The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[Jacob Wright]

First day out in a couple of months today, got to Combat Airsoft in Thetford. 
 

Not a bad day at all, was on my own but bumped into an old work colleague. Didn’t hear a single complaint from anyone all day, the games didn’t stagnate, and everything seemed to work!

[SheriffHD]

Disappointed with my game today - headed to imperium in Kent.

I'm used to games started at 9 so a 10am start had me anxious to get going but by the time they got players  to the spawn and the objectives set up it was almost 11.

Unfortunately I had to end my day at lunch as didn't feel too well but will have to go back again and see if I get a better experience.

[Tackle]

13 minutes ago, SheriffHD said:

Disappointed with my game today - headed to imperium in Kent.

I'm used to games started at 9 so a 10am start had me anxious to get going but by the time they got players  to the spawn and the objectives set up it was almost 11.

Unfortunately I had to end my day at lunch as didn't feel too well but will have to go back again and see if I get a better experience.

Imperium is a site I've been keen to try, but is this kinda thing normal there ?, if so I'll give it a swerve, wasting time hanging around when we should be playing is one of my pet hates I've experienced at some sites.

[SheriffHD]

10 minutes ago, Tackle said:

Imperium is a site I've been keen to try, but is this kinda thing normal there ?, if so I'll give it a swerve, wasting time hanging around when we should be playing is one of my pet hates I've experienced at some sites.

It was my first time here so I can't say friend invited me to try this site as it's his local them ditched me due to injuries so was forced to go solo.

 

I would try it again but yeah almost a hour delay to start the game on an already expensive day rate does leave a sour taste in my mouth 

[ghostwalker]

started poorly.

Filled my water bladder and found it was leaking.

Grabbed my clone ms3 sling to fit to my mtw and realised the main clip had snapped.

 

Changed everything over to run my g3 as a dmr and swapped water bladders and headed off.

 

Games were fairly dominant to the point of silly. Even with a team shake up after game 2 as there really was that much disparity in teams (attack/defend game with a good 15 minutes difference in times).

Some good long range shots a few grrrrs and a bit of bad language after getting a double tap to the temple from probably 10 foot away. No excuses, i was in the open and upright so go figure.

 

But not a bad day for a site i have fairly mediocre expectations from usually.

 

Now to find a decent quality sling that i can trust as its mostly for use on my mtw forged rif with vortex sights. So a few extra quid is going to be worth paying

[gavinkempsell]

5 hours ago, JinxDuh said:

On the positive though

Good God man... try not to fart in your sleep, you'll prolapse.

[Impulse]

I went out to Gunman Eversley Alpha this weekend for a weekend of shooting GIs in the 'Nam. We set off on the Friday to get there nice and early and set up our camp compound. The guy who drives us all up there and introduced us to 'Namsoft loves his glamping, so we are always very well stocked. A bit of a squeeze this time as his grandson was with us as well, so we were four people instead of three and therefore needed a 2nd tent as we couldn't all fit in the one. We managed to get everything packed in and got there 2nd out of everyone. Another pair was there when we arrived and were setting up, but were setting up away from where we usually like to camp, so we claimed our corner and set up the tents, gazebo, literal kitchen etc. I was a little worried, as my heart was playing up a lot a few weeks ago, but it had been quiet since the Tuesday before last, so I made the decision to go along. Also, the guy driving couldn't play due to tendonitis in his hips (but he still wanted to go as he loves his camping and wanted to see the familiar faces), so we were down to three during the gameplay. He did get out there though as a civilian to help Josh with some objective placements and stuff. Friday night I found it difficult getting to sleep due to anxiety around my heart, but eventually got to sleep without any issues.

 

Anyway, first day was... slow. I headed out with my new PPS Kar98 set up for 1J on .32s and we were put with the main squads to go and put up some observation posts. It's not usually how we play, as our little group does our best work when we're a bit more independent and just focus on making the lives of the GIs hell, but we went along with it to avoid conflict and also help show our new addition around and get him used to the 'Nam. He's only 12 and only started playing airsoft recently, so it was a very different experience for him from normal skirmish and we wanted to make sure he didn't get overwhelmed.

 

Our first little sortie went... pretty poorly. I think part of this was that Josh said it would be game on in 5 mins after the brief, but it probably took closer to 20 - 25 mins for the NVA/VC team to get out to our respawn and go through our objectives and how we wanted to do them. We didn't get too far outside of our base before we got attacked by two separate groups of Americans (well, one was the Aussies, one was the Americans). My friend tried to sneak into one of the many thick bushes just ahead of us, but as he did so a third American team popped around the corner and him also being armed with a Kar98 was not the best weapon to engage a whole squad, so he dived for cover but got hit. He managed to crawl over to me (as you can crawl to a teammate in these filmsim events), so I medic'd him back in. We took a couple of the Americans down, but there were way too many of them and the firepower was overwhelming. I managed to take a few out with the Kar98 and as it's fairly silent they couldn't pinpoint my location. One guy definitely ignored the hit I put on him, but outside of that I put non-hit taking down to them being fairly long distance shots while they were moving and I think we've all been there; a single shot at long distance so the impact isn't massive is easy to not feel when you're moving about. The rest of the group tried to move on the flank and my friend eventually got hit again by the m60 on the hill that had been medic'd back in as well. I held down in the bushes until my friend's bleedout, as the dogtags I hated from last year's game made a return and I didn't want to abandon his to be collected by the US for a free point. I think that the US thought it was just him there and were trying to mop up the other squad to our left before coming to collect the dogtag, as I managed to scoot out of there and link up with the other squad higher up in the valley without much trouble. We kept going around until we got to the first observation point and set up to defend it as we had to hold them for 15 mins to score. We held our ground, but eventually got attacked by one US unit who managed to sneak through the ferns onto a flank. We managed to repel them though and eventually got reinforcements to push them back and around to the other side of the valley. I got left behind somewhat, but linked up with a few others and we also pushed up, however only four of us (me, my friend, my other friend's grandson and another VC guy) went to the next observation post. However, it was fairly quiet around the mortar pit, so we placed it down and dug into the bushes. No US forces came across us, so it was an easy 15 minute hold to set it up. We then lost the other VC guy (no idea where he went!) so the three of us pushed to the fort as it was a central location and we thought we could do some damage from there. It was fairly quiet, but one of the special forces teams did walk right by us while we hid in the bushes; one of them even looked directly at us and my friend's grandson was standing up! Either he didn't want to get shot as we all had guns trained on them, or they actually didn't see us because their whole team walked past us. In hindsight, we should've shot them all as they passed, but we let them pass instead to stay undetected.

 

We then discussed our next plan of action and when I left the bushes to go do that... they didn't follow, so I was left by myself. Apparently they had gone to the gate of the fort and held there, while I went around the back and had to Metal Gear Solid my way through another three whole US teams; one of 5, one of 10(!) and one of 4, as with the Kar98 there was no way in hell I could engage. Well, I could, but I'd probably just give the US troops a free point as they'd likely take me out with BB spam into the bushes and take my dogtag. Managed to sneak by all three teams undetected, despite wearing all black and sticking out like a sore thumb; who needs a ghillie to stay hidden, eh?

 

I finally made it back to our base and called it a day there. It was about 2:30pm, so another 1hr 30 mins left of Saturday's game, but I was exhausted after having to sneak my way across half the site. The results of the Saturday was 58 points to the NVA/VC against the 42 points to the US/ARVN, so a win for the NVA on the first day put us in a good place. Saturday night I also managed to sleep decently well, though I did wake up in the middle of the night and was short of breath, but when I put my little heart rate monitor on it was reading very normal so it was purely anxiety around it acting up and not actually acting up.

 

Didn't play on the Sunday. My friend had a chest infection and a really bad back so he couldn't move much and my other friend still had tendonitis in his hips as that doesn't just go away over night. His grandson was too tired to play and I really wasn't feeling it, so we instead had breakfast and then took a couple of hours to dismantle the compound. NVA/VC handled business on Sunday and won handily, culminating in a battle that pushed the Americans out of their base and had the NVA/VC closing in on them on all sides. The NVA managed to set up their anti-tank weapons, which was their main objective, and Josh said to us it was probably better that we didn't play as it could've been very oppressive for the US/ARVN players if our group of 4 was also out there causing mayhem.

 

So, what was good? Everyone there was playing in the spirit of the game. Lots of banter and bad acting on both sides! Also, a new rule where if the US/ARVN harassed a civilian and that civilian doesn't have any contraband like intel, a radio or a hidden weapon, then the civilian got a token to give to NVA command. 5 of these tokens was a point for the NVA/VC, so it adds something to disincentivise the US forces from interrogating every civilian player as before there were no negative consequences for them stopping and searching every civilian they found at gunpoint. Also, as usual, peoples kit was great. I'm no stitch counter, so I'm generally fine with inaccurate kit, but everyone at least looked the part which made for some great cinema. It was also good to see @Tactical Pith Helmet (and Mrs. TPH!) again; what a lovely chap that guy is!

 

However, I didn't enjoy it as much as usual. So, why didn't I? Well, the Saturday was incredibly slow for us and we were folded into squads. I felt like I was playing PAVN in black, not VC, and I didn't enjoy that; it definitely felt more on the milsim side of filmsim and I don't enjoy that; I like a bit of silly BB wars in the woods in fancy dress. Also, the dogtag mechanic singlehandedly kills my enjoyment. My usual tactics would just be free points for the US forces, as it's a high risk harassment campaign all weekend that sees me getting shot and every time I get hit there's either nobody or only 1 other person around to stop them getting my dogtag; it's very easy to get overwhelmed, especially with a 1J bolt action. I don't want to be the reason the NVA/VC side loses because my tactics don't tend to score points; it's more indirect scoring as I try to make the US troops fearful and wary of moving about as they could get jumped by a crazy villager with a rifle at any moment! The dogtags very much hamper those efforts, but at least this time it was only one dogtag. Last year it was one dogtag per life which absolutely crippled my way of playing, but one dogtag was enough to dissuade me from my usual harassment tactics. Thirdly, it was the sniper ban. Gunman do a sniper ban during the summer as the ferns grow quite high, but me being a veteran of the sniper hell that is summertime Worthing Airsoft was constantly finding locations where I had great line of sight and wished I had my 2.3J m700 with me. Yes, there are locations that are close in, but that's what my upgraded pistols are for and compared to Worthing Airsoft, Eversley Alpha is incredibly viable for sniping with a 30m MED.

 

I probably won't make the next one in September, as I've got a hospital appointment in a few weeks with cardiology, so I'm likely getting my heart sorted soon (probably in August with the timing of this appointment). This means I'll be on blood thinners in September (as I have to be for a few months afterwards) which will mean no airsoft for me for those months, which will include September if I'm correct about the timings. Got a year to think about how I want to go ahead with Vietnam games in the future, and one potential avenue that we're exploring as a group is putting together an ARVN kit and then asking Josh where he wants us, as we'd have sets for both teams. US/ARVN have been getting hammered for the past 3 years, so it might be time to try and redress the balance by playing a bit of imperialist gameplay. Give the NVA/VC team a real sniper threat to worry about  

[The_Lord_Poncho]

Superb morning at Driver Wood on Sunday   -  a 2.5 hour game, starting just before half nine, and running all the way through to lunch. Its the first time I've been there when they have run that, instead of two nominally one hour games (but which can get eroded through general faffage). As I only ever go for a half day/morning, packing as much play into that time gets my vote.  Quite a fun game concept too - with lots of balloons located all around the playing area at different objectives in the team colours - idea being that you shoot out the enemy team colour balloons, and defend yours.

 

Also I took along my 12 year old daughter for her first taste of airsoft - which she absolutely loved! I managed to give her a heavily curated experience  - generally with us sticking as a pair, and me playing a lot less 'aggressively' than normal (and taking a lot more hits in the process!). She got a few hits herself, including her highlight of taking out a group of five enemy players ten minutes before the end - leaving her absolutely buzzing. I managed to arm her with a fully polymer Specna (even a polymer buffer tube) that I built up from a few parts - super light and the stock can be adjusted pretty short. Shout out to the site shop as well -coming to the rescue and selling her a multicam hoody for just £5 as she didn't have anything suitable in her own wardrobe.

 

 

[simonh]

Went to the farm in Lincoln yesterday for the first time yesterday and apart from some really inconsistent performance from my ICS APE had a great morning, I say morning because into the second game after lunch my son got a call to say his son was being rushed to hospital with a suspected broken leg. We rushed off to pack up and leave, and while doing so were asked why we were leaving and then instantly offered a refund for half the day that we would miss. We declined and we told  that if we came back to mention it on booking and they would only charge us half a day.

 

Just to add a cherry on the top my son posted on the Lincolnshire airsoft page to say how appreciative he was of the gesture and the first response was from the farm team to ask how his son was doing (fine btw thankfully not a serious break).

 

So not only is it a really interesting site to play, it is well run, good game play and pretty decent people running it to, and a second cherry is that it is really reasonably priced for a full game day!

[LMKipper]

14 hours ago, Tackle said:

Imperium is a site I've been keen to try, but is this kinda thing normal there ?, if so I'll give it a swerve, wasting time hanging around when we should be playing is one of my pet hates I've experienced at some sites.

 

I was there and it was a slower start than usual - not really sure why. Brief is always 9:30 for 15ish minutes, then game on at 10ish. 

I think they had less vehicles running, so it took longer to bus everyone to the start with a few round trips.

 

The actual play time ended up around the same as they pushed lunch back, made lunch a little shorter then ran the day a little later. The bigger issue was that the afternoon game was a bit of a stalemate. I was on Blue and it was our objective to recover a downed enemy pilot, then return him for questioning. It was Red's objective to recover him to their FoB, then collect some items from his intel on the other side of the site. Unfortunately, they either never got told the second part of the objective or forgot, so their whole team just hunkered down in the FoB near their regen for two hours making progress impossible.

[Gunboat Diplomat]

On 10/06/2024 at 08:49, The_Lord_Poncho said:

Also I took along my 12 year old daughter for her first taste of airsoft - which she absolutely loved! I managed to give her a heavily curated experience  - generally with us sticking as a pair, and me playing a lot less 'aggressively' than normal (and taking a lot more hits in the process!).

 

Very cool, working towards the same goal with my daughter.  She's keen but anxious so have offered her a day where I chaperone her and act as a meat-shield.  

 

Meanwhile the boy and I had our first game after a hiatus due to other weekend commitments.  Good to be back out in the woods at Spec Ops MK again, I'd forgotten how much fun airsoft is having been distracted by motorbikes and other hobbies this year.  

[The_Lord_Poncho]

52 minutes ago, Gunboat Diplomat said:

Very cool, working towards the same goal with my daughter.  She's keen but anxious so have offered her a day where I chaperone her and act as a meat-shield. 

Yes, it made me very happy that it worked out!  Key work for me was to regulate her exposure to the BBs - keeping her close enough to the 'front line' that she got some fun and action, without pushing too hard and placing her into a hail of plastic. I also worked on her expectations before the game, being honest and letting her know that some hits hurt, others do not - and that the first hits might well be the painful ones, but they wouldn't all be like that. I gave her a bit of a narrative during the game as well to try to bring it alive for her, telling her roughly what was going on, and how we fitted into the bigger picture for our team.

 

2 hours ago, Gunboat Diplomat said:

Meanwhile the boy and I had our first game after a hiatus due to other weekend commitments.  Good to be back out in the woods at Spec Ops MK again, I'd forgotten how much fun airsoft is having been distracted by motorbikes and other hobbies this year.  

 

I had noticed that you had been a bit quiet for a while!

[Cannonfodder]

Another excellent game at South Herts Airsoft today.

 

For a while now once a month SHA have been running a full game day midweek. Numbers were low (12 total) which allowed for some sneaky shenanigans, but with the site being quite small you're not at any risk of wandering around not seeing a soul. Great games and sportsmanship all round, this place is definitely turning into my preferred site and I highly recommend anyone to pay them a visit. At £20 green fees they're a good deal too. 

 

I'd recently put a Maple Leaf hop rubber in my specna arms M4 so wanted to test it out and I'm more than happy with the results. The stock rubber was barely able to lift .28g bbs, but now it's sending them much further and I think it'll easily lift heavier ammo. In the end I ended up using it all day with the MP5K staying in the gun bag.

 

The only downside to the day was the fuck up fairy playing havoc with the trains

Edited June 13 by Cannonfodder

[Gunboat Diplomat]

21 hours ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

Key work for me was to regulate her exposure to the BBs - keeping her close enough to the 'front line' that she got some fun and action, without pushing too hard and placing her into a hail of plastic. I also worked on her expectations before the game, being honest and letting her know that some hits hurt, others do not - and that the first hits might well be the painful ones, but they wouldn't all be like that. I gave her a bit of a narrative during the game as well to try to bring it alive for her, telling her roughly what was going on, and how we fitted into the bigger picture for our team.

Sounds like you did a great job, like you say expectation management is key.  Explained to my daughter that you'll get shot dozens if not hundreds of times and for every 99 shots that you barely feel, much less hurt, there will sometimes be 1 that makes your eyes water.

 

21 hours ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

I had noticed that you had been a bit quiet for a while!

I've been spending rediculous sums of money on other equally superflous hobbies!

[Impulse]

Weekend #5 in a row and while there was a scare for a bit of rain this morning, the weather held out for a lovely sunny day of airsoft. It did rain ever so slightly just before the safety brief, but it was barely noticeable and abated pretty fast. I decided to run my Cyma SR-25 today, though it was only chronoing at 1.73J; I would've liked it to be over 1.8J as the limit is 1.88J, but I wanted to see how it ran anyway. I could hit 75m fairly easily with a bit of angling, but I know when I'm over 1.8J I don't really need to angle it at all, so while it wasn't shooting exactly as I wanted, it was shooting well enough and it was accurate.

 

First game was a long game where one of the marshalls was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and roamed the site. We had to bring stacks of cash to him to swap it for totally-not-flour that we had to carry back to our base in a specific briefcase. I managed to get into a barricade and tuck in close, with good line of sight forward and onto two flanking paths that I knew the enemy team was going to try and use. One thing I will say though is that Worthing Airsoft is worse this year than last year when it comes to being overgrown. There are very few places where using something with an MED is viable, but fortunately my barricade was one such place. Pretty much singlehandedly managed to hold that part of the site for the entire game and only got shot in the last minute when a bunch of yellows rushed up and one saw me, so I had to take him out. Earlier in the game I had yellows taking cover on the other side of the barricade and shooting over me while my friend was further back and shooting over my head to take them out. Good times.

 

After lunch I swapped to my KJW m40a5, as we played a few simple games. 3 base domination where all the bases were around awful positions for 30m MEDs, so I ended up lying down watching a path where I didn't shoot anyone, apart from the yellows trying to come out of what is essentially a woodland killhouse at this time of year that I wasn't going into myself. Had a good line on it to my side with my pistol and took a lot of yellows out there without them working out where I am, despite the 1911 very much being a GBB and making GBB noises when I shot it; it's amazing what you can get away with if you're careful. Eventually got taken out, again near the end of the game, by someone I had previously taken out and he had respawned and come back from the other side, where I thought I would've had some teammates but apparently all the blues were... elsewhere? He was able to just waltz up pretty close without anyone shooting at him anyway. 

 

Then after that we played a king of the hill game at the Tower base; whoever had the most players inside the tower at the end of the game wins. We started on the easier side and I went to one of my usual spots watching the path, since there are very few other places I can go with an MED and this position is pretty strong anyway. Managed to take out a bunch of players down the path, but the yellows kept on coming in behind us and even when I called it out, the players near me were just like "no, those guys are blues and they're dead." I then got shot as I was telling them that no, there were yellows who shot those blues coming in from behind

 

Anyway, had some drama when we swapped it around the other side. Trying to attack it with a bolt action from that side is hilariously difficult, but also I had a run in with the same ghillie player who is constantly causing issues. I can't remember the last time I bumped into him in game where he wasn't either breaking rules or being a general dick across the last year. Going out of bounds, shooting within his MED, spawncamping and headshots are constant with him. Basically, in this game I poked out from behind a barricade to look into the super dense area, full body on show and as I spot him lying down right in front of me and he shoots me in the neck from pretty much point blank with a mk23 that I'm pretty sure he uses heavy ammo in; the distance was maybe 1m? After the game he said it was unintentional, but I simply told him I didn't believe him, since my entire body was on show and he would've had to angle his pistol up to hit me in the neck, plus he had shot me earlier in the day as well with my whole body on show and it was another headshot. I will give people the benefit of the doubt, but when it's every time I start to wonder. The game before this one my friend said he was spawncamping us as well, which I was entirely unsurprised to hear as he does it fairly often, and apparently there were some people who had some nasty bleeders today who got shot by someone with a quiet gun, and I know it wasn't me as the only headshot I did today was a rental on the full face mask (that he didn't take) as that was all that was poking out; every other hit I dished out was a body shot today and hit calling was generally really good, I must say; outside of that one rental, everyone took their hits I found. I'm usually pretty diplomatic and chilled about most things and I've only ever complained about one player before, and surprise surprise it was another ghillie player who now doesn't play at Worthing as I think he got banned after he shot a marshall who was playing that game day in the face at about 10m with his bolt action. Anyway, I spoke to one of the site owners about it and they said they'd keep an eye on him, so that's all I can do. I'm not going to go on a rant on "why are so many ghillie players utter cockwombles?", but it's players like that that make me, someone who has played ghillie since about 2008, really start thinking that I wouldn't be that put off if they were banned across the entire country tomorrow. I love playing in my ghillie, but it seems like decent ghillie players tend to be an exception and not a rule and I start to think if the hobby would be better as a whole without them. We never had these issues back in 2008, not even when I played in Spain; I'd actually say that Spain was better despite there being no sites, no marshalls, no chrono etc, as it was self-governing; if you were a dick or a cheater, you didn't get invited to play. Simple.

 

I finally have a weekend coming up where I won't be playing. I have a lot of guns that need a little tweaking (power on the SR-25, hop up on my mk12 MWS, setting up my G&P m14 that I collected today etc.), but I'm saving those for when I'm on blood thinners and can't play, as hopefully the procedure is coming up soon. However, with just how overgrown Worthing Airsoft is now I think I may ditch the ghillie for now and use a 1.1J gun instead. I think I'll go with my m14 scout or my short MWS for next game day.

[Colin Allen]

On what started out as a bright and sunny morning, the lad and I set off for Airsoft Plantation.  As we got closer, heavy clouds rolled in and rain started.

However, after some heavy rain while we were in the safe zone, the weather was excellent all day.

The first game was a three stage fallback; as the defenders, we had one life at each of the casino, the village and the hill fort, while the attackers had infinite regens on a marshal 30m behind them.  Each stage had a buzzer and, once it was sounded by the attackers, any surviving defenders had to fall back to the next stage.  My involvement in the first stage was rather limited; starting as far forward as possible on the right, I took out several opponents before being hit.  Falling back to the village, I positioned myself in a favourite bush behind the pond and had a great time taking out attackers; I was eventually hit by what was probably a stray shot from a team mate.  At the hill fort, I ducked into my favourite little bunker and held my position there until the game ended when an attacker set off the buzzer in the hill fort.

This game was then reversed.  A group of us sneaked around to the right and broke into the border area, annihilating the defenders to our front and pushing up to near the edge of the village just as the buzzer in the casino was sounded.  Having regrouped, we again pushed forward, passing the pond and starting to move into the village.  At this point, my rifle started misfiring and eventually stopped altogether, so I withdrew to the safe zone to try to work out what was wrong; it turned out to be a broken electrical connector.  Unfortunately, my other rifle only takes a very small battery and I knew it could not last more than half a day, so I sat out the rest of this game and the next one.  Therefore, the lad has provided his commentary:

"I ended up on the right flank shooting into the village, which quickly fell as we were able to push defenders back far enough that a brave rental was able to make a run for the buzzer in the well. After a regroup to allow the defenders to fall back to their new positions defending the hill fort, we were soon off to capture it. After some strong resistance at the fire break, I decided to sneak around the edge of the field via the DEA base and come up behind the defenders and shoot a handful in the back before a blue player was able to get into the hill fort and set off the buzzer, signalling the end of the game.
 

After a break to reload, we played a special Father’s Day version of “Bomb the Jeeps”. 3 father-son/daughter pairs were selected and one pair was designated bomb carriers while the other 2 pairs were designated bomb techs. The aim of this game was to set off a bomb in each of the 4 Jeeps in the mortar pits, the twist being that while most of the attackers had a 30m buddy regen, if either of the special pair were hit, they both had to return to the start point to regen. Once again I flanked around the DEA base along with 2 other players to come out behind the enemy. After the last game they were expecting this and were in considerably better positions to be able to cover the rear of the mortar pits. However, the superior range of the VAL proved itself and I was able to easily pick off targets and exploit the gaps in the defences. One red player in particular seemed particularly surprised to see me emerge from the bushes 10m to his left when only a minute before we had been exchanging fire to his front. Due to the pincer movement, the defence soon crumbled and we were able to take out all the red players, giving the bomb carriers and techs a clear route in to destroy the last Jeep."

After lunch, the bomb runner game was reversed; the lad and I took up positions covering the approach from the DEA base and access to the Bedford.  After a strong initial defence, which delayed the attackers for a considerable time, they started to swamp us; I was hit by a long range shot and fell back to another position, which soon became untenable as our numbers were whittled down.  While bugging out to yet another position, I was shot in the back and my game was over.

Following this, we played a "rescue the VIP game"; the dastardly reds had captured six of our players and were holding them captive in the village; we had to rescue them and get them back to our regen on the firebreak, from where they could join in the attack.  We had infinite regens on the firebreak, while the reds had two lives in the village.  A group of us went on a wide flanking attack, moving towards the village from the far end and taking out defenders as we cautiously moved forwards through the wood.  At one point, a figure came running towards us, shouting "Don't shoot!  I am a VIP!"  He had escaped his captors and was heading as fast as possible for the firebreak so that he could return and take his revenge on them for the indignities that he had suffered at their hands.  Soon after this, the defence collapsed and we liberated the remaining captives.  Hurrah!

The reverse of this game saw both the lad and I ensconced in the village's fuel dump but facing different directions; I was able to cover a large arc of the left front of the village, while the lad covered the right front.  Many foes fell under the accurate fire of the VZ58 before I was hit by a sniper who had worked his way around our flank.  Falling back, I took up a position at the edge of the woods and carried on the fight until I was hit again.

That ended my day; it was an excellent day of airsoft played in a good spirit by a slightly smaller than usual group of players, which meant that there was more room for sneakiness.  The recent plant growth has also really helped those of us who are sneaky.

Weapons used:

Me:
Umarex Beretta ARX 160
Ares VZ58
ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

The lad:
LCT AS VAL
CYMA AK74
ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

[simonh]

Was at the Stan in sheffield for a last minute night game, low-ish numbers which usually means for good gameplay there, basically had a blast and as it got really dark felt a bit like being in a star wars shoot out with all the tracers flying around.

 

Went back there again on sunday for a morning shoot for fathers day, slightly higher numbers but still low for the site, again had lots of fun, the pushback and case games really are a lot of fun and there was minimal non hit taking which is always good.

 

If you've not been to the Stan since it re-opened it really is worth a shot as it is a great site that is well run with generally a good standard of players.

[Skullchewer]

Saturday was another day out for the Red Alert crew, over at Gunman Alpha, for one of their filmsims (I missed the Vietnam one 😕)

Another bloody great day. And when I say that, I want to point out I didn't get a single confirmed kill all day. 

Didn't matter. 

It was such a fun day that I didn't care. We all had a great time. 

There was a minor incident of overkill from another player but it was dealt with. 

I also bumped into @RebelScumwho seems to be a nice bloke.

 

Sunday I was working as usual, and after crawling through the ferns at Gunman all day, then drinking half a bottle of fireball whisky and sleeping on a friend's sofa, I started the day a little delicately. 

But it was a great day, with the only complaint from anyone all day was that it was too hot. 

During the down time I put the bolt back into my MWS, which a mate had taken away to fit a new nozzle on, and do a little work with. 

It's flinging .4s straight as an arrow off into the distance somewhere. Bloody happy!

 

It is tick season, and I found one of the little shits on my in the shower this morning, so be sure to check yourselves after woodland game days.

 

And we did a Pride month shoot on Sunday morning. 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Father's day blast at the Spec Ops CQB site yesterday (or The FirePlace to give it is proper name I think).  My son got me an airsoft combat knife for father's day as he knows I'm partial to a sneaky knife kill, so now I no longer have to tap people on the shoulder, instead I can fumble getting a knife out of a holster, drop it and get shot at point blank instead. 

 

Also fielding my Double Eagle with it's new Guarder SP100 spring and my new ICS XAE pistol.

 

The Eagle had been down on power for a while, hitting around 0.8 joules depending on ammo weight.  With the new spring it was right back up to the joule limit on .25s.  Got through chrono fine, but might invest in one of my own as I want to see if I get any joule creep with my usual .28s.

 

New ICS pistol was pretty solid throughout the day, there is a bit of inconsistency with the hop, but that may settle down as it beds in.  The hop wheel is stiff as a day old corpse though, so making fine adjustments is difficult.  I may strip the hop unit down at some point, but to be honest at typical pistol engagement distances it's good enough.  Easily clears a mag and a bit with a full gas charge and doesn't struggle too much with cool-down, though we were indoors in a roasting hot barn.  Pretty happy with it for £65.

 

We were in the afternoon slot today.  When we arrived there were a group who were there for the full-day plus some other afternoon arrivals.

 

First half of the session was really fast paced, there were a decent number of people (15 to 20 odd) with a mix of experienced players and rentals, the rental players were getting well and truly stuck in alongside the more experienced players so it was a real hail-storm of BBs.  Hit taking was mostly pretty good, I had to tap a couple of people more than once but overall everyone played along.  Had some solid trades during the day at near point blank range so have some good welts to record my visit.

 

As the day wore on some of those who had been there since the morning started to thin out.  Before departing a couple of guys let me waste a ton of their ammo trying out their TM AKM and HPA-tapped Saiga 12 SBS (didn't get their names, but if you are on these boards then cheers!).  My first try of anything from the TM stables and despite reading up on their general high quality, it instantly becomes apparent how slick they are once you use one.  

 

Close of the day saw only 7 of us left, which to be frank I thought would be crap, but on the contrary it was the most fun of the day.  We ran a mix of 1v1 and 1v+1 (when someone dies they can bring back an extra person from respawn until the entire team is wiped out) games and then a couple of rounds of defend and hold, where the defending team of 4 had to secure a couple of buildings and hold off the assault team of 3.

 

Most airsoft games in big groups just turn into a shit storm of people running around like headless chickens under a near constant deluge of BBs, but with smaller teams communication and tactics suddenly came into play and I loved it.  Honestly if you get the chance to play a CQB site with a small group it's utterly brilliant.

 

[John F.]

On 17/06/2024 at 15:30, Skullchewer said:

Saturday was another day out for the Red Alert crew, over at Gunman Alpha, for one of their filmsims (I missed the Vietnam one 😕)

Another bloody great day. And when I say that, I want to point out I didn't get a single confirmed kill all day. 

Didn't matter. 

It was such a fun day that I didn't care. We all had a great time. 

There was a minor incident of overkill from another player but it was dealt with. 

I also bumped into @RebelScumwho seems to be a nice bloke.

 

Sunday I was working as usual, and after crawling through the ferns at Gunman all day, then drinking half a bottle of fireball whisky and sleeping on a friend's sofa, I started the day a little delicately. 

But it was a great day, with the only complaint from anyone all day was that it was too hot. 

During the down time I put the bolt back into my MWS, which a mate had taken away to fit a new nozzle on, and do a little work with. 

It's flinging .4s straight as an arrow off into the distance somewhere. Bloody happy!

 

It is tick season, and I found one of the little shits on my in the shower this morning, so be sure to check yourselves after woodland game days.

 

And we did a Pride month shoot on Sunday morning. 

When I'm out in the countryside at this time of year I end up crawling with ticks if I don't give myself a spray down with tickspray. The last game I was at was deep in tick country and none of our group picked up a single one after we had a good spray down. 

 

Ingredients: 1 spray bottle, 2 parts water, 1 part vinegar, a squirt of tea tree oil.

 

As an added bonus it keeps most of the flies and midges at bay (and leaves you smelling like a chippy on a Saturday night).

[DanBow]

Went to play at Chemical airsoft in Ashton under Lyne on Monday.

 

Posted a review here.

[Rogerborg]

After an unfortunately long hiatus, I finally got back indoors again, at Biohazard in Ardeer.

 

What a blast, CQB is how I got into airsoft, and it's where I have the most fun.  It's a small site, but with well thought out buildwork, and they know how to get the best out of it.

 

Slightly overcrowded, and a bit too much "You all know what you're doing, right?" ass-u-me-ing at the briefings (turns out many people didn't), but a very good natured day with fair play all round.

 

Top laughs when I found an alcove in the wall just big enough to fit an Imperial Guardsman, and started capping fools[*] as they walked past unawares, then popped grenades until they started to wonder out loud if I was spawning them from a magic bag.

 

[*] With my delivered-last-night AAP-01C. Quite liking the little snappy boi, might throw some money at it.

 

 

[Colin Allen]

On a bright sunny morning, the lad and I journeyed to Splatoon in Essex, which is one of our regular sites.

On arrival, we noticed that the marshalling team was different from usual; we overhead the head marshal for the day telling the others that he had never done an airsoft briefing before.  However, after we had all sorted ourselves out, he made a decent job of the briefing.

The first game was a simple domination involving the a spinner in each of the three fields.  To get a point, a team had to have their side of the spinner the right way up at the end of the game.  Both sides had infinite regens on a fixed point.  As the lad had never really played in the bottom field, we set off for there; crossing into it from the middle field, he snagged himself on some barbed wire, tearing one leg of his Czech combat trousers.  Entering the bottom field, we positioned ourselves in a ditch, from where we had a good overview of the spinner and the approaches to it as well as of a vole, which was scuttling around the ditch.  The lad was machete killed by an opposing player while he was talking to a marshal about the barbed wire, which seemed somewhat unsporting; I shot the blackguard.  Several other enemy players appeared and were potted by myself and colleagues to my right.  Our chaps in the middle field gained control of their spinner just before the game ended, giving us a 2-1 win.

After a rather long time in the safe zone, we came out for a fallback game, which was played in a different direction from usual.  We had infinite regens on a marshal and the defenders has one life in each of four sections.  Fighting our way into the fuel dump from the path proved to be immensely difficult, due to the lack of cover on the way in and the very good cover available to the defenders.  Eventually, we overcame them and pushed into the second wooded field, which we cleared quite quickly.  We then pushed into the first half of the container village field, which was when everything seemed to start to unravel.  Hit taking on both sides became very poor and tempers frayed.  Eventually, we pushed into the second half of the container village field and some of our team penetrated the kill house, getting a hand on a flag in one of the rooms, which served as the objective, with just under five minutes left.

After what seemed like an overly long break for luncheon (cold pizza, which was rather nice), we went out for a reverse of the fallback game.  Our opponents also struggled to break into the fuel dump, despite some laughably poor hit taking.  Eventually they cleared both woodland areas and we fell back into the first half of the container field, only to find that we were allowed to deploy in a much smaller area than our opponents had been allowed in the morning.  The FOB, which had been in play for the defenders in the morning, was not in play for us.  After being hit (by my own side!) I fell back into the final stage, where I was hit by a shot from an opponent from a position that would have been out of bounds when we were attacking in the morning.  Eventually, the enemy completed their mission a couple of minutes quicker than we had.

After another long break, we went out for a VIP game.  The attackers had to get a manikin into either of the helicopters in the container village.  They had infinite regens on a marshal, while we had three regens on our start point in the top woods.  When the game started, the lad and I ran (well, he ran while I jogged) into the middle field to try to hold up the enemy, which we did for a while, despite some more laughable hit taking.  I put twelve shots into one player at fairly short range; I saw each of them hit him and he flinched with each one of them, but carried on.  We were both then taken out by the machete wielding blackguard, who we had ignored when we saw him walking along the gravel path along the edge of the site as it was out of play.  We fell back and consulted a marshal, who confirmed that we were not dead.  Moving up, we took up position behind a container in a corner of the top field, which gives good coverage of half of the edge of the top field.  Identifying that there were enemies on the other side of it, I lobbed two flashbangs over it, ensuring that they would fall on either side of the barrier behind it.  Nobody took a hit, despite a marshal calling out to remind about the 5m kill radius after the second one.  It then became apparent that the attackers had chosen the helicopter at our end of the field as their objective.  The lad shot the chap carrying the manikin who, rather than dropping it where he was hit, took it back with him; a marshal had to go to recover it.  Another enemy player broke through to our left; an exchange of fire between him and us ended with him being peppered with shots.  A measurable time after he eventually called hit, one of his shots hit me.  Being a gentleman, I assumed that he had pulled the trigger before calling hit and that the BB travelled remarkably slowly, probably taking a trip to Canvey Island en route.  I went back to regen; as I was coming back out, the game ended when the manikin finally made it to the helicopter.

There was an opportunity to turn this game around, but many players decided to leave.  Quite a number seemed quite unhappy with how the day had gone, including some with whom we play alongside and against regularly at Splatoon and Airsoft Plantation.  If this had been  our first visit to the site, we probably would not be going back; however, we have previously only had good experiences of the site, so will give it another try.

Alongside the poor hit taking, unsporting behaviour and the apparent inconsistencies in rules between two versions of the same game, the other major issue with the day was the lack of playing time.  In total, we played for about 120 minutes over five hours.  It was a hot day and it may be that the staff were ensuring that players had time to take on fluids between games; however, the breaks did seem excessive, to the point that the lad starting reading a book on his phone, getting through 110 pages.

However, we will go back again as this is the only poor day that we have had there; hopefully, it was just an aberration and normal service will resumed as soon as possible.

Weapons used:

Me:
SRC MP5A4 (The externals are SRC; nothing else is!)
Double Bell KAC PDW
ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

The lad:
G&G Magpul M4
G&G Keymod M4
(That's what he calls them)
ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

[Skullchewer]

Well, yesterday we had 108 players on the field. 

Everyone seemed to have a great day...

... except me. 

 

Marshaling the second game of the day, waking down a hill, stepped on a thick fallen branch that was concealed in long grass. 

The branch rolled, along with my ankle. 

I felt my foot fold, but my weight was on that side, so I let myself fall, though according to those watching I fell "gracefully" 🤣

I also heard a POP as my foot folded.  😬

 

Embarrassingly a weapons down was called. I stayed sat down, tested my ankle rotation, and all seemed good so I got up with some assistance, and hobbled off. 

I marshalled one more game, and spent the rest of the day sat down at mags and tags, as there were people in and out of the safe zone all day, so it was a good use of my time without having to walk. 

 

At end of day I took my boot off, and my ankle immediately swelled. 

I'm thinking now that "ah, I'll walk it off" may not have been the best idea.

 

Thankfully I don't have to be back on site till Wednesday, but right now I'm thinking I may need to go get it looked at. It's more painful than it was. 

Oh well!

 

[B4by_Dr1v3r]

3 minutes ago, Skullchewer said:

Well, yesterday we had 108 players on the field. 

Everyone seemed to have a great day...

... except me. 

 

Marshaling the second game of the day, waking down a hill, stepped on a thick fallen branch that was concealed in long grass. 

The branch rolled, along with my ankle. 

I felt my foot fold, but my weight was on that side, so I let myself fall, though according to those watching I fell "gracefully" 🤣

I also heard a POP as my foot folded.  😬

 

Embarrassingly a weapons down was called. I stayed sat down, tested my ankle rotation, and all seemed good so I got up with some assistance, and hobbled off. 

I marshalled one more game, and spent the rest of the day sat down at mags and tags, as there were people in and out of the safe zone all day, so it was a good use of my time without having to walk. 

 

At end of day I took my boot off, and my ankle immediately swelled. 

I'm thinking now that "ah, I'll walk it off" may not have been the best idea.

 

Thankfully I don't have to be back on site till Wednesday, but right now I'm thinking I may need to go get it looked at. It's more painful than it was. 

Oh well!

 

Oof, yeah take it easy on that, at least like you say you were able to keep doing something at the time - did something similar stepping a football that I didn't realise had been kicked under my feet from behind me, actually fractured a metatarsal as I put all my weight on a sideways foot to instinctively stop myself falling.