Posts Tagged ‘NSC’

Some good news for all the airsofters in the North East, yet more opportunity to shoot your friends!

Mick at NSC has announced a new site and increasing their game days from fortnightly to weekly to play alternate weekends at their new and existing sites. The site is near Beamish and from the photos I’ve seen should be a cracking play. One to visit as soon as I can!

All the details you need, including the inaugural gameday on the 27th Jan can be found on their website and forum. More places to play and more opportunities to get new players involved, that has to be a good thing!

We’ve been quiet of late I know. Our visit to Northern Alliance in July never got written up and Spider had a run out to NSC where they fielded an APC! Worst of all is we won’t be making Ground Zero weekender this year, for only the second time since we both started playing, and gutted not to be there.

Plenty of reasons, all involve real life getting in the way of airsoft, but hopefully a chance get to maybe a single day in somewhere soon and rack some games up in October and November.

So for now best of luck to all the lads heading south. To Razor and the Misfits, anyone from NSC, Northern Alliance, Legion Airsoft Clan and North East Airsoft UK, and anyone else we know going down, have a great weekender, (no getting naked and trying to jump on quad bikes, it’s uncouth) and make sure you absolutely murder Delta.

Get some fellas.
Raps.

…& in case you didn’t notice we recently topped 100K hits, you lot must be bored for something to read! thanks for coming back!

NSC have moved their forum to www.nscairsoft.co.uk/forum, users will have to re-register by the looks of it. So get over and secure your username!

I’ll be at next game day after missing far too many. Hope to see you there!

Our first run out since GZ, and feeling in decidedly better shape!

Although a crappy weather forecast was in prospect the day proved to be very different. The wind died and a nice autumn crisp morning was in prospect with the last few weeks of foliage meaning it was bolt action time! Also getting a run out for me for the first time was my MP5PDW, which Mick at NSC had sorted thanks to my effort to fit a new spring and lower it’s initial 390 fps….

The guys at NSC have been working hard to get some new structures in place, and combined with the thick covering of green in parts it made the day interesting!

We kicked off with a simple one end versus the other type game to get all the new players involved – and there was plenty of them which is fantastic to see. In fact there were so many it meant the marshalls extended the usual warm up game over a much larger area.

Next up one of my favourite types of scenario. A downed pilot to be rescued, two teams determined to get to him, and 3 sniper teams sent out to cause chaos and mayhem. Swampy soon figured out that the snipers nest is no longer as covert as it was!

Meanwhile I was having fun sitting in no mans land and taking it in turns to pick one off from each team. Later in the same game came a good chance to try out the MP5PDW properly. Caught between both teams we decided to go out guns blazing and tried to storm the structure the pilot was being held in. With Swampy covering I made the mad dash towards the tower, running the MP5 on an 11.1v LiPo I’ve decided to keep it to semi auto mainly, the trigger response is great and lets you just tap away. With the stock extended the accuracy for such a short barreled weapon isn’t bad either. It fell to the last of the 5 enemy to get me as I managed to clear the first 4. So near and yet so far…

The afternoon continued in similar fashion with large ranging games covering the entire site. Its been a while since I’ve had to cover so much ground at NSC and the legs were definitely feeling it by the end of the day!

With the cover so thick in areas, it made movement exciting to say the least as it didn’t take a ghillie suit to lurk succesfully!

All in all, a cracking day again, finished off with a couple of sociable drinks and left me looking forward to the next game day at NSC on the 2nd October!

So for the first time in a while both the raptors were able to make it to an NSC game day.

We made our way north as the wind and rain picked up testing our radio headsets en route as we’d had someproblems with them recently. Needless to say they worked fine until we turned off the A19…

Another good attendance despite the forecasted iffy weather. (Possibly as they know that means I probably won’t be sniping?). A full carpark is always a good sign at NSC, which has seen the addition of several structures over the last few months.

With a few new players, including even a few from the now defunct MARRS, it made target identification ever more vital, indeed for the morning session I was taken out by my own team more often than the OPFOR. Although The Einherjar (TM) have got this sorted with their own merchanding now prolific in the safe zone!

The first game of the day was supposed to be a fast paced end to end game invoilving the Quarry and the village. However the dense undergrowth, and large number of players lead to an unwillingness to press home attacks. The teams inched towards each other with no-one willing to make significant advances. [although kudos to Sneak for some of the best infiltration I'd seen in a while as I struggled to keep up with him advancing along the quarry wall]. A gradual war of attrition set in until we were able to reduce the enemies numbers enough that there were holes in their flanks we were able to exploit to the full advantage (when not being shot in the back by my own team that is…)

The next game up was a firm favourite of mine. the hostage rescue scenario. Despite my repeated suggestion, apparently you cannot just shoot the hostage and call it a draw…
Again, whether the weather, the undergrowth or hangovers, play was slow to advance. The rescuers inching forwards to the structures before freeing the hostage and “legging it” as the hostage takers respawned and rushed to retake him. Although at this point I ended up left behind as my fellow rescuers dissapeared into the distance, unfortunately the chasing team neglected to check the buildings leading to what could only be described as a fantastic 30 sec turkey shoot as they dutifully filed past…

Post lunch a large site wide game again seemed slow to get moving. I must admit I really like these games that ramble and leave room for guile as well as rate of fire. We quickly spotted one of the enemy teams objectives (a laptop) and staked out the apporaches to it. The OPFOR eventually arrived, leading to some great fighting in and around the trenches.

Finally, we lounged about largely knackered as some fun 1v1,2v2 and 3v3 games took place in and around the quarry. Great fun to watch and cheer the players on, especially worthy of mention was young Robbie shooting his uncle. Twice. Including a cracking headshot. well played fella…

One small hiccup in an otherwiose great day was Pikie not lookig where he was going, and winning a free trip to casualty to be glued/stitched back together… not from a BB but from a branch to the top of the head. Moral is look where you’re going!

And finally since I was trying out my new lens (you can never tell can you?), a gratuitous shot of Swampy…

So a diminished but not beaten Raptors duo set out for NSC on a cold damp and windy Sunday. The NSC Forum had been busy with reports of numerous new and visiting players, although that had happened before with large bookings which subsequently fail to show. Annoying for the players, but even worse for the site owners I’m guessing.

Unfortunately the conditions prevented the use of the new additions to the Raptors armoury of a gleaming pair of Mosin Nagent carbines, courtesy of Swampy! (well played fella)

I arrived early and the car park quickly filled up with people having to park outside! Obviously it was going to be the biggest attendance for a long while, all those having booked actually having made it! it was fantastic to see a good number of regulars, new players, and experienced airsofters who had travelled to play.

The games kicked off by throwing all the regulars out of the way for a quick game so the safety brief could get done for new players onsite with the minimum of fuss and heckling!. A good idea that seemed to work well as well as ensuring all players get to shoot stuff with the minimum of delay.

The Warm Up and watch your back!

We kicked off with a quick game of “Quarridge” (from Quarry vs Village”), but with an interesting twist. Before we started cards were drawn and one player on each team was a spy who could dispatch his own team as he saw fit, obviously trying to remain undetected. As yours truly was the spy I waited for my team to storm into great defensive positions and then whilst shouting for players to watch out for non-existent fire coming in proceeded to slot the entire team one after another. (much fun I must admit… sorry all!) The game was over in minutes and the opposition appeared wondering where everyone was. All very satisfying I must admit, and gave the site-virgins a chance to listen to the brief without undue distraction.

It seems a much bigger site running around it…

Next up was a site wide game with a capture the real estate objective. This lasted till lunch, and ranged back and forth between several spawns and objectives. The Opfor seriously put us under pressure from the word go, pinning us down and making us fight for every inch, then as we concentrated an attack to pin them back into their village spawn the tide turned (at least on the bit of the battlefield I could see!). Listening to the team comms I could tell frantic attacks were being thrown in all over the place as we tried desperately to capture the objectives. As the last few minutes approached we were only holding 1 of the 3 objectives as I made a stealthy advance through the village towards the “camp site”. I’d checked the 2 guys in the Opfor spawn were going to be there a minute or 2 ( I say checked – I mean I offered to shoot them again) and as I crested the ridge I saw 3 defenders all with their back to me. So being a gentleman I shot 2 as fast as possible but the third reacted fast and dug into the bunker refusing come quietly! Almost simultaneously Errol had spawned behind me and started peppering my position. Faced with a fight on 2 fronts I retreated to a safe position and managed to take Errol down with a damn lucky shot before hearing 1 minute called by the marshals. Desperation now took hold as I advanced on the bunker again, only to have some of the Opfor detonate a remote pyro they had rigged in the bunker – taking out their own man! Hardly believing my luck I dived into the bunker to the sound of several enemies opening up. Bravely I hugged the ground hoping I could wait out the last few seconds as I dare not even try sticking my head out to see where all the fire was coming from – just as the marshal called Endex! Success by the narrowest of margins…

Straight after lunch was a solid trench clearance game. The regulars defended first, and the attacking side were relentless. Despite a fairly high kill rate mainly due to site knowledge the defenders were slowly overwhelmed by some stirling attacks, coupled with some epic pyro which turned the trenches into a mist-laden Somme. The determination to get to get through was admirable, and on the turn around the defence just as difficult to break as we tried every trick in the book to get through. Including the sneak attack from the gulley. Which I will admit to being half way up as the grenade landed just at my feet with nowhere to go… bugger.

Finally another site wide game with a task based objective. First of all find the suitcase, then recover it to our base and find out the last task. Thankfully we started from the trenches so no massive hike out! This time the Raptors duo paired up for some sneaking about, which found us in a tiny foxhole in the middle of the wood, with the enemy advancing I heard on comms that our team had “withdrawn” to re-group as the enemy had captured the case. Just what you need to hear! We spent a frantic few minutes climbing over each other desperately firing off mag after mag and managed a quite a few kills before the Opfor re-spawned, re-grouped and came at us organised. Needless to say we didn’t last long after that! However as they tried to break out of the wood with the case, we were able to mount a counter attack en route, steal the case before they could do anything about it, and due to some great running by our bomb tech win the day!

Overall, it was one of the best days I have had in a long while at NSC. Every player I saw got stuck in despite the cold damp conditions, and some fantastic game play made for some great games. Particular mention should go to the Airsoft commandos who had travelled a fair distance to be there,

and a special mention to Zippy and Co, who were fresh from having a trim the day before in aid of Help for Heroes. Well played lads, pleasure to get shot by you!

The more regular teams were out as well, obviously the Raps patch was in force!

But also the new Einherjar team under Toes erstewhile leadership…

and not to forget Halo, the longest serving team at NSC whose patch was still worn proudly by Sneak!

Cheers all who were there, including the refs, who gave us a great day out. Hopefully more to come!