Archive for October, 2010

So October has arrived and so did Corps wars at First and Only’s site Anzio Camp.

The Weather God
We set off on Friday afternoon, negotiating the intricacies of the A1 roadwork’s and Sheffield’s third world style road system. As we headed across the hills the heavens opened and what appeared to be the start of another biblical flood descended on our happy band. My weather predictions of clear cold skies appeared to be seriously out…

We arrived in darkness just as the rain ceased and the skies cleared. (Oh ye of little faith) and found the barn that was to be digs for the weekend. First and Only had provided a big area where the cars could be brought in with plenty of room for all to bed down, and best of all out of the very cold wind, and with some portaloos!

The rest of the comrades arrived and soon there was a healthy Raptors contingent present. (Clone, George, Swampy and myself, plus a few NSC regulars, Rookie, Plumley and Caaw). We met up with the guys from Wasps and looked forward to a few sociable drinks and the weekend ahead!

catalogue poses for the camera
FPS
First up on Saturday morning was the chrono’ing. Every gun gets chrono’d, which I personally think is a great idea. With a few caveats.

Almost without exception, every player I spoke to said their gun chrono’d significantly higher than they expected, usually in the region of 20-30 fps higher. Also after putting several BBs through the chrono it would take only a single reading of more than 350fps to get a gun sidelined, and I mean a single reading. One player I witnessed had a single round of 351fps, the rest all significantly lower, and the AEG was not allowed.

I had an AEG chrono’d Sunday morning, at first no problems readings were between 312 and 320fps. But for no reason I can determine there was a reading of 380fps on a shot! It was only after we proved the AEG with another chrono (and about 20 shots, all less than 320fps did the marshal accept that the first chrono was faulty and my AEG allowed.

It also nagged at me that with chrono’s giving such wildly varying results, and any AEG testing even slightly hot in the game getting the player kicked from site, that a player who honestly allowed their RIF to be tested before game start could find themselves on the wrong end of a duff reading and kicked later. Not a confidence building situation.

Whether it was the weather, or faulty chrono’s, or operator error I don’t know. But unless players can have complete faith in a sites chronos it can damage the atmosphere severely. Personally, mine will be checked again on a full bore chrono accepted by the local Police for weapons checks. Maybe they were right and mine have been consistently chrono’d low previously. I’ll let you know.

Don’t misunderstand; I applaud the F+O approach to safety. It should be a priority, and hot guns ruin gameplay. But I think you can be over zealous, and marshals should be allowed to apply some common sense in interpreting the reliability of the results.

Intel
So, onto the briefing, a carefully devised intel briefing and some great team leaders helped build the atmosphere for the role playing aspect of the weekend. Despite being warned to pace ourselves, from the off the team piled into some frantic building to building firefights.

The buildings at Anzio are ideal for airsoft. Reasonably spaced out and with doors and room largely intact. The undergrowth has been allowed to run riot in areas making dead ground passable with care and allowing you to get within range of a building to make assaults.

The semi only rule inside buildings and with 15 feet of a structure works well, (indeed I found myself sticking to semi only fire most of the time out of habit) as does the medic rule. Every player carries a bandage. The first time you are shot, you have 5 minutes for any other team mate to apply your field dressing and you’re back in, if not done in time you “bleed out” and must head to the respawn. Next time you must go to the respawn. It encourages team-mates to make that effort to revive you and makes for some exciting “rescue” runs! The time to respawn also makes it important not to throw lives away as there is real consequence to losing players in the middle of a firefight.

Kudos to you all!

I must comment on the sportsmanship on the Saturday here. It was probably the best I have ever seen. Every hit seemed to be called, players were almost gushing in their praise of the opposition and very sporting in not giving away enemy locations after they’d been hit, or over-magging. More than once I witnessed two opposing players walk away from a corner, shake hands and agree to take a hit to avoid dangerous close range shots. To every player I encountered on Saturday, well played, you were all fantastic airsofters.

Capitol Americas Rock! (for a while!)
As a team we rampaged across the site. Storming buildings and even stealing enemy flags (not for points or objectives but because we could!). In some of the best CQB fighting I have taken part in, I spent most of the afternoon with my ears ringing from grenades or wishing the wall or doorway was that providing cover was a bit wider. Frantic dashes and yelling for support figured highly!

As a result the CA captured a hatful of objectives and territory. But inevitably with 3 teams in opposition it was not to last. As the light faded and our base exposed in a field became vulnerable we seemed to become the target of wave after wave of attacks, to compound this I took a dive on top of my AK Beta and ended up with a stock in one hand and the rest of the AEG in the other, and by the close of play in the dark Saturday night we had been comprehensively mauled and our gains stolen.

The Come-uppance
Sunday dawned (and it was bloody freezing!) and the CA tem discovered as a result of the battering at the close of play the night before we had to fight our way to our own Command point to start with! The day started little better than the night before as it appeared all 3 team had agreed to give us a kicking, and they went to work on it with relish. We had a hard struggle to regain our CP and then faced concerted attacks from several sides with teams that appeared reluctant to attack each other. Probably a well deserved consequence of our early successes the day before!

But even midst the chaos and carnage of the seemingly endless attacks the team work held and we had some great battles. I had a great time storming the garage with Rookie, and the nervous tension was high as we cleared building after building again.

Unfortunately we had to clear out a couple of hours early to make the trip back home, but we left absolutely knackered and smiling!

De-brief
So, all in all, a great weekend. It went a long way to restoring my faith in airsoft “events” after the last Catterick outing. F+O have got themselves possibly one of the best airsoft sites in the country, as long as they continue to judge the team numbers and pace of the games as they have this weekend. It was not crowded and there was a chance to flank the opposition, but conversely a firefight was never far away if that was what you wanted.

The marshals took a light touch approach which seemed to work well and there was enough role play to make it interesting and fun with becoming hard core mil-sim and a chore.

Because of the distance, probably not a day trip site for me personally. But one I will definitely keep an eye on and I hope to be at the next episode of Corps Wars.

…and for next time. No deals. Not with anyone…

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