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.