The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[gavinkempsell]

I got you beat M8, my combats were a 'tad' tight last Sunday.

[Galvatron]

Another great day at RIFT Airsoft's "the Battery" CQB site not far from Stansted Airport.

 

Echoing much of what @Jacob Wright said on the previous page, the session had the expectedly good organisation from the staff. Since the first weekend, they were true to their word about listening to feedback about what worked and didn't work as the site had been updated to balance the games as the initial layout of defences, walkways and barricades did create an imbalance. Now it's much more balanced.

 

It started with a full house of 70 players, split evenly into 2 teams - later in the day, a few players left ahead of the scheduled end of game play but the teams were rebalanced. As he mentioned, pre-emptive and suppressive firing aren't allowed so players wouldn't be discouraged from pushing forward. Doors were opened up by marshals during the day to mix things up and present more avenues of attack and defence. Similarly, lighting can be turned off in alternating or all rooms to change the style of play further so having a gun/body-mounted torch is recommended. The timing and variety with the missions was good as there was enough to be engaged without anything feeling repetitive.

 

The host was clear in pointing out not to argue with opposing players if they didn't call their hits, just report it to a marshal and they'll judge accordingly. It made for a lot less bickering and actually some fairer play as I recall one marshal disagreeing with a shooter's claim he hit the opponent but the marshal had a clear view of this not being the case - the same marshal instructed another player later in the day to call a hit, giving him the benefit of the doubt that he may not have felt it on his plate carrier but the marshal saw the hit on him.

 

There was a raffle with 2 prizes available. 1st prize was a Lancer Tactical (LT-35 if memory serves but it was definitely an ARP9 style AEG) and 2nd was a Raven EU18 GBB pistol.

 

It's a shame that it will be gone in about a year's time but I'm glad I had the chance to play a few times there. I heard a few players had travelled at least 3 hours to play and the Battery lived up (or surpassed) their expectations.

 

[Colin Allen]

Today was a return to Airsoft Plantation in Essex, one of my regular sites.  I had not been since they improved the already very good safe zone; there is now a third large covered area, with table space for a lot more players.

Fewer players were present than usual, possibly because of the rather poor weather forecast which turned out to inaccurate.

During the safety brief, the site owner stated that the day would be more like naval warfare.  AP can be a trifle damp underfoot; today, some parts of it were completely flooded, with the plane at the DEA base looking like it had just crashed into a lake.

 

In order to give the open areas a chance to dry out a bit, we started off in the wood, with a two stage fallback game.  As the defenders, we had two lives, one at the ridge line and one between the kill house and the wobbly bridge stream.  The attackers, who had infinite regens on a marshal, had to get a bomb runner with a smoke grenade to, firstly, the Land Rover and, secondly, the wobbly bridge.  The teams seemed somewhat imbalanced, with our team having a number of less experienced players.  However, we fought hard at the ridge line, slowing down the enemy attack as they entered the woods and tried to push forward; communication was excellent, with our players calling out enemy movements.  After being hit on the ridge line, I fell back to take up a position on our extreme right by the wobbly bridge stream, along with a few other players.  The enemy pushed hard on our left flank, but we stayed where we were, anticipating a thrust in our area.  They became bogged down in vicinity of the Land Rover/kill house, which delayed them badly.  Seeking a new route, a group of them moved towards our position on our right, resulting in a sprawling fight, during which we were inevitably overcome, each having only one life left.  Eventually, an enemy thrust from the left of the field got their bomb runner to the bridge and the game ended.

After a pleasingly short break to mag up, the game was reversed; we soon discovered why the enemy's attack had bogged down despite having infinite regens.  Movement through the muddy woods was difficult and the defenders were able to use the plentiful cover to slow down the advance.  However, after trying several different routes and approaches, we broke through their centre and, despite being held up by a few players positioned around the Land Rover and the kill house, eventually got the first bomb to the Land Rover.  We pushed on quickly, partly because a lot of enemy players seemed to have used up both of their lives, and a final push saw our bomb runner set off the second bomb on the wobbly bridge.

Over two long, hard fought games, our time was approximately one minute quicker than that of our opponents.

We then moved into the village for another game where we were the defenders.  Ten players were issued with yellow armbands; initially, they were to fight alongside us but, once hit, they had to remain where they were until captured by the enemy.  They were then taken to the enemy's regen, where they became enemy players.  In addition, one of them knew the location of a bell in one of the buildings; the attackers had to set this off to win.  We had two lives in the village and its environs, while the attackers had infinite regens on the firebreak.

This was a hard fought game with lots of small firefights as the attackers tried to break into the village suburbs.  Initially, I was in some bushes watching a track the enemy were likely to use; noticing enemy players moving to my right, I engaged them.  Turning back to the track, I was surprised to find an enemy player shooting at me at fairly close range as I had not felt any hits; I shot back, hitting him, whereupon he became very salty about me allegedly not taking my hits.  Immediately after, I was hit from behind.  Pulling back into the village, I took up position with a few others in one of the buildings; we fought off attacks from several directions before I was hit and went back to the safe zone.

After lunch, that game was turned around; we decided to attack from several directions.  I was with the group that went for the far left of the village; it was a hard fight through the scrubland, being repeatedly hit as we slowly wore down the enemy and pushed towards the village itself.  At one point, we were pinned down on the edge of the village by players in a two storey structure, but eventually managed to dislodge them, breaking into the village alongside our colleagues to our right and setting off the bell.

Again, the times were close, but we were quicker by a few minutes.

After this game, I decided to leave as I had things that needed doing.

It was a good day's play with well designed and well marshalled games and great play from both sides.

 Having played for three consecutive weekends, I am not playing for the next two; we have rehearsals next weekend and, the following weekend, are headlining the Sunday night of a small festival in Cardigan, which seems to be beyond where proper roads end.

Weapons used:
Classic Army HK33
Classic Army HK53
ASG Commander XP18 CO2

 

Edited February 11 by Colin Allen

[Impulse]

I had a more genuine sniper experience yesterday at Worthing Airsoft than I think I've had in a while. We played a long, multiple objective game in the morning, as they have the past few game days and I've been enjoying this, and I took up a position overwatching a pathway with my KJW m40a5. I lay in position for about 2 hours, watching movements in the distance and not shooting at all as my team pushed up to the checkpoint in front of my position, so I decided to get up and move because I was getting cold lying in the dirt. As soon as I pushed up, everyone on my team in front of me and around me got hit and I decided to go back to my previous position. Last hour of the game I went through all 3 of my mags holding that path, as it then got very busy. Had to pick my shots, because in cold weather the cooldown effect of my gas magazines is amplified and if I shoot too quickly the power will plummet. It's an interesting complication, but I would much rather it get warmer so my rifle performs to its best!

 

I think the only thing that could've made the experience more genuine is if nobody pushed up the path the whole game and also if I pissed myself and had to lie in it, but fortunately that didn't happen 😂

 

Didn't play in the afternoon. Only had 5 hours sleep the previous night and with my current diet and exercise regime that is about half of what I should be getting, so I was really tired and I wasn't that bothered with dealing with the cooldown challenges of my rifle all day. Once my m14 socom is sorted I'll probably use that until it warms up a little, but most of my collection are gas guns and will have similar issues at the moment.

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

On 11/02/2024 at 21:54, Colin Allen said:

Fewer players were present than usual, possibly because of the rather poor weather forecast which turned out to inaccurate.

During the safety brief, the site owner stated that the day would be more like naval warfare.  AP can be a trifle damp underfoot; today, some parts of it were completely flooded, with the plane at the DEA base looking like it had just crashed into a lake.

Our Sunday game was cancelled due to flooding.  The site at Necton was only usable if you had an aqualung.  

 

Glad others got a game in!

[Colin Allen]

11 hours ago, Tactical Pith Helmet said:

Our Sunday game was cancelled due to flooding.  The site at Necton was only usable if you had an aqualung.  

 

Glad others got a game in!

HPA users would have been ok.

[DanBow]

Played another half day today and actually managed nearly all of it! There was only12 of us with 4 or 5 first timers but it was a really good day. They first timers were all young teenagers so it took them the 1st game to realise that it doesn't hurt when you get shot. Standard attack/defend games were played and by the time I had had enough there were some very good tactical manoeuvres emerging with fantastic comms being shouted.

 

Pics below . . .

 

 

That's my eldest daughter. Another proud father moment.

[ParHunter]

I played at DogTag down in West Sussex on Saturday. My son conscripted 5 of his friends to join us and at the end of the game they were already checking out deals for IFs (talking about growing the game).

 

The turnout was better than expected with mainly rentals and a few experienced players.

I felt like I was cheating. In one game I didn’t have to move at all as my pickings were so plentiful. I was sitting in a bush with a sniper hood and a camouflaged tuned Krytac overlooking a little valley to a place the other team had to come through to reach the objective. They looked in my direction and couldn’t understand where the BBs were coming from. I was out of reach of their rental guns so yes it really felt like cheating. 

I prefer a mix with more experienced players but hey it was fun!

[Impulse]

I took a trip down to not-Worthing for once and headed to Dogtag today with a whole host of Worthing regulars (I know @Badgerlicious is on this forum and he was also there, but I don't think any of the others are); always good to get out to a new site with the boys, especially since due to team balance I usually put myself on the other team from them at Worthing so we're not all on one side and just stomp. Most of us had never been to Dogtag, so we were experiencing the site for the first time, myself included. Therefore I will give the most balanced overview as I can on how it went.

 

We rolled up early to make sure we got a table under some cover, as the forecast was a bit confusing. Said it could've rained all morning, so we wanted to make sure our kit was under a roof. We got there pretty early, but some of our guys had got there earlier and we took some tables down the end of the safe zone. Pretty much as soon as we got there, the rain started easing off massively to the point where it flat out stopped raining as we were getting our stuff ready, which was really nice. However, first issue I had was the m14 wasn't feeding properly, so I'll have to give it back to the tech and ask him to fix that (hopefully he won't charge me too much because I haven't actually used it since I got it back from him). Good thing I brought the m700 as well, as I swapped over to that, the mac11 and the mk23; my go-to "I can sort of do everything" sniper setup. Ummed and aahh'd about whether I wanted to ghillie up and decided to, which proved to be the best decision I made all day, but more on that later. We got through chrono and eventually got out to our first game, a rolling assault from a fort type base all the way to the other side of the site. Apparently we were playing on the paintball site as the airsoft zones were being rented to a private paintball event, but this worked heavily in my favour as I had sight lines for days, and with the weather being warmer my m700 was performing flawlessly.

 

So first game. I took a concealed position in a fallen tree and got some lovely long shots, but as I ran out of ammo in my first mag, by this point they had managed to push up close, so I... went to ground. This is why running the ghillie was the best decision I made all day, as I had enemy players taking cover on the other side of the fallen tree shooting over my head as my team mates were returning fire, a hail of BBs about 1 - 2m above my head. To be clear, my ghillies are capes, I don't like running the all-over bush suits because they snag when I'm crawling and I just don't like them, so while parts of me were ghillied, there was a lot of MARPAT visible with how I was sitting. I had turned around, facing the same way as the enemy team ready to shoot them in the back, but... this is where my first criticism of the day comes in. Hit taking was laughably bad. I shot 6 people in the back with the mk23 after they pushed just past me, all separate instances as I was only picking isolated people off so I wouldn't give away my position, but the longest shot was about 20m, shortest was about 5m. None of them took the hit, not even the 5m guy. Fortunately, none of them saw me either, not even the group having a conversation on the path with 2 of them looking in my direction. The adrenaline high from these moments is one of the reasons I do the whole sniper thing. Spent the rest of the game following the enemy team, but breaking off to the opposite flank to where their spawn was as I didn't want to spawn camp them, so I just made people who went on the other flank very, very confused by shooting them in the back. Towards the end of the game it pushed into a very thick bushy area and as I was planning on going in with the mk23 to continue harassing them, I realised one of my mac11 magazines was missing, so I retraced my steps and eventually found it, but the game was over before I did, so I headed back to the safe zone. This is where my 2nd annoyance comes in; going back to safe zone after each game, especially with how boggy that path was. One of the guys in our group aptly described it as "it's like the Somme" because of how wet and boggy and horrible that path was.

 

Anyway, after a longer-than-it-needed-to-be trip back to the safe zone, we went back out and swapped over, so we were now attacking. We pushed pretty well, clearing the first few fields quite quickly, but then got bogged down in a large open field and the bushy bit after it so we didn't complete it. I heard a lot of people grumbling about hit taking here, but this wasn't the worst part. The worst part was there was a guy on defense who kept going out of bounds to retake ground and shoot everyone in the back. He did it on multiple occasions through this game and eventually got thrown off the site after it was caught on camera and shown to the marshalls, so good on the marshalls for actually sorting that out. Apparently the guy is a regular and well-known for doing this kind of stuff and has a youtube channel where he uploads videos of him doing it. Would've said good on him if he did what I did in the first game where nobody found him, but he got caught red-handed sneaking out of bounds and then coming back in, so yeah. Cheating, caught and called out, dealt with, done.

 

Then we broke for lunch and I didn't want to pay £5 for a burger, so I just made sure my kit was all good. It was at this point I realised I had lost one of my m700 magazines, so that's a neat £50 down the drain. Going to need to get that replaced as I can't run 2 magazines really. 50 shots is just not enough (in total, they're about 25 each!). Bugger. I'm trying to not spend too much, but that's something I can't just ignore since I use my gas m40a5 and m700 all the time.

 

We then went out after lunch and did an attack and defend at the fort area we started the rolling assaults from. Defenders had 3 lives (one in the first field, one in the 2nd field and one in the fort itself) and attackers had infinite. We started on the attacking team and I didn't really get too much done, partially because the sun was out (which was lovely) but since it's still February it was fairly low in the sky and I couldn't see anything with it glaring in my face. A few lovely shots, but the wind had picked up and I was noticing my shots curving hard. Shot in another direction to make sure it isn't my hop up coming loose and going to one side and it definitely wasn't, as the shot with where I thought the wind was going went incredibly straight. We then swapped sides immediately without going back to the safe zone, which made me rather happy. I elected to take a relatively far back position after refilling my mags and went through most of one mag with some lovely shots again. It's been a while since I played at a site with long sight lines (basically, last time I went to Driver Wood because Worthing isn't good for snipers with all the coppices around) and it was great to let my m700 do its thing. Eventually got hit by a spray where I don't think they knew exactly where I was, but shot enough in my direction where one hit my cheek, so I headed back behind my team and used my first respawn, lying prone behind a barricade watching a flank and an opening to the field. Went through my 2nd mag here with some long shots which made me happy and when the game was called, I stood up and waved at all the people who were trying to work out where I even was. Gas sniper rifles are deadly quiet and I love them for it!

 

That's where I called it, as I was starting to feel very tired and needed to work out how I was going to pack all my stuff away, as well as change out of my very wet and very muddy kit so I didn't get back into my friend's car with muddy trousers on his seats. There were a few games after I stopped, a team deathmatch in the super open field, swapping sides, and then a zombies game at the end. I'm going to ache tomorrow with all the walking and crawling I've done, but I did enjoy myself a lot. Will I go back? Maybe. If the lads are going, I'll tag along, but I won't make an effort to get back. Worthing and Driver Wood (once I get a car, hopefully this year), will be my main sites for skirmish, as I enjoy myself at those two sites more and they seem to have less issues. I think my day would've been worse if we actually played in the airsoft fields, funnily enough, as some of those looked very questionable for me running my bolt action rifle; the paintball sites were really good for my bolt action, however!

 

So, TL:DR pros and cons...

Pros:

+ I had fun, and at the end of the day that's the main thing that matters

+ Marshalls were friendly and did act on a cheater. Could've done more on the hit calling, but with how few they were it's hard to police. They can't be everywhere

+ Even though we used the paintball sites, the games were good and they flowed well.

 

Cons:

- Laughable hit-calling that wasn't really addressed

- Needed more marshalls for the number of players and size of the site

- £5 burger (I know having a burger included with walk-on is a nicety at Worthing, but I'm willing to spend on a burger. Just not £5 for what it was...)

 

Pros and cons that the site wasn't responsible for:

+ Weather was amazing. 14 - 15 celcius, low wind for the mostpart and sun was out. It was great!

- Out-of-bounds clickbait youtube cheater (not the site's fault because they dealt with it and sent him home)

- Lost a £50 gas rifle magazine 😢 

- Almost lost another £50 gas SMG magazine 😌

- Goggles fogged a bunch because the site was incredibly wet and humid, while the temperature was pretty good

- M14 didn't work 😠 

 

Overall, it exceeded my expectations, but my expectations were very low as I'd heard a lot of bad things regarding Dogtag. Some of it is definitely justified, but I still had fun doing my thing. Now I'm going to ache tomorrow and my washing machine is going to have a task ahead of it once I muster up the willpower to unpack my bags  

 

Also, we had a team photo. I'm the tall bush on the left who isn't in a 360 degree bush suit (and showing way more forehead than I usually do as the balaclava wasn't done up properly at this point!)

 

Edited February 18 by Impulse

[JimFromHorsham]

I was there for the morning session  , wet but fun , and saw you guys mooching about , a very full auto heavy morning which I can only put down to some questionable hit taking on both sides so folk seemed to be ramping up the bb slinging .but nice not to see any real aggro first hand because of it , the out of bounds stuff seemed to be more of a problem than usual and I think that was more poor communication between the Marshalls , we watched one tell half a dozen guys they were out of bounds only for a follow up group to be told oh actually your good to go . 
 

no pics of me today , just a snap of the gun , a G&G Sr300 with a bit of spice inside which performed very well indeed

 

 

 

 

[Skara]

Took the ak out for a spin today.

Performed really well except for:

Hop up, I need to slightly shave the rubber piece between the arm and tensioner as it was overhopping 0.32s without any hop applied;

Mags, back then I had bought a few Cyma 5.56 flash mags, some fed flawlessly, others didn't feed at all;

Stock, as much as I like the looks of the triangle, I think I will replace it with something else to give me room for adjustment (a touch too long length of pull for my liking).

 

Game wise... Let's just not talk about it 😔 mags being iffy made me reluctant to push and play as I usually do. Or maybe I just had a bad day, sometimes it happens.

 

 

[The_Lord_Poncho]

15 hours ago, Impulse said:

I took a trip down to not-Worthing for once and headed to Dogtag today with a whole host of Worthing regulars

 

 

 

Good read! I started off at Dogtag a few years back but haven't been there for at least two years - Driver Wood is my regular site - it's closer to my home, and I just enjoy the way it is run - much tighter and a little more professional. But....I am heading back to Dogtag in a fortnights time - taking a load a scouts as its a little cheaper for a rental package, and just a bit easier all round for a group to book. It will be interesting to see how it compares to Driver Wood now that I'm a bit more experienced in the game (and will no longer be outranged by everyone without a rental G36)- must admit that I am looking forward to a little change in scenery!

Edited February 19 by The_Lord_Poncho

[Colin Allen]

35 minutes ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

 

Good read! I started off at Dogtag a few years back but haven't been there for at least two years - Driver Wood is my regular site - it's closer to my home, and I just enjoy the way it is run - much tighter and a little more professional. But....I am heading back to Dogtag in a fortnights time - taking a load a scouts as its a little cheaper for a rental package, and just a bit easier all round for a group to book. It will be interesting to see how it compares to Driver Wood now that I'm a bit more experienced in the game (and will no longer be outranged by everyone without a rental G36)- must admit that I am looking forward to a little change in scenery!

I keep intending to try these two sites, but they are just a bit too far away for a skirmish day when there are so many closer sites.

[oddjob]

did my first nvg night game and it was a mix for me.

 

i was trying to get used to using the things and managed to get in to the first objective. seems i got put with the "elite". 

Some guy in front was looking about and then said you IR is on so looked on the nods and it said IR off. i replied its saying off.

the response from him "its fucking on i can fucking see it" 

 

alright mate jheez. 

decided to move off and see the other location

wasn't getting on with the nods but carried on till turn around.

 

started the game moved up to the location till 3 guys got wiped in front

fell back and the nightmare hit, eye pro took a whack from a branch enough to break the arm. (gutted)

get them on temp and moved to safe zone. 

had to change the setup and go with a balaclava and goggles.

nvg was set to these so drop that.

 

got back in and didn't have a clue what was happening. team was going off and had scattered.

decided to tuck in and just pot shot the objective.

 

game  ended and we moved on to building clearance.

this point i knew where i wanted to be and got to the location to defend and stuck it out.

i enjoyed that as i was holding a couple of guys back and using the torch to blind them.

got a hit and moved to respawn and then returned to get team killed.

managed to hold the team back before game over

 

we turned it around and attacked

game we well and we pushed passed the last team game.

 

the night was interesting to say the least but a learning curve.

 

A little annoyed with the comment and the glasses breaking but is what it is.

 

 

 

[Emergencychimps]

1 hour ago, oddjob said:

Seems i got put with the "elite". 

Some guy in front was looking about and then said you IR is on so looked on the nods and it said IR off. i replied its saying off.

the response from him "its fucking on i can fucking see it" 

 

alright mate jheez. 

 

A little annoyed with the comment and the glasses breaking but is what it is.

 

 

 

 

That elite guy was me.... certainly wouldn't describe myself as "elite". 

 

1. Pretty sure I only used the word fucking once (I could be wrong, it wasn't a part of the evening that was memorable for me). Apologies that it upset you. 

 

2. I told you for your benefit, not mine. That little ir light onboard is just about useable indoors, outdoors all it is pretty useless other than having a shining light on your head to tell the enemy where you are.....like a target. You'd have zero chance of sneaking round on anyone with it on. 

 

3. Telling you, disadvantaged me. I could have not told you and you then could have been a nice early warning system for when we were under attack by being the first person to get hit when the expected attack started. By you knowing an turning it off, it  meant that was less likely to be the case and upped my chances of being the first target. 

 

4. Telling you exposed my position more, by making me move each time I spoke to you, talking at an above whisper volume etc. It was already quite an exposed spot. I knew that the guys in the other team are pretty darn good. 

 

If I'm such an elite/elistest person, why tell you? And when you responded that that it was off, why would I tell you it's on, if its off? 

 

All of the above aside, I am genuinely sorry that something I did took the shine off of an otherwise good evening for you. I was trying to help and obviously it didn't land well, it wasn't the way it was intended. 

 

I've been using night vision for airsoft for around 10 years now. Check out this video (from about halfway through) with some good suggestions on how to get more comfortable with yours. It's weird but shooting is only a small bit of using them. 

If you'd like, more than happy to meet up and do some practice bits and pieces, chat through gear, practice etc using your nods out of a game environment. Just DM me if this is of interest. 

 

[Impulse]

Was back at Worthing for a cold one this weekend. We had to leave very early because the guy who gives us a lift was asked to help sort the car park, which is usually pandemonium, as it was going to be a very busy, very fully booked day today. He says it's the last time as they really need to get a marshall to sort it out, as he used to do it when he was a marshall, but stepped away from it a year or so ago so that he can play more as he's getting older. Anyway, I wasn't sure if he was bringing his grandson along, but knew he was bringing the wet weather kit, so I only took one rifle bag today (well, two, but one was going to a tech), as I didn't want to take up too much space in the car. This meant that the m700 came along, as it's my favourite gun and I was still riding off the high of last weekend when the weather was nice. This was potentially a mistake, but I'm undecided on it. Also, the reason it was fully booked was because it was one of the ongoing narrative game days, which is a bit like a blend of skirmish and filmsim. There were two teams, traditional cartel and another not-cartel who work with the government, but there was also a third element out today which was a press crew; two guys in press gear with two guys and a ghillie sniper as protection. They only fired if fired upon, or if the marshalls told them to shoot at one team that was doing too well, and when hit they would go down to a knee for 30 seconds before getting back in the game.

 

After standing around the safe zone for a long time because we arrived at 7:30am (left my house at 6:45am, and the other two were closer to 6:30am), we went out into the game. The first issue of the day was here, as with this game everyone who was wearing a loud, Hawaiian style shirt were put on the cartel team. The issue here is that a LOT of the regulars came in costume and so the teams weren't very well balanced. Me and my friend were on the not-cartel team and it was going decently for about 30 mins. Our team pushed forward and were doing well. However, then when people got hit and respawned back in, they stopped pushing up. I very quickly found myself as the front line, which with a bolt action sniper rifle wasn't the best. Manged to stay hidden and pick people off, including the leader of the enemy cartel, but eventually I had to fall back because the pressure was getting high and I was starting to get surrounded. Moved back to another position and dug in, but again I quickly found myself being the front line again. One guy on the other team ran up and killed off about 6 of my team who were just huddled behind a building doing nothing and while I took him and another who pushed up out with my mk23, I was eventually overrun by more players as I was alone again. It felt a bit like I was pushing a stone up a hill as none of my team seemed to be doing much. Headed back to respawn and even though by this point there was only a few mins left, I went back to try and cause some havoc. Crawled up behind a low layer of foliage, using it to screen my advance along a flank and taking out the enemy player watching that flank (I love how quiet the m700 is...) and managed to get into a position where I managed to take three more players out with the mk23. However, at this point the morning was over and it was lunch time. Our team had zero objectives and the enemy team had crushed just about all of their ones. The game continued after lunch, but I can't comment too much on that as I decided to not play the afternoon. The forecast was wet and running a gas m700 in this temperature is already enough of a challenge, so I packed up. Was definitely the correct choice to get my wet kit off and put my warm kit and waterproof jacket on, as the wind picked up and it started to rain, getting heavier over time. Definitely did not want to play in that today. I heard that the not-cartel team continued to get their asses kicked through the afternoon.

 

However, that was generally my only criticism with how the game was run; the team balance was horribly off. Outside of this, the game was well thought out and was fun to play and while frustrating at times, I still had fun. The multi-objective, full-site gameplay was good and I way prefer these sorts of games to the simple attack and defend type games that are prevalent at skirmish days across the country. Hit calling, from what I saw, was generally pretty good and I only had one instance of a guy very obviously not taking his hits, because I hit him in the face (that was all that was showing!) and watched him recoil back from the shot, but then he just retreated back behind cover. Every other player I shot took their hits and I didn't observe anyone near me not taking theirs, so the sportsmanship was top notch! The issue with players not playing and sitting about 90m away from the other team and trying to shoot at them is just an inevitable part of airsoft, but they were almost all on one team today and that team got royally thrashed  

 

The other issue was my gun. When the weather is this cold, the gas bolt actions just... drop in power. With every shot. Which throws your hop up setting off. It was a pain in the backside trying to adjust for it and was one of the contributing factors why I didn't play in the afternoon; I just couldn't be bothered to deal with it any longer. I love my gas m700, but for it to be consistent it needs about 15 celcius. 10 - 12 celcius is okay, but 6 - 7 celcius like today is too low. If it's cold next game day I'm just going to take my SR-25 and run that.

 

Anyway, I'll leave it there. Amazing day that was only marred by poor team balance. Everything else was great!

[Badgerlicious]

I have to post the video of sunday, recorded by our local youtuber Stingray Airsoft. I was one of three PMC's and it was very fun dipping into some roleplay and messing with both sides. 

 

It's a long one but it's excellent. Well worth a watch. 

 

[The_Lord_Poncho]

A great day yesterday at Dog Tag. I took a whole load of rentals there in the morning - who seemed to have a good laugh despite the rental G36's having pretty dodgy performance (the site really does favour guns that can land hits at long range, and the effective range of the rental guns seemed pretty poor to be honest). We played a few fields that I hadn't played on before (the last time I visited the site was a good few years ago now) - possibly due to the waterlogging issues that @Impulse mentioned in his post earlier. During the morning fall back games (attackers have unlimited spawns, defenders only get one life per field and have to fall back to the next once taken out) once again some confusion over people shooting across boundaries from the subsequent fields that weren't yet in play occurred - both the field boundary marking, and the briefing/direction that marshals gave could possibly have been improved upon. No major issue though, and hit taking was good from what I saw. The rental masks that the site issued out to my companions incorporated mesh for the goggle section - which, despite some peoples misgivings, I think makes a lot of sense for a rental. The likelihood of a BB shattering on mesh, and fragments penetrating with enough retained velocity to do harm would seem an awful lot lower than the likelihood of a frustrated kid lifting his rental mask mid game to wipe the fogging out.

 

In the afternoon, the numbers dropped right down to mainly regulars (plus me!) and no rentals at all - 11 per side. And, along with the sun being out for the first time in forever, it was one of the most enjoyable aisofting sessions I've had in a very long time. Game play was great, the games active, and people were talkative and sociable - exactly how airsofting should be. And the old faithful Krytac that I ran post lunch was giving me more BB's on target than the SR25 that was providing my arms a workout in the morning.

Edited March 4 by The_Lord_Poncho

[hitmanNo2]

I did a couple of weekday night games last week.  Thursday evening at South Coast CQB and then Friday evening at Ironsight.

 

First time back at SCCQB for a couple of years.  Cool site for sure. A shame about a few people kicking off with accusations of overshooting.  It seemed that some people hadn't fully grasped that at a night game, it is more important than skirmishing in daylight that you make clear you've been hit with a loud "hit" and putting your arm up.  I saw multiple instances of people doing neither and then having a little hissy fit.  I don't know about everyone else, but I shoot at someone until they make it clear they're hit...

 

Also, shout out to the absolute madlad (and lady) rentals on our team that decided their first airsoft experience would be a night game.  Legends. They seemed to have fun and enjoy the evening.

 

Ironsight.  Again, a cool site.  The rain just about held off until right at the end which was nice.  Excellent hit taking and all round play.  I got some very satisfying kills.  I'm pretty sure I shot someone in the face on the top level of the bus so sorry if that was you and you're reading this ha.   

[Colin Allen]

I had not intended to play airsoft today; I had been planning to visit either Airsoft Plantation or Dragons Lair on Sunday, but the weather forecast intervened, threatening very heavy rain in the southern part of Essex.

Therefore, on Friday afternoon, I decided that I would spend today at Tactical Warfare Airsoft, near Croydon, a site that I last visited with the lad on December 23rd, when we were both impressed with how it had improved.  It has an interestingly varied woodland part with a number of structures, including some in the base of an old pit, and a CQB village.

In the morning, about 42 players were present, a mixture of experienced players, black clad speedybois, who are drawn in by the CQB village, and a large numbers of rentals.

I took three rifles with me; two of which I intended to use.  One was my MPiKM, to which I had fitted a new CYMA gear box as the previous combination of the CYMA body, Begadi hop and LCT gearbox was not a success.  My guess at where the hop should be set turned out to be spot on and it shot like a dream.  I highly recommend the Begadi AK hops to anyone.  Another was my "built from bits" M4, fitted with one of @ak2m4's brushless motors and a Perun Hybrid; this was just along for testing and also shot perfectly.

After the morning rituals, we set off for our first game, which was in the CQB village.  The first thing that struck me was the mud; it was epic!  Then came the realisation that the village had been significantly developed since my last visit, now being far more complex and a lot tighter.  The game was a simple domination, using a card reader in the centre of the village; both sides had 10 cards, each of which could only be read once on each visit to the reader.  Players had infinite regens on their start points.  I found a superb position behind a fence and a bush, which gave me a great view over two of the main routes through the village; I got a huge number of hits, completely cutting off those routes, without getting hit once.  We won the game by an impressive margin as the other team seemed hesitant to push up.

Following this, we wandered off to do an attack/defence game in the Pit.  Defenders had two lives and attackers had infinite regens.  This was a timed game with the end being when the attackers had five players in the building at the base of the Pit.  I started off with a group attacking the plateau on the far side of the Pit and was shot almost immediately by a sniper lurking on the back of the plateau. Returning from regen, i found that our group had taken the plateau and were pushing into the pit, while the other part of the team descended into it from the front.  It took a while to winkle the defenders out of their positions and eventually take control of the building.

This game was then turned around; I usually defend the plateau but, on this occasion, decided to set up on top of the ridge to the side of the Pit, taking advantage of the MPiKM's range and accuracy.  This proved profitable until I attracted the attention of a sniper, who potted me.  I moved to another position slightly further round and had fun taking out attackers until the same sniper got me again.

We won by a reasonable time margin.

Then, it was back to the village for the barrel game, which is a staple of TWA.  The attackers, with infinite regens, had to locate three numbered barrels in the village and get them back to their start point; again, this was a timed game.  We were defending and I had a set of nice duels with enemy before being hit and falling back to a new position, where I was shot by my own side :(.  Being my second hit, i was reduced to being a spectator.

This was then turned around; we recovered all three barrels in a  slightly longer time than the other team.

All of these games were played without returning to the safe zone, which is a nice feature of TWA.

At lunch time, the morning-only players left, leaving both sides significantly reduced; after lunch the teams were rebalanced and we restarted with an interesting game.  Each team had a base in the woods with a smoke grenade wired up to a remotely controlled detonator; two remote controls, one for each team, were hidden in the woods.  The teams had to find their remote, take it back to their base and, hopefully, set off the grenade in the opponent's base; the catch was that each remote had two unmarked buttons, one would set off the grenade in the opponent's base, while the other would set off the one in your own base.  This was a hard fought game with some great firefights, which ended with our opponents setting off the grenade in our base :(.

After this game, a number of players left, leaving us somewhat outnumbered; however, only slightly daunted, we set off to get two flags to the far end of the village from our regen at the Police Station; we had infinite regens and the defenders had one life each.  This proved to be a bit of a struggle, but we eventually cleared them out.

In the reverse of the game, I started on the right of the village, intercepting a lot of attackers and forcing them to go back to their regen, before being potted.

After rebalancing the teams again, we ended up with a game around Badger Base; each team, with infinite regens, had to ensure that they had a player or players in the dugout at the end of the game,  In the first iteration, we played from my favourite end and I had great fun taking out enemy players; however, they held the dugout at the end.

This was then turned around, with one of our players diving into the dugout just before the whistle went.

As in the morning, all the afternoon games were played without returning to the safe zone.

Overall, it was a rather good, well organised day of airsoft.  There were a few niggles about hit taking involving a handful of players, which got a bit salty at one point, but this was handled well by the marshals.

Guns used:
Morning: CYMA MPiKM
Afternoon: Golden Eagle AMD 65
ASG Commander XP18 (CO2)

Edited March 10 by Colin Allen

[Shamal]

Had an exhausting day at the ucap bunkers Portsmouth today.

 

My bb attraction device was set on hi and performed faultlessly hence many facial injuries but it's my choice not to wear full face protection so can't moan. Well I did anyway just for effect😂

 

The hunny badger,which has never let me down did! First shot through chrono and it made a strange whirring noise when trigger pulled so I'm thinking a gear stripped of teeth?

 

I managed to catch a bb in my mouth which nearly stripped my teeth!

It hit my bottom lip and as my mouth opened to say 'FUCK,' Mr bb carried right on in! It did make a mess of my lip though☹️

 

Anyway game play was intense and fast paced despite my efforts to slow it down. I racked up 6 good clean kills,two friendly hits and half a dozen disputed hits.

 

Overall game etiquette was great and there was no nastiness at all. The marshalls did a great job of being everywhere at all times and directing game play which helped keep the games flowing nicely.

Thanks to all staff👍

 

Went home hurt but happy 😊

[gavinkempsell]

Did a morning stint at POW near Falkirk, Was in the red team (holding up the rear as usual), on the attack and my first time using a GBBR, the XM177 performed well despite the cold, only miss behaving  after around 4 mags but I'm claiming a couple of kills from the 1st game & respawned about 3 times which us about par for me. Used the respawns to reload & discovered I'd much rather use a small reloader for the gas mags as the odin adaptor didn't seat very well without a thump. I honestly don't know if we won the game but the yellows were down to only a couple of players & we were all shooting at one sniper as far as I could make out as the game ended (I'll assume the bomb was planted).

Second game were were defending our '88s' and TBH this is one game we've played a few times while I was in attendance so I felt comfortable planting my arse behind a barrier in ambush mode (decided to use an L85 aeg for this game with a few highcaps), in my experience the first flag is often captured fairly quickly but not on this occasion the reds covering it held out for a good portion of the game, meanwhile a few sneaky yellows tried to capture our flag but were held off to the bitter end. Game was called off due to a 'mandown' but I don't think this was far from the end of time anyway so lets call it a draw. Pretty sure I got 1 kill & 1 possible (the sneaky yellow was getting shot at from a few of us) & no respawns.

 

Took my...

Scar-H gbbr, it hated the cold so wasn't used

XM177 gbbr, worked pretty well, locked open a few times due to the cold but felt good in game

L85A1 aeg(with dd rail), forgot to reattach the bipod (DOH!) but had good range and accuracy, the SUSAT was limiting on zoom but fine without it applied

L85 carbine aeg, plan B, but didn't need it as all my other pews passed the crono test

Mk18 aeg, just wanted to see how it felt in game but it only left the boot of my car to crono

 

& collected my Honeybadger from the local tech, all my pews are now under my roof again but where the hell will I put it?

 

Will deffo wait for the warmer weather before I take my gbbr's out again (basically 1 week in July here in sunny Scotland)

[Badgerlicious]

32 minutes ago, Shamal said:

Had an exhausting day at the ucap bunkers Portsmouth today.

 

The bunker is such a great site, played it at a couple of private games, must get down there for a regular gameday at some point. 

 

A slightly unbalanced day at worthing, the marshals did move people around between games, so it's not for lack of trying. Just the way it is sometimes I guess. But the rain held off, so that's good. Some fun games though. One where we got to pick a base, then had to collect items, move them to our chosen base, then run them down the site to the banker, who was armed with a minigun to keep the non-banking riff raff away. Our team ended up cutting their team off from the lower half of the map by taking a notoriously hard to push corner of the map. Some changes are needed but I hope it returns, it was a very fun game, and I always love big games that let you solve things creatively. 

 

Also today, I had a newly modded gun (LCT VSS) that actually worked first time for once! Gosh it's been a while since something just worked. Since it has the AK hop unit, it kind of works its way down through the day, which is a bit annoying but hopefully solvable. However I was trying out the maple leaf gbb/aeg hybrid bucking today with a crazy jet barrel and I gotta say it performs very nicely. Even with the hop slowly turning off, the bbs flew straight and true, very nice and consistent. My shorter barrel with 3D printed spacer also worked very nicely, no collisions with the built in spacer at the very end of the suppressor at all. And my modifications to my ghillie seemed to work very nicely. I managed to jump scare a couple of people, and that's always fun :0

[Colin Allen]

30 minutes ago, gavinkempsell said:

Took my...

Scar-H gbbr, it hated the cold so wasn't used

XM177 gbbr, worked pretty well, locked open a few times due to the cold but felt good in game

L85A1 aeg(with dd rail), forgot to reattach the bipod (DOH!) but had good range and accuracy, the SUSAT was limiting on zoom but fine without it applied

L85 carbine aeg, plan B, but didn't need it as all my other pews passed the crono test

Mk18 aeg, just wanted to see how it felt in game but it only left the boot of my car to crono

Crikey!  I felt that taking three was too much of a faff!

1 hour ago, Shamal said:

Had an exhausting day at the ucap bunkers Portsmouth today.

 

My bb attraction device was set on hi and performed faultlessly hence many facial injuries but it's my choice not to wear full face protection so can't moan. Well I did anyway just for effect😂

 

The hunny badger,which has never let me down did! First shot through chrono and it made a strange whirring noise when trigger pulled so I'm thinking a gear stripped of teeth?

 

I managed to catch a bb in my mouth which nearly stripped my teeth!

It hit my bottom lip and as my mouth opened to say 'FUCK,' Mr bb carried right on in! It did make a mess of my lip though☹️

 

Anyway game play was intense and fast paced despite my efforts to slow it down. I racked up 6 good clean kills,two friendly hits and half a dozen disputed hits.

 

Overall game etiquette was great and there was no nastiness at all. The marshalls did a great job of being everywhere at all times and directing game play which helped keep the games flowing nicely.

Thanks to all staff👍

 

Went home hurt but happy 😊

If it was the Ares, it was probably the back of the piston breaking off; their pistons are notorious for doing it.

Edited March 10 by Colin Allen

[gavinkempsell]

2 minutes ago, Colin Allen said:

Crikey!  I felt that taking three was too much of a faff!

It wasn't too bad thb, 4m to the car the 4m back into the house, I usually take about 3 but wanted to air the gbbr's the L85 carbine was the only one I knew would pass the crono if the rest didn't.