The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[Tackle]

54 minutes ago, Hatchet said:

Played the opening day at UCAP Vanquish, located at the Citadel in Dover. Like a lot (most?) of the other UCAP sites except GreenOps, it's in a disused prison. I believe this was also used for an AI event, but today's was 120 or so players rather than jamming everyone in the world in. Quality over quantity (or something).

 

Rolled up to a busy carpark at 08:30. I would have thought some people were camping for a week given the number of rolling trunks, bags and cases, but apparently it was just for the day. There's an on-site cafe that does breakfast if you've missed yours and from what I saw it looked pretty good. Was also open for lunch (more on that later). Across the bridge and a relatively brief queue to get checked in, albeit in a cutting cold wind, before getting into the safe zone. Tables everywhere to put your kit on, more upstairs, a tea urn, proper toilets with actual working hand dryers. May have reached peak safe zone tbh.

 

Caught up with some familiar faces, which was good, before heading out for the usual Chronoing and safety brief. Standard stuff really, and everyone there seemed to be experienced, so no issues.

Rules for the day were , no 2 tones, semi auto only, no DMRs, bolt guns are allowed (outdoors only) but I wouldn't recommend it. There are no open windows, so it's not like Longmoor/Catterick/Sennybridge where you can snipe out of buildings. Additionally you can't shoot into/out of windows because mostly they all still have glass in and all that'll happen is it ends up getting damaged. Attackers could lob pyro in to buildings, but defenders couldn't lob it out. Nobody used smokes. I think they would have been useless outdoors and obviously a no-go indoors. All these worked pretty well and were well observed. Where there was occasional confusion (can you shoot whilst going up the stairs, can you shoot through mesh/cracks, etc), it got resolved amicably.

 

There then followed a number of attack/defend games, starting with a warm up block war assault, which involved both teams being split in half and half of their team defending their block, while the other half attacked the enemy block. The opposing team were doing the same, but the attacking teams couldn't engage each other, just assault onto the buildings. There was also a british bulldog element where when a defender got hit, they'd go and join their team on the attack. Leading to basically a few people defending as the entire enemy team assaulted. A good warm up game where nobody was sitting around for long.

 

Next up, I think various rolling defence games attacking buildings in sequence. One life and fall back to the next for defenders, unlimited for attackers. It was identified that there were some choke points on the stairs, which the marshals let run for 5 or 10 mins and then moved the defenders back. Part of the day was identifying things like this that you can't really tell just by walking through it, and all the players seemed to be on board with that approach. The marshals were open to suggestions throughout, and I think there are some easy fixes without having to radically alter anything.

 

At some point there was lunch. Meal deal for me, but there were plenty of people having things from the cafe's excellent selection (sandwiches, burgers, full English, hot drinks, cans, cake, biscuits...). The only issue was the wait time, with 120 airsofters suddenly deciding they wanted cheesy chips, etc. It was possible to preorder for lunch in the morning and I suspect going forward this will be a necessity. Again, it was day one.

 

After lunch, some reversals of the previous games. It was our turn to camp at the top of the murder stairs and it became apparent what a turkey shoot it was from that perspective. Fair play to the marshals, they said we could have 5 mins of that and then they'd move us back, just like the morning. This duly happened, and the attacking team then pushed forward to be met with, frankly, ALL the pyro. The bombs just kept coming and those at the top of the stairs were falling about giggling at the disbelief from the bottom as to much was being lobbed down. Eventually the place was full of smoke and none of our ears worked any more. 11/10, would recommend.

 

The initial games were very much focussed on fighting through each building to see how they played, but the final game of the day gave us free reign of the site with 3 bomb objectives. Quite fancy LED bombs in pelican cases that you had to hold down the button to change to your team colour. A lot of back and forth in that one as people flanked round, made use of newly discovered routes through buildings and so on. I have no idea what the scores were, but it doesn't really matter. Didn't feel like one side or the other dominated.

 

In conclusion, a solid day out. I had a good time, despite CQB not being my usual play style. The NGRS MP5 did the business as ever, although I am now considering tracer options. And possibly some earpro. Well run day, good hit taking and good attitude from all involved. Recommended. Shout outs to the rest of "Team Green".

 

Thank you for the review, it's nice to know I now have a cqb site within a reasonable distance,  hopefully they can hold on to it for a while🤞🙏

[Impulse]

1 hour ago, Hatchet said:

Played the opening day at UCAP Vanquish, located at the Citadel in Dover. Like a lot (most?) of the other UCAP sites except GreenOps, it's in a disused prison. I believe this was also used for an AI event, but today's was 120 or so players rather than jamming everyone in the world in. Quality over quantity (or something).

 

Rolled up to a busy carpark at 08:30. I would have thought some people were camping for a week given the number of rolling trunks, bags and cases, but apparently it was just for the day. There's an on-site cafe that does breakfast if you've missed yours and from what I saw it looked pretty good. Was also open for lunch (more on that later). Across the bridge and a relatively brief queue to get checked in, albeit in a cutting cold wind, before getting into the safe zone. Tables everywhere to put your kit on, more upstairs, a tea urn, proper toilets with actual working hand dryers. May have reached peak safe zone tbh.

 

Caught up with some familiar faces, which was good, before heading out for the usual Chronoing and safety brief. Standard stuff really, and everyone there seemed to be experienced, so no issues.

Rules for the day were , no 2 tones, semi auto only, no DMRs, bolt guns are allowed (outdoors only) but I wouldn't recommend it. There are no open windows, so it's not like Longmoor/Catterick/Sennybridge where you can snipe out of buildings. Additionally you can't shoot into/out of windows because mostly they all still have glass in and all that'll happen is it ends up getting damaged. Attackers could lob pyro in to buildings, but defenders couldn't lob it out. Nobody used smokes. I think they would have been useless outdoors and obviously a no-go indoors. All these worked pretty well and were well observed. Where there was occasional confusion (can you shoot whilst going up the stairs, can you shoot through mesh/cracks, etc), it got resolved amicably.

 

There then followed a number of attack/defend games, starting with a warm up block war assault, which involved both teams being split in half and half of their team defending their block, while the other half attacked the enemy block. The opposing team were doing the same, but the attacking teams couldn't engage each other, just assault onto the buildings. There was also a british bulldog element where when a defender got hit, they'd go and join their team on the attack. Leading to basically a few people defending as the entire enemy team assaulted. A good warm up game where nobody was sitting around for long.

 

Next up, I think various rolling defence games attacking buildings in sequence. One life and fall back to the next for defenders, unlimited for attackers. It was identified that there were some choke points on the stairs, which the marshals let run for 5 or 10 mins and then moved the defenders back. Part of the day was identifying things like this that you can't really tell just by walking through it, and all the players seemed to be on board with that approach. The marshals were open to suggestions throughout, and I think there are some easy fixes without having to radically alter anything.

 

At some point there was lunch. Meal deal for me, but there were plenty of people having things from the cafe's excellent selection (sandwiches, burgers, full English, hot drinks, cans, cake, biscuits...). The only issue was the wait time, with 120 airsofters suddenly deciding they wanted cheesy chips, etc. It was possible to preorder for lunch in the morning and I suspect going forward this will be a necessity. Again, it was day one.

 

After lunch, some reversals of the previous games. It was our turn to camp at the top of the murder stairs and it became apparent what a turkey shoot it was from that perspective. Fair play to the marshals, they said we could have 5 mins of that and then they'd move us back, just like the morning. This duly happened, and the attacking team then pushed forward to be met with, frankly, ALL the pyro. The bombs just kept coming and those at the top of the stairs were falling about giggling at the disbelief from the bottom as to much was being lobbed down. Eventually the place was full of smoke and none of our ears worked any more. 11/10, would recommend.

 

The initial games were very much focussed on fighting through each building to see how they played, but the final game of the day gave us free reign of the site with 3 bomb objectives. Quite fancy LED bombs in pelican cases that you had to hold down the button to change to your team colour. A lot of back and forth in that one as people flanked round, made use of newly discovered routes through buildings and so on. I have no idea what the scores were, but it doesn't really matter. Didn't feel like one side or the other dominated.

 

In conclusion, a solid day out. I had a good time, despite CQB not being my usual play style. The NGRS MP5 did the business as ever, although I am now considering tracer options. And possibly some earpro. Well run day, good hit taking and good attitude from all involved. Recommended. Shout outs to the rest of "Team Green".

 

 

Nice review! I played there when it was the venue for AI500 and I'd 100% use a bolt action there. They didn't let us for the AI500 I went to there and I spent the whole weekend outside the buildings thinking "I wish I had my m700..." with all the long sight lines I could abuse; got my nicely upgraded pistols for indoors anyway! Would be a lot better if we could shoot in and out of windows, but from what I remember they basically don't open so it would be impossible to work that without breaking them. 120 players is a lot better than the 400 we had at AI500, as one of my main bits of feedback from that one was "I can't see this working for more than 200 players total. 250 at a push because it gets very choke pointy very quickly."

 

It is a fantastic site itself though, so I'm glad that UCAP are using it and seem to be running it well from what you're saying. Not *too* far from me, though I don't think you'll see me doing many trips because it's still a 2 hour drive.

[Colin Allen]

Today, I went to the rather chilly and extremely muddy Airsoft Plantation.  Airsoft Plantation's winter mud is fascinating and intriguing; its surface area, depth, varying consistency and slippery essence would delight the most jaded connoisseur of pedological science, a subject about which the Lad knows rather a lot.

Having set up the latest addition to the HK family, which JG call a G3 SAS, I readied the HK33 and HK53 for the day's action.  Around 120-130 players were present, a decent number which resulted in the safe zone being a little less busy than it sometimes is.

The first game was a shortish warm up, which involved us, the red team, attacking from the village into the mortar pits with the aim of getting 20 players on the top deck of the bus that is parked in the middle of it.  On reflection I do wonder why someone would park a bus in the middle of some mortar pits; it seems an odd thing to do.  We had infinite regens on one of two marshals, while the defenders had two lives in the mortar pits.  The defenders could have players on the bottom deck of the bus, but not the top.  A group of us cut across the site, forming the right flank of the overall assault and swinging down towards the comms truck, from where we dislodged the enemy rather handily, although I did have to take several trips to the nearest regen marshal. Eventually, of course, the enemy were overwhelmed, although it was interesting to witness how long it takes for 20 airsofters to get onto the top floor of a bus and back down again.

After a very short break to mag up, we set out for a game which involved getting a crate into the enemy's HQ.  We started at the DEA base, with the plane as our HQ, while the blues started in the village with the town hall as theirs.  Each side had unlimited regens on six medics; if a medic was hit, they had to find another medic to regen on.  A couple of us medics stayed with the group defending the plane, where we soon became very busy shooting the attacking enemy and reviving our colleagues.  A strong enemy attack from the direction of the mortar pits was repulsed after an epic fight, as were several probing attacks.  Eventually, the enemy increased the pressure on us and managed to get their crate into the plane, winning the game.  I am unable to report on our colleagues who were trying to get our crate into the town hall as I have no idea what happened to them.

After another very short break, our team went to the village where ten high value targets, of which I was one, had to be defended by the rest of the team.  As HVTs, pairs of us had to occupy a building, so five buildings were occupied by HVTs; once hit, we had to drop our yellow armbands where we were and the go to the border to get new instructions from a marshal.  Other defenders had two lives, while the attackers, whose aim was to collect all ten armbands and get them to the marshal, had infinite regens on a teammate.   After several good exchanges, a wafty BB at the very end of its flight drifted through the window and gently tapped me on the shoulder.  When I reached the marshal at the border, he offered me three choices:

1. Remain there with him looking bored and glum.
2. Go back to the safe zone for an early lunch.
3. Betray my teammates by swapping sides and joining the attackers.

Being a true gentleman and a man of honour, I immediately chose the latter, rejoicing in shooting my former colleagues.

After lunch, we set out for the mortar pits for a reversal of the first game of the day.  I started off at the comms truck, holding back an enemy attack for a while until discretion became the better part of valour and I decided to fall back towards my colleagues; unfortunately, while carrying out a tactical withdrawal (honestly not running away!) I was shot in the back and had to regen at the berm, where I fought until I was hit again, ending my involvement in the game.

Following this, we reversed the game with the high value targets; attacking into the village was hard, but we gradually wore down the defenders and captured all of the armbands.

As the game with the crates had gone so well, it was reprised with different start points and targets; we started at the tower in the village and had to get our crate onto the bus in the mortar pits, while the enemy started at the bus and had to get their crate into the tower.  This was not our finest moment; after holding off the enemy's attack for a while, a group of them swung right around the site, entering the village from the far end and eventually getting their crate to its destination.

The day finished with a rather fun game of infection; I lasted quite a while, combining shooting the ever growing number of attackers with successfully avoiding being shot until quite near the end.  Of course, I was eventually hit and, by the time I had regened at the hill fort and returned as an attacker, the game was essentially over.  When all clear was called, one surviving defender popped up.

It was a typical AP day; well organised and well run with well designed games and a good mix of players from the very experienced to first time rentals.

No airsoft for me next weekend as our guitarist and I are going to see the utterly bonkers Laibach on the Saturday evening and then have a rehearsal on the Sunday.

Weapons used:
Classic Army HK33
Classic Army HK53
JG G3 "SAS" (not for very long as I only had one mag with me)
ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)
 

[Jez_Armstrong]

Really good, we finished our killhouse and had a little beta test 

[Emergencychimps]

Did a filmsim at gunman tuddenham and it's one of the best days of airsoft I've had in a while, the sort of day you go "yeah, this is how airsoft is meant to be" and I entirely lay the responsibility at the head marshalls' (for the day) door. He was in the field, enthusiastic, pro active marshalling. Everything clicked, good site, reasonable games, sensible rules, good sportsmanship. 

 

It wasn't the absolute best day ever or the most unique event, it was just a good, solid day. 

 

2 long games, medic rules blah blah blah. The in game marshalls' worked nicely, the head marshall was great and super hands on. 

 

If you want a bit more immersive than an average skirmish id recommend checking out a filmsim at tudds.  Hopefully Nell keeps running them and with the same enthusiasm and work/input for many years, but my advice would be to take advantage now, while you can cause if/when he stops these will be the games that we'll hark back to with our rose tinted glasses on. 

[Skara]

Very good day.

 

13 people on the field, which allowed for the short-type tournament setup (8 attackers, 5 defenders).

 

Games went smooth until the last second where supposedly some blatant cheating happened, but I wasn't there to confirm and all I got were reports from a couple of people.

The thundercunt in question is not new to cheating, our MO when dealing with this behaviour is to first have a chat with the person in private, then have a "public" chat in front of everyone and the third and final step is to kick said person out.

We've already gone through steps one and two, I will have a final chat with him tonight because I believe in 2nd chances and should he resort to this shitty behaviour again, well, he knows where the door is.

 

But anyway, tested the new perun speeder V2 and I definitely have set it way too sensitive, i must have shimmed the trigger too tight as well because it wasn't always properly resetting. Nonetheless the "touch screen" trigger is very, very fun to use. Adjusting it is not a quick "do it on the field" job, none of the adjustments can be done with a fully assembled gun and at a bare minimum the gearbox needs to come out of the receiver. I don't mind because I needed to check a few things anyway.

Also need to service my 9yo battered Lonex mags, they are finally starting to fail after being neglected on purpose.

 

Kit wise, Mayflower Gen 4 still remains the king of chest rigs, plenty of space and the padded MissionSpec straps are a godsend.

[Mik3F]

Last night myself and my youngest son visited First and Only Top Secret in Oldham, first time playing there

 

A mix of players with some speed softers, who were quite clearly abusing the sites rate of fire rule, and I have the welts to prove it 🤣

 

The format for this site appears to be play 2 games back to back, a 5 min break and then you get a 20 min break roughly half way through the session

 

We managed to play 7 games in the session and all were pretty enjoyable

 

Teams were around 11v11, but the map can accomodate 40 players in total.

 

Game 1 - Chaos.  Standard Free for all with the catch, you don't want the item at the end as it means you lost.  It gave us a chance to have a look at the setup of the floor and make sure the guns were working properly.  Thnakfully I dodnt end up with the item at all and had great fun shooting multiple people

 

Game 2 - KotH.  The Hill was placed in the maze, so quite hard to get in and attack it once it was being held, we won this round quite easily in hte end as we managed to get the hill at the start and pretty much held it for the entire game

 

Game 3 - TDM.  Standard TDM affair, not much else to say really, not sure on who won the round though

 

Game 4 - Attack the Bomb.  We were tasked with attacking the bomb which was located in the prison.  Despite multiple valiant attempts we never managed to get close enough to difuse it, Round Lost

 

Game 5 - Defend the Bomb.  This time we were defending the bomb, placed in the command centre.  We managed to hold back the first charge on it, but then half the team decided to go roam the map and left us way too short gunned for the next attack on it, needless to say it got difussed, resulting in another round loss

 

Game 6 - Dead Sceptre.  This mode was a bit strange, Basically each time has to use the perimiter of the map to get bac to the central spawn point, but moving on opposite sides, this essentially resulted in firefights as both teams tried to move round.  No one managed to get to the spwan so the round ended in stalemate

 

Games 7 - Last Man Standing.  Free for all to end the night and boy was I ready for it.  I managed to take down 3 players before being eliminated.

 

Overall an enjoyable nights and we will be returning again soon

 

One thing I will say, is if you play there make sure to have enough ammo for 2 games back to back as if you have to step out to reload, you can miss a large chunk of the game

[Mik3F]

Yesterday myself and my 2 lads went back to Level 2 for the later afternoon session

 

A few renters in the session, but the mjority of players were well kitted out.  My eldest had some issues with his pistol not feeding, which we rectified when we got home

 

My youngest had to run the gauntlet as we notifed the marshall it ws his birthday earlier in the week, he had to run between 2 houses in nuketown whilst the entire player base peppered him with shots.  He took it rather well

 

18 players a side, and we were on the Non Stripes

 

My guns chroned at 299 for my rifle and 240 for my pistol, both on .25

 

Game 1 - TDM.  Standard first game affair, a nice way to warm up.  Probably my best round of the session to be honest, only got hit twice and went on a nice killing streak, that included 4 knife kills back to back.  We won the round 92-87

 

Game 2 - Bombination.  This round we were tasked with moving the bomb to our detination point, whilst also stopping the enemy team from moving the same bomb to their detontation point.  If you move to fast with the bomb it flashes red and you have to put it down so it resets.  We managed to get control of the bomb quite early in the round and I was carying it around, sadly we managed to miss our detination point as it was rather well hidden.  The rest of the round was back and forth with bot sides trying in vain to get the bomb to their designated spots.  Round ended in a draw

 

Game 3 - Nuke.  This mode consisted of 2 bombs placed around the map without their plungers, we had to find the plunger and get it to the bomb to detonate it, there was also a dummy plunger in play that didnt do anything.  We managed to find one of the plungers and detonate one bomb in the time limit, but the other one remained intact resulting in a loss

 

Game 4 - Defend the zones.  This time there were targets placed around 2 locations that we had to defend, if the traget was shot it would change colour.  The aim was to finsih the round with more targets in our colour than theirs.  9 Targets in total and as they were placed around 2 locations it concentrated all the firefights there.  At the end of the round we still held 7 target out of the 9 so another round win

 

Game 5 - Domination.  Final game of the night and the one where I didn't see that much action to be honest.  I managed with my lads to secure the middle point on the map and then we proceded to defend it for the duration, I think we only saw a few players trying to capture it.  Not really sure why as the middle point is usually the most contested.  We didnt loose a single point from this point and due to this won the round.

 

Final Score - 3.5 - 1.5

My Team won overall

 

Only real sour points yesterday were the rate of fire at times was way too high, pretty sure some people were using full auto and here was far too many instances of players not taking their hits.

 

Stillwe had fun and will be back there again next month for another game or 2

[Impulse]

A very successful day today. I decided to try using my m40a5 on red gas today to see if it would be happy even though it was still pretty chilly today (though it was definitely warmer than it has been). It was a challenge getting the power down, but I managed to get it to 2.2J and then took it out. The problem I had in the past when I ran it on green gas in the winter, was that the consistency was awful; I'd start a mag at 2.2J and end it at 1.4J. However, on red gas it was absolutely fine today and I managed to use it for the whole day without issue, so that was a welcome surprise. Well, I had one issue, but... well, I will try a 4uantum rubber in it because the 60 degree Flamingo was excited today. I could barely turn the hop on before it started sending BBs to the moon, so I'll trial a different rubber in it.

 

There were some pain points today though. They were all brought up to the marshalls, and the marshalls did act on it so I'm not going to complain about it; the past few game days haven't had these sorts of issues, so hopefully it's just a blip. We had some people going waaaaaaaay out of bounds and spawncamping today (group of ghillie players with HPA guns, to nobody's surprise I'm sure...), we had people shooting over a field that we're not allowed to shoot over, there was some questionable hit taking, and some people moving and talking when dead.

 

Also the hi-capa and AAP worked really well on black gas today, and the new holster is just phenomenal. Almost lost one of my hi-capa mags, but it was found and handed in thankfully. With all these successes with higher power gas, I think I might try my mk12 MWS (set up as a DMR) on red gas next game day. In these temperatures, it should be fine as the psi of red gas in these temperatures is lower than green in summer, and will hopefully just be a bit more consistent than green gas in the cold.

[Rogerborg]

Dying for for Emperor at Biohazard 2.

 

It went great after I gave up on trying to defog my eyepro and just switched to mesh.

 

The most remarkable thing was the countdown timer to the next game, which meant actual 10 minute breaks and a 45 minute lunch (plus wrangling time). Klaxons and everything.

 

All sites should have this, no exceptions, no excuses.

 

 

[Colin Allen]

This weekend I had a choice between Splatoon and Airsoft Plantation; given my recent experiences at both, Airsoft Plantation was the  only sensible decision.

As usual, around 125 players were present, a good mixture of experienced and newer airsofters with a high number of young new rentals.

My first act was to go out to the village's main path to set up the JG sort-of-Fleming 51K, as this provides a long line of sight with trees at the far end, making it easy to see the BBs' flight.  This also gave me the opportunity to study the development of the mud on the path to the mortars pits, which had transformed from its previous glutinous state into a more slippery entity, with the clay layer becoming more dominant as it wore down.  A few people conducted action research to measure its coefficient of friction during the day, with at least two ending up horizontal.

After the usual ritual of the safety brief, we set out for the first game; this involved us, the blue team, defending the village with two lives, while the attackers, starting at the Border and with infinite buddy regens after a 30m fallback, had to get three bombs to the missile that lives in a rear corner of the village.  Starting off at the front of the village, we had a target rich environment as the enemy tried to push straight into the village; after sending a lot of attackers back to regen, I was eventually hit and fell back towards the missile as it seemed that some of the enemy were moving in that direction.  Another really good set of firefights ensued; my involvement ended when a single shot from a sniper rifle or DMR took me out.

Once the attackers had completed their mission and everyone had reloaded, the game was turned around.  A group of us went on a wide flanking manoeuvre through the mortar pits and the DEA Base to attack the village from the rear.  This worked well; defenders were drawn off to face us, allowing our bombers to get to the missile far more rapidly than the enemy had managed.

After another trip to the safe zone, we set off with the bombs again; this time, we started at the village and had to get the three bombs onto the lower deck of the bus in the mortar pits.  The mortar pits are very difficult to attack, having multiple berms and other defensive positions in a relatively small area.  Our little group set out on another wide flank march, passing through the Boathouse to attack the far side of the mortar pits; however, the enemy were ready for this and we took heavy casualties, which sent us back to our marshal to regen with monotonous regularity .  Finding this route too difficult, we shifted to the centre, where we had more success, gradually whittling down the enemy, who only had two lives.  Eventually, the three bombers delivered their bombs to the bus.

The game was immediately turned around; I started off at the berms on the far side, getting many hits on the attackers and sharing my mags with a friend as he did not have enough.  After emptying all my mags, I fell back to reload, after which I rejoined the battle, eventually being hit.  Dropping back 30m to regen on a team mate, I joined in the fight around the bus until I was hit again, which ended my involvement.

Lunch followed, during which around 100 players were fed with the usual level of efficiency; after this we played a long fallback game starting in the woods.  As the attackers, we had infinite buddy regens after a 30m fallback, while the defenders had a limited number of lives in each phase.  Our objectives were to get a bomb on each of three bridges in order, these being the Wobbly Bridge (Guess what? It is wobbly!), the large and rather splendid bridge at the border, and the bridge in the mortars pits.  Initially setting out on the left flank, we fought our way forward, gradually pushing back the enemy and reaching the ditch that the Wobbly Bridge crosses.  To our right, we could see our colleagues on that flank, who had progressed more rapidly and were already across the ditch.  We very quickly got a bomb onto the bridge and set off for the border, fighting our way through the rest of the woods and engaging the easily defensible positions there.  After a bit of a delay, we pushed over that ditch, with a bomb being left on the aforesaid large and rather splendid bridge.  We crashed through the village, with our group swinging right to attack the mortar pits from the flank.  After a hard fight, we secured the bridge and called for the final bomb.  The bomb and its attendant bomber did not appear, so we called for it again and again.   Sadly, it never arrived and the game timed out.  The site owner then informed us that the third bomb had been left by its guardian on the other small and insignificant bridge at the border.

When the game was reversed, the objective was changed so that the enemy had to get a live player onto the mortar pits bridge, which we had done within the time limit.  In the first stage, I took up a position by the left hand boundary ditch, from where I could hit anyone attacking along the ditch and could also shoot across to the Wobbly Bridge; a young lad was to my immediate right.  A couple of minutes after the game started, I was shot in the back; as I called the hit and turned around to try to work out how the enemy had got behind us, the young lad was also hit from behind.  The shooter was one of our team mates about 5m behind us, who had thought that we were the enemy.  Apparently, wearing blue armbands and shooting at the attackers wasn't enough of a hint that we might be on his side; I suggested that he take the hit, but he refused, so I fell back towards the border and again took up a favourite position in the boundary ditch, from where I took out several of the enemy before I was hit.  Climbing out of the ditch, one of our players apologised for shooting me as he had thought I was the enemy; apparently, wearing a blue armband and shooting the enemy wasn't enough of a hint that I might be on his side either.  Falling back towards the village, I took up a position behind the fishing hut, which already had a couple of our players in it.  After a great set of fights, I was hit; mirabile dictu, this time it was by the enemy!  Having run back to the mortars pits, a group of us lurked behind a berm to attempt to stop any flanking attacks, which soon appeared.  While we held them off, the enemy forced their way onto the bridge, ending the game and the day.

It was another typical AP day, with well designed games that were well organised and marshalled and played in a good spirit.  It was really good to see so many keen youngsters there.

Weapons used: 
JG kind-of-Fleming 51K
Cyma MPiKM
Golden Eagle AMD65
ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

[Austeyr]

27 minutes ago, Colin Allen said:

a choice between Splatoon

You didn’t miss much bud, hit calling was atrocious today - Other than that it was your average day at Splatoon 😂

[Colin Allen]

43 minutes ago, Austeyr said:

You didn’t miss much bud, hit calling was atrocious today - Other than that it was your average day at Splatoon 😂

That is sad; it seems to be going downhill.

[Jez_Armstrong]

Checked out UCAP Vanquish at Dover, good site definitely worth a visit! 

[DanBow]

Another day at Outpost in Chester on Saturday with 7 of us. Me, my missus who was playing for the first time, my youngest and her boyfriend who was playing for the first time, 2 mates and my future son in law. Standard day playing standard games, capture the flag, attack/defend and some variatio s of the same. Great gameplay in the morning as there was about 10v10 so lots of movement with good comms and excellent hit taking.

 

After lunch was a completely different kettle of fish though! 2 groups of first time rentals arrived, one group of young teens on a birthday party and a group on a stag day. They numbered about 20 between them and good game play, comms and hit taking went right out of the bloody window. I'll admit it was fun watching the kids screaming as they charged forward on the whistle but I, and some others, decided to stay at the back as we knew there would be lots of friendly fire as they were just too excited. We were right. Absolute blatant not calling hits and some of the younger getting upset and removing their eye pro but mostly was dealt with. 

 

So, fun but not as fun as it could have been.

[Colin Allen]

I had considered going to Mayhem in Essex today, but what I have learned about the site just does not excite me, so I set off for Airsoft Plantation yet again.

About 120 were present on a bright and sunny day.  As usual, it was good to see a decent number of new rental players on site.

The mud had dried out considerably in the last week; it was no longer slippery, now being just slightly sticky in some of the worst areas, particularly the infamous puddle on the main track across the village.

As last week, my first task was to check the setup of a weapon; in this case, my recently overhauled and upgraded SR47.  This isn't one of the more recent airsoft iterations of this gun, being a rather ancient Hurricane kit with full Knight's Armaments trades.  It shot very nicely at 1.06J with its new gearbox and Perun Hybrid.

The first game involved us as the red team defending the village with two lives each, while the blue team, with infinite marshal regens, had to attack from the border, capture the yellow armbands of three HVTs and get them back to their marshal.  This was a tough game for both sides; I started off behind the fishing hut, where a group of us held up the enemy's attack down that flank for a considerable time.  Eventually being hit, I fell back to the fuel dump, from where plastic death was dealt to the attackers until one of them dealt it to me.

This game was then turned around; a few of us decided to attack along the flank that I had helped to defend in the first game.  After a very stiff fight, we took the fishing hut and pushed into the village, helping to eventually clear it.  However, as a team we were only able to find two HVTs.  When time was called, the remaining HVT crawled out from the basement of one of the huts, which was annoying as I always make a point of putting a few shots or a pyro in there in games of this sort if I am passing it, which I did not on this occasion.

The next game had two phases.  Attacking from the DEA base with infinite buddy regens after a 30m fall back, we had to break into the mortar pits and capture two suicide vests located in the horse box.  We then had to get each of the suicide bombers to the buildings named in the pockets of the suicide vests.  This did lead me to wonder why suicide vests would have pockets; they seem somewhat superfluous as you don't really need to take anything else with you when you set off to blow yourself up.  The defenders had two lives in the mortar pits and two in the general area of the village.  We fought our way into the mortar pits against very determined resistance and eventually grabbed the suicide vests, which the future martyrs for our cause then donned.  Most of us set off for the village, with the larger group containing the bombers swinging around to attack it from the direction of the border while some of us took the more direct route, attacking through the suburbs.  However, a fair number of our players had become fixated on dealing with the two enemy players still on the upper deck of the bus, which was pointless as it only required a couple of people to cover the two doors.  Having cleared the suburbs, we were pressing the defenders back across the village when the two bombers achieved the martyrdom that they sought.  During the fighting in the village I realised that I had lost one of my pistol mags; being pretty sure where I had lost it while slithering head first over a berm in the mortar pits, I went to look for it, but it was not there .

A break for luncheon was then taken, during which a player handed my mag in at the office ; I was very pleased to be reunited with it as they are not cheap ones.

After lunch, the suicide bomber game was reversed.  As usual, I took up a position on the far side of the mortar pits where we had a brilliant battle against the attackers, who repeatedly charged forwards like WWII Japanese infantry and were shot down in vast numbers.  At one point a gas grenade landed very near my advanced position; as last week in almost exactly the same position, I carried  out a well planned and executed tactical withdrawal, which again was honestly not me running away, although I was running and heading in a direction that was away from the enemy.  Joining my colleagues, we continued to mow down the enemy until we were slowly whittled down and overrun.  After falling back to the village, I was hit in the suburbs (which isn't a euphemism for something else) and fell back to the town hall, which turned out to be one of the attackers' objectives; it became rather hectic and we held the building for a considerable time until they eventually managed to storm it.

After a short break, during which many of our team departed, we then returned to the mortar pits.  As defenders we had two lives, one near the front of the area and one further back; the attackers, with infinite regens on a marshal, had to get five players through the mortar pits to the boundary rope beyond it.  Along with a few colleagues, I started off defending the hill fort area; we were eventually pushed back and, having been hit, I fell back to one of the berms near the bus, from where I fought until I received my final hit.  The enemy got their five players to the boundary rope.

When the game was reversed, we were only required to get three players to the boundary rope due to our depleted numbers.  The group that I was with assaulted the hill fort area and pushed along the side of the mortar pits, slowly taking out the defenders and frequently regening on our marshal.  As we were approaching the far side, I witnessed the only unpleasant incident that I have seen at AP in a long time.  An enemy player, who was shot at reasonably close range by one of our players, called the hit, put his hand up to acknowledge it and began to walk way before turning around and shooting at a couple of our players who were running for the boundary rope.  The chap who had shot him, who happened to be a player marshal, challenged him on this, whereupon he became very salty, repeatedly swearing at the player marshal.  A non-player marshal took him aside and was overheard giving him what could be called a stiff bollocking, pointing out that he was in the wrong and that getting so irate and foul mouthed over a game of pretend war was rather ridiculous and utterly inappropriate, especially as there were children in the vicinity; I am not sure what the final outcome was as I was out of earshot after that.  We got the required number of players to the boundary rope.

It was yet another really good day of airsoft at AP, with the only negative for me being the not entirely unexpected death of one of my 1600mAh LiFe batteries, which are now almost impossible to replace.  I am unable to play again until the end of the month due to rehearsals and recording sessions, but will probably play somewhere on 30th March.

Weapons used:
APS UAR
LCT PP-19-01
ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)



 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 06:43 by Colin Allen

[TheFull9]

I was at the same game as Colin (as it turns out). I don't tend to re-visit sites that often but AP has a very good rep and I'd say that's for good reason and I reckon this weekend was the best weather we'll have in the next few weeks. I think the game was a smidge late starting and I feel like there are parts of the site that weren't used which would have mixed things up a bit, but I could be wrong on that or maybe some areas are still quite swampy. Either way, I think the main bloke who runs the site is the best at his job of anyone I've personally encountered and the game area itself hits a good sweet spot in terms of size and features, which makes for a solid site when combined with (far as I can tell) a very good marshal team. The game briefs also hit the right balance of info vs time, not too complex, but with enough of a defined objective for everyone.

 

I took a couple of my AR AEGs that Negative has worked on for their respective baptisms of fire. One was actually my Classic Army M15 which was my first proper airsoft gun, bought it in 06 but I don't think it had been on to the field for 12+ years. That just had average quality new guts (the original GB was toast) and was working well, but my Krytac below had the full works and man is it is nice now... I'm a bit of a snob with AEG gearbox sound and it really impressed me.

 

 

Unfortunately on the negative side I saw at least a couple of flared nostrils on top of what Colin witnessed yesterday and one was directed at me. I'll recount the tale and the court of public opinion can judge me as they deem fit.

 

Here's an artists impression of the scene in question:

 

I was stood behind a crenellated fence panel, shooting through a small opening down an open path that's around 10m or so wide. The red team at the other end of the path were maybe 35-40m away and attempting to get around us, and running from my right to left at the other end of the alley between tree cover, so when they'd run across I'd obviously put a couple of bursts down and try to lead them enough to get a hit (maybe even managed it once).

 

A dead player on my team had been hit down by where the reds were crossing and was walking my direction with his hand up. Walking pretty much right down the middle of the path and at honestly the slowest pace I have ever seen a dead player move. I lost count of how many reds I shot at in the time it took him to get from the far end of the path to being about 10m away from me, and they're of course firing back at me. While looking through the tube of my 4x I had a pretty blinkered view, so as said dead player got closer and closer to me and I was tracking enemies running across I ended up putting at least a burst in to the front of his torso. He starts grumbling so of course I call out 'sorry!' but as he continues to walk at his glacial pace it turns to 'this f***** c***' at the absolute top of his voice, at which point I didn't bother apologising further tbh. Didn't actually talk to me, just shout at the general area.

Obviously I'm responsible for when I pull the trigger, but personally I always duck and run if I absolutely must go through the area of active heavy plastic slinging in the first place... so there we go, bit of a damper on the middle of the day but oh well. Still good overall, I had some good chats about gats with other blokes around where I was sitting in the SZ and AP remains one of the few sites that I keep in mind for repeat visits.

[Colin Allen]

37 minutes ago, TheFull9 said:

I was at the same game as Colin (as it turns out). I don't tend to re-visit sites that often but AP has a very good rep and I'd say that's for good reason. I think we were a smidge late starting and I feel like there's parts of the site that weren't used which would have mixed things up a bit, but I could be wrong on that or maybe some areas are still quite swampy. Either way, I think the main bloke who runs the site is the best at his job of anyone I've personally encountered and the game area itself hits a good sweet spot in terms of size and features, which makes for a solid site when combined with (far as I can tell) a good marshal team. The game briefs also hit the right balance of info vs time, not too complex, but with enough of a defined objective for everyone.

 

I took a couple of my AR AEGs that Negative has worked on for their respective baptisms of fire. One was actually my Classic Army M15 which was my first proper airsoft gun, bought it in 06 but I don't think it had been on to the field for 12+ years. That just had average quality new guts (the original GB was toast) and was working well, but my Krytac below had the full works and man is it is nice now... I'm a bit of a snob with AEG gearbox sound and it really impressed me.

 

 

Unfortunately on the negative side I saw at least a couple of flared nostrils on top of what Colin witnessed yesterday and one was directed at me. I'll recount the tale and the court of public opinion can judge me as they deem fit.

 

Here's an artists impression of the scene in question:

 

I was stood behind a crenellated fence panel, shooting through a small opening down an open path that's around 10m or so wide. The red team at the other end of the path were maybe 35-40m away and attempting to get around us, and running from my right to left at the other end of the alley between tree cover, so when they'd run across I'd obviously put a couple of bursts down and try to lead them enough to get a hit (maybe even managed it once).

 

A dead player on my team had been hit down by where the reds were crossing and was walking my direction with his hand up. Walking pretty much right down the middle of the path and at honestly the slowest pace I have ever seen a dead player move. I lost count of how many reds I shot at in the time it took him to get from the far end of the path to being about 10m away from me, and they're of course firing back at me. While looking through the tube of my 4x I had a pretty blinkered view, so as said dead player got closer and closer to me and I was tracking enemies running across I ended up putting at least a burst in to the front of his torso. He starts grumbling so of course I call out 'sorry!' but as he continues to walk at his glacial pace it turns to 'this f***** c***' at the absolute top of his voice, at which point I didn't bother apologising further tbh. Didn't actually talk to me, just shout at the general area.

Obviously I'm responsible for when I pull the trigger, but personally I always duck and run if I absolutely must go through the area of active heavy plastic slinging in the first place... so there we go, bit of a damper on the middle of the day but oh well.

I completely agree with your comments about AP; it is a very well run site.  The only parts of the site that we did not use were the woods, which was probably because they still need some work to make them safe, and the far end of the field at Swaziland, which is a bit of a dead area.

 

Regarding the incident you describe, as John always says in the briefing, it is up to dead players to get out of the way.  Accidents happen and vision is limited when you are looking through a scope.  Calling out someone in that way is never appropriate.

Edited Monday at 11:55 by Colin Allen

[Cannonfodder]

Yesterday I took a second trip to Rift's Blackstone site in Huntington and it's quickly becoming one of my favourite sites. There were a couple of grumbles about hit taking but I didn't personally see any so I'm putting it down to people not being as good shot as they think.

 

It turns out they livestream games on twitch which led to a funny moment when a player, not realising the cameras picked up sounds too, made a crack about his other half and what he was going to do with her, only for her to quickly text him that actually he wasn't going to get any

 

I've never played at AP but it sounds to me like the angry shouty man was in the wrong. It's a dead players responsibility to get out of the way and dawdling along at a snail's pace on a path where you know a firefight is happening is just dumb and asking to be shot. Whining about it when it happens is even dumber

[mrfoxhound]

On 10/03/2025 at 11:17, TheFull9 said:

I was at the same game as Colin (as it turns out). I don't tend to re-visit sites that often but AP has a very good rep and I'd say that's for good reason and I reckon this weekend was the best weather we'll have in the next few weeks. I think the game was a smidge late starting and I feel like there are parts of the site that weren't used which would have mixed things up a bit, but I could be wrong on that or maybe some areas are still quite swampy. Either way, I think the main bloke who runs the site is the best at his job of anyone I've personally encountered and the game area itself hits a good sweet spot in terms of size and features, which makes for a solid site when combined with (far as I can tell) a very good marshal team. The game briefs also hit the right balance of info vs time, not too complex, but with enough of a defined objective for everyone.

 

I took a couple of my AR AEGs that Negative has worked on for their respective baptisms of fire. One was actually my Classic Army M15 which was my first proper airsoft gun, bought it in 06 but I don't think it had been on to the field for 12+ years. That just had average quality new guts (the original GB was toast) and was working well, but my Krytac below had the full works and man is it is nice now... I'm a bit of a snob with AEG gearbox sound and it really impressed me.

 

 

Unfortunately on the negative side I saw at least a couple of flared nostrils on top of what Colin witnessed yesterday and one was directed at me. I'll recount the tale and the court of public opinion can judge me as they deem fit.

 

Here's an artists impression of the scene in question:

 

I was stood behind a crenellated fence panel, shooting through a small opening down an open path that's around 10m or so wide. The red team at the other end of the path were maybe 35-40m away and attempting to get around us, and running from my right to left at the other end of the alley between tree cover, so when they'd run across I'd obviously put a couple of bursts down and try to lead them enough to get a hit (maybe even managed it once).

 

A dead player on my team had been hit down by where the reds were crossing and was walking my direction with his hand up. Walking pretty much right down the middle of the path and at honestly the slowest pace I have ever seen a dead player move. I lost count of how many reds I shot at in the time it took him to get from the far end of the path to being about 10m away from me, and they're of course firing back at me. While looking through the tube of my 4x I had a pretty blinkered view, so as said dead player got closer and closer to me and I was tracking enemies running across I ended up putting at least a burst in to the front of his torso. He starts grumbling so of course I call out 'sorry!' but as he continues to walk at his glacial pace it turns to 'this f***** c***' at the absolute top of his voice, at which point I didn't bother apologising further tbh. Didn't actually talk to me, just shout at the general area.

Obviously I'm responsible for when I pull the trigger, but personally I always duck and run if I absolutely must go through the area of active heavy plastic slinging in the first place... so there we go, bit of a damper on the middle of the day but oh well. Still good overall, I had some good chats about gats with other blokes around where I was sitting in the SZ and AP remains one of the few sites that I keep in mind for repeat visits.

hate to say it but this is a you problem , you saw him from a distance off, you knew he was coming , you didn't have the discipline to not pull the trigger because you where tunnel vision in the optic  

[The_Lord_Poncho]

7 hours ago, mrfoxhound said:

hate to say it but this is a you problem , you saw him from a distance off, you knew he was coming , you didn't have the discipline to not pull the trigger because you where tunnel vision in the optic  

Nah, personally I'm not convinced to be honest. Situations like this are inevitable - getting hit on the way back to respawn is frequently par for the course. Anyone who mouths off to other players when the inevitable thing happens are bringing bad attitude and aggression into game - there is no place for this type of behaviour. The shooting was an accident - we can debate all the factors as to why it happened or shouldn't have happened, but ultimately it wasn't a deliberate act. The unacceptable reaction from the player that got (over) shot was a deliberate act.

[DerDer]

Use the incident as an excuse to buy more optic related equipment. It would never have happened with an elaborate piggy back red dot set up.

[Colin Allen]

7 hours ago, mrfoxhound said:

hate to say it but this is a you problem , you saw him from a distance off, you knew he was coming , you didn't have the discipline to not pull the trigger because you where tunnel vision in the optic  

Maybe you should go back and read what he wrote; as described, the incident had nothing to do with trigger discipline.  He was tracking players running across and the slow moving player was hit as he was ambling along the path, making no attempt to get out of the way. 

 

I am not sure how you manage to link trigger discipline to using an optic; that makes no sense whatever.

[Impulse]

2 hours ago, Colin Allen said:

Maybe you should go back and read what he wrote; as described, the incident had nothing to do with trigger discipline.  He was tracking players running across and the slow moving player was hit as he was ambling along the path, making no attempt to get out of the way. 

 

I am not sure how you manage to link trigger discipline to using an optic; that makes no sense whatever.

 

What makes it worse is that I've had so many examples of live players using dead players as cover. I've had people pinned behind a barricade wait for dead players to walk across where they're getting shot from (by me, watching them through my scope), and then move up using the dead players as cover.

 

The only times I won't shoot are when someone is within my MED. I'm a decent shot and my rifles are obsessively tuned, so if I think I can hit the live players, I'll take the shot. However, nobody's perfect, and airsoft guns are nowhere near as precise as some people think they are, so I'll sometimes hit the dead players and it's not (entirely) their fault. Most people don't cause a fuss and will simply accelerate or step to the side, but a select few will. I've been "overshot" so many times when I've been hit, put my hand up, and stood up from my hidden position or exited the bush I was under. People get spooked when a ghillie suddenly appears out of seemingly nowhere and will sometimes unload on full auto in a panic

 

2 hours ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

Nah, personally I'm not convinced to be honest. Situations like this are inevitable - getting hit on the way back to respawn is frequently par for the course. Anyone who mouths off to other players when the inevitable thing happens are bringing bad attitude and aggression into game - there is no place for this type of behaviour. The shooting was an accident - we can debate all the factors as to why it happened or shouldn't have happened, but ultimately it wasn't a deliberate act. The unacceptable reaction from the player that got (over) shot was a deliberate act.

 

And those select few are the ones I'll shoot on their way to respawn on purpose. I'm generally quite mellow and do my best to avoid shooting players who are already hit, but if you frequently lose your rag due to being shot when you're already dead and overreact and throw your toys out of the pram, you bet your bottom dollar I'm going to line up the shot through my scope and deliberately shoot you in the arse when you're walking back to respawn 🤣

Edited 3 hours ago by Impulse