bell both times 🤣 

 

Next game was standard attack/defence on tower. I got some nice long range hits on people. Accidently youtuber'd it by hitting a guy in the head at 70ish meters. Though if I had a cam I could at least edit out the first two misses before the third one hit and pretend I'm much better than I am 😆 Yellow team did well this time. Took some encouragement but they pushed into tower and we managed the win.

 

After lunch was the highlight for me, other than the jugg game. It was a fallback defense through a few of the bases. The twist being the attackers had to run a stretcher through those bases to claim them as a spawn point. Defenders were on one life with a medic before having to fall back. It started with a real test of my new ghillie, by sitting down in front of a tree in full view of the attacker's spawn. Had to hold still for a few minutes because some dog walkers wandered onto the site and I didn't want to get seen while we were all waiting. I managed to get away with this for a few minutes longer than I expected to, which I will call a success for now. The next point I spent mostly firing shots into the bushes hitting flankers with the aap. Again, loving this thing, it performed admirably, and being able to use my old glock mags is a big plus for a sniper's side arm (lookin' at you WE galaxy). I was hit a couple more times and ended up falling back to sandbag bunker, a notoriously defendable position, while the blues tried to run the stretcher out of tower and past the cross. I don't how long we held this position for, but it must've been close to 30 minutes. I was positioned perfectly behind the bunker to cover multiple barricades they were using to push up, as well as the cross itself. Just landing shot after shot. I don't think I've had that many kills in a single game, ever. They eventually managed to flank an push the last of us out, but that only pushed us back to outpost, which we held for perhaps a further 10 minutes before the game timed out at 55 minutes.

 

Then we switched sides.

 

It was massacre. Yellow team had really stepped up from the morning. We were swift and efficient. Though I was mostly sore and slowly walking with the team picking off the odd player. We finished the game off in a tidy 18 minutes. These are teams that had been fairly well balanced all day, so it was a pretty big win for us.

 

The finale was a quick game of zombies. mostly a laugh, but I want to highlight my friend who flipped his autumn version of the mimtech ghillie to the brown side, totally uncrafted, and I watched two pretty competent regulars run right past him, within a couple feet, because the colouring on that thing is so spot on to the damp autumn ground leaves. 

 

The mim & tech ghillie is great. Really solid base with excellent colours. You can really get away with lightly crafting it at longer ranges. I don't think mine is quite up to "getting stepped on" quality yet, but with a bit of time and a bit more crafting I'm certain I can get that without it being too bulky. And now I've got two ghillies in one that should work throughout the year. I should've gotten more pics, but here's a couple of my lightly crafted s-rcs

[gavinkempsell]

No pewing for me, was all paid up but I decided not to play on Sunday, got a few reasons but mainly coz my backs been giving me jip lately and we're getting too close to the silly season at work for me to be injuring myself (I'm a butcher).

How's the front grip working out Dan? & dude you need a proper elcan, stick that one on an AR.

[Dan Robinson]

3 hours ago, gavinkempsell said:

How's the front grip working out Dan? & dude you need a proper elcan, stick that one on an AR.

 

The grip is nice and comfy,  but I'm not smitten with the looks.   The Elcan is a compromise too, but it has better eye relief than my previous show even if the reticule is a bit "Fisher Price" 😁.

 

 

3 hours ago, gavinkempsell said:

silly season at work for me to be injuring myself (I'm a butcher).

 

You wanna try being a Heating engineer this time of year....  nation is populated by a bunch of entitled wimps who think their 6.month old baby is worried about a broken boiler.  🤬

Edited November 21, 2023 by Dan Robinson

[RostokMcSpoons]

2 hours ago, gavinkempsell said:

No pewing for me, was all paid up but I decided not to play on Sunday, got a few reasons but mainly coz my backs been giving me jip lately and we're getting too close to the silly season at work for me to be injuring myself (I'm a butcher).

How's the front grip working out Dan? & dude you need a proper elcan, stick that one on an AR.

 

I man-handled his pew-pew (yub-yub etc)

 

The grip (and perhaps also the weight of the Elcan) do a good job of neutralising the normal rearward weight bias of the L85, so it's ergonomic, even if the looks are, as Dan says, a bit... off?

 

Somewhat 'inappropriate' foregrips are nothing new though, apparently...

 

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by RostokMcSpoons

[gavinkempsell]

1 hour ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

Somewhat 'inappropriate' foregrips are nothing new though, apparently...

The pic is misleading, that's simply a grip that's fallen off & been shoved in the wrong hole... it's an L85 after all.

[Dan Robinson]

20 minutes ago, gavinkempsell said:

The pic is misleading, that's simply a grip that's fallen off & been shoved in the wrong hole... it's an L85 after all.

 

So there's another squad member whose just had his pistol grip half inched, and is running around Iraq like a speedyboi speedsoft wanker.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Dan Robinson

[Cannonfodder]

10 hours ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

Somewhat 'inappropriate' foregrips are nothing new though, apparently...

They're definitely not.  This is part of the IWM display of counter terrorism stuff.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Cannonfodder
Better photo

[DanBow]

Although the game I am about to tell you about was 4 weeks ago, I'm only just emotionally able to tell you about it.

 

The day started well, even though it was quite a nice day it has been raining for about a week so was very wet and muddy. My 3rd time playing, with a newly acquired Valken ASL M4 bb slinger with a red dot that needs sighting in, and my daughters (18) 1st time, using rental gear. I was resplendent in DPM pants and an original Norwegian top from my T.A. days and my daughter was looking very menacing in dark blue jean type things and a DPM top. We both had DeltaMike face pro and clear lens eye pro. First game was, for her, an introduction to the addiction that we call airsoft. It went well, she followed my lead and we made some good progress pushing forward on the objective. We both had some hits and took some hits but I could tell early on that the addiction already had its expensive hooks in her! 

The 2nd game, which is the reverse of the first, is where my story really begins.

We, with a couple of others, had formed a team and were coming around the left flank when we started being picked off by a ghillie clad sniper who had entrenched himself in the reasonably dense foliage. My daughter and I were left creeping through the undergrowth to flush him out. As we passed by a fallen tree, you know the ones that lift the whole root structure with it creating a hollow underneath, the sniper got my girl!! I quickly ducked into the hollow of the root just in time to see the green shadowy figure passing no more than 6 foot away. Luckily, he didn't see me in the depths and was soon out of the game. He didn't seem to happy but I didn't care as it was a really good play.

As we were making our way to the respawn point, I was showing my girl which way to go, I slipped. I slipped and landed, with all my body weight, on my left shin, on a log that was lying on the ground! I don't know if any of you have broken a bone but even though I hadn't, I just knew that something was very wrong. Cease Fire was shouted, as was the call for a medic. I couldn't move! I was on all fours in the mud! Well, sort of all 3s as I couldn't move my left leg! The site staff and 2 of the guys on my team were amazing. It wasn't long before I was sat on jackets to get me out of the mud, leg was padded as well as could be and an ambulance was called. 

The ambulance was going to be a couple of hours so I was stretchered out of the mud and down to the safe zone so that the rest of the players could play. I know that a broken leg is low priority but I waited 8 hours for the ambulance, then waited another 10 hours in the local A&E to be seen! Not the fault of the staff but the system! The system is fucked! Once I was seen, the care and attention was incredible. I was painkillered up, once I had been triaged, and operated on the next day. A steel bar through the length of my tibia with bolts holding the broken bits together were fitted and about 3 months off work is required. 

Has it dampened my enthusiasm to get back out there and play? Has it buggery! I can't bloody wait to get back out there!

[EDcase]

Sorry to hear. Hope you're on the mend.  These things happen from time to time but its not much consolation when it happens to you.

[Jacob Wright]

Best wishes for your recovery and I hope you can get back up and on your feet soon!

[Dan Robinson]

37 minutes ago, DanBow said:

Although the game I am about to tell you about was 4 weeks ago, I'm only just emotionally able to tell you about it.

 

The day started well, even though it was quite a nice day it has been raining for about a week so was very wet and muddy. My 3rd time playing, with a newly acquired Valken ASL M4 bb slinger with a red dot that needs sighting in, and my daughters (18) 1st time, using rental gear. I was resplendent in DPM pants and an original Norwegian top from my T.A. days and my daughter was looking very menacing in dark blue jean type things and a DPM top. We both had DeltaMike face pro and clear lens eye pro. First game was, for her, an introduction to the addiction that we call airsoft. It went well, she followed my lead and we made some good progress pushing forward on the objective. We both had some hits and took some hits but I could tell early on that the addiction already had its expensive hooks in her! 

The 2nd game, which is the reverse of the first, is where my story really begins.

We, with a couple of others, had formed a team and were coming around the left flank when we started being picked off by a ghillie clad sniper who had entrenched himself in the reasonably dense foliage. My daughter and I were left creeping through the undergrowth to flush him out. As we passed by a fallen tree, you know the ones that lift the whole root structure with it creating a hollow underneath, the sniper got my girl!! I quickly ducked into the hollow of the root just in time to see the green shadowy figure passing no more than 6 foot away. Luckily, he didn't see me in the depths and was soon out of the game. He didn't seem to happy but I didn't care as it was a really good play.

As we were making our way to the respawn point, I was showing my girl which way to go, I slipped. I slipped and landed, with all my body weight, on my left shin, on a log that was lying on the ground! I don't know if any of you have broken a bone but even though I hadn't, I just knew that something was very wrong. Cease Fire was shouted, as was the call for a medic. I couldn't move! I was on all fours in the mud! Well, sort of all 3s as I couldn't move my left leg! The site staff and 2 of the guys on my team were amazing. It wasn't long before I was sat on jackets to get me out of the mud, leg was padded as well as could be and an ambulance was called. 

The ambulance was going to be a couple of hours so I was stretchered out of the mud and down to the safe zone so that the rest of the players could play. I know that a broken leg is low priority but I waited 8 hours for the ambulance, then waited another 10 hours in the local A&E to be seen! Not the fault of the staff but the system! The system is fucked! Once I was seen, the care and attention was incredible. I was painkillered up, once I had been triaged, and operated on the next day. A steel bar through the length of my tibia with bolts holding the broken bits together were fitted and about 3 months off work is required. 

Has it dampened my enthusiasm to get back out there and play? Has it buggery! I can't bloody wait to get back out there!

 

Sounds awful!  Hope you get better soon, and it hasn't put your lass off.

 

8 hours is terrible by any standard let alone another 10.

[Cannonfodder]

Sorry to hear your story and I hope you recover quickly

[DanBow]

1 hour ago, Dan Robinson said:

 

Sounds awful!  Hope you get better soon, and it hasn't put your lass off.

 

She's already told me that she is going back on her first day off and using my gear! Lol

[Dan Robinson]

10 minutes ago, DanBow said:

 

She's already told me that she is going back on her first day off and using my gear! Lol

Savage LOL

[DanBow]

9 minutes ago, Dan Robinson said:

Savage LOL

 

Yep, that's my girl. She is a definitely a mini-me! Lol

[RostokMcSpoons]

2 hours ago, DanBow said:

 

She's already told me that she is going back on her first day off and using my gear! Lol

 

This is of course fantastic news - it means twice the level of Gun Acquisition Syndrome to be satiated - the family arsenal should end up being enormous!

 

All the best for your recovery, and I hope you enjoy many skirmishes together in the future 🥂

[Colin Allen]

Wow!  What an unfortunate accident to have, especially for a fellow Norgie wearer.  I hope you make a more rapid recovery than predicted and get back to playing again in the new year.

It seems that your lass has the right spirit!

[gavinkempsell]

Holy shit, wish you a speedy recovery. Every cloud 'n' all that... XMAS OFF!

 

makes me think my decision was spot on as I'm a big fecker to carry out of a wood, they'd end up rolling me 80m to the safe zone.

Edited November 21, 2023 by gavinkempsell

[Skara]

You got lucky, when I broke my ankle (literally ssssssploded) the ambulance took me to the second nearest hospital where the surgeon told me I would have been operated in three days ('twas a Saturday so I was due on Monday).

Then I got moved to my town's hospital where the surgeon told me that if I didn't have lunch he would have opened me instantly -.-

 

So I waited until Monday anyway ffs..

[Colin Allen]

Today saw a return to Splatoon in Essex; this is a relatively small site, which is mostly used for paintball with twice monthly airsoft events, alongside occasional police firearms training sessions.  It has a range of wooded areas with different types of cover in each, as well as an open area with a helicopter at each end, assorted cars and lots of container buildings.  It also has a very good safe zone with endless tea and coffee for £1 and is one of the few sites that provides a vegetarian option for lunch.

I had arranged to meet up with my old airsoft buddies, the father and son team of Andy and George, who I had not played alongside since before Covid as they usually play in deepest Kent and I tend to play in Essex.

At chrono, my ARX160 was running very low but still slinging BBs a ridiculous distance, so I decided to use it for the morning anyway; the VZ58 was used after lunch.

The day started off with a long fallback game; as the attackers, we had infinite regens on a marshal, while the attackers had one life in each of two wooded areas and the two halves of the open area.  Getting into the first wooded area is always difficult as it requires the attackers to run across the front of the defenders; we took a lot of hits and got quite badly held up for a while.  However, after massing for a charge, we broke into the area and fought our way through it, eventually declaring it clear and being relieved to find that we had not missed any defenders as each missed player adds 30 seconds to the time.  Having cleared that area, we pressed on into the next one, which fell rather rapidly.  Next, we had to break into the first part of the container field, which is tricky as the entry is quite restricted and under file from the defenders.  Eventually, we pushed in and reached the first helicopter, which provides the first bit of cover.  From there, we slowly pushed the enemy back; the three of us were mostly pushing along the right flank, clearing defenders from behind various cars, the edge of the woods and several containers.  Once that half of the field was cleared, we had to get one player to the grey helicopter at the far end of the final area.  This proved tricky as the area is well set up for defence, so we wore the enemy down before charging the helicopter led by one of our largest players, who managed to get his hands on it.

After a quick break to mag up, the game was reversed; despite hard fought defences of each area, the enemy achieved their objectives somewhat more rapidly than we had managed.

This was followed by a simple domination game with regens on fixed locations; three spinners are located across the site and the teams have to turn the spinner so that their colour is facing upward.  Initially, most of our team headed toward the container village, securing the spinner there.  However, news came through that the enemy were in control of the other two spinners, so a group of us set out to assist our colleagues in the central area of the field.  We took the spinner and pushed the enemy back; despite several counter attacks, we kept them at bay until the end of the game, while our colleagues in the container village held on to their spinner quite handily.

Next came a game where the attacking team had to get a bomb to one of the helicopters and then to the other one; they could choose the order in which they did this.  In the first stage, attackers had infinite regens, while defenders had three lives; once the first helicopter had been bombed, everyone was on one life.  At this point it became obvious that some of our opponents were related to Usain Bolt, as they reached their first helicopter ridiculously quickly.  However, we made it much harder for them in the second half and they failed to reach the second helicopter.

On turning this game around, Usain Bolt's relatives again came to the fore, reaching both helicopters and locking them down before we could get there.  Once they worked out that the black helicopter was our first target, we did not have a chance of reaching it and could not switch to attack the other helicopter as the team carrying the bomb had to drop it where they were hit, which was near the black helicopter.  However, we had a good firefight before the game ended.

It was a good day, with some excellent play from both sides.

Weapons used:
Umarex (S&T) ARX160
Ares VZ58
Cybergun 1911 Railgun

[Jacob Wright]

Had a great day at Gunman Tuddenham on Sunday, which will probably be our final outing for the year 🎄

 

Played a nice mixture of attack and defence skirmish games, through the forest village and concrete hut areas. We felt that the amount of cover available to the attackers had increased since we last played here which was nice to see. I'm not the biggest fan of CQB but forgot how much fun it is creeping about the concrete huts taking advantage of the lines of sight through multiple buildings!

 

We didn't experience any non hit taking, and there were lots of calls of a good nature 'nice shot' etc... , but the marshals did pull everyone in for a moan after one of the village games so maybe there was some in another area.

 

The only downside was having to scrape my car in the morning, and the sole battery for my MP5 dying in the last 10 minutes so not much of a point walking back and grabbing my other rifle - will by another battery before next time!