[Sticky] After battle reports and pictures

Thanks Tim for your second post but please I don't want any arguments to be created here and although I realise you want to defend your opinion of the weekend Headshot is fully entitled to his and if he it is reciprocated by other players I will deal with a full response here later for everyone to see if not i will address him personally as without this type of viewpoint on the game we will not be able to make improvements.

Of course, no probs. My intention was not to start an argument

with reference to the mortar , it could not be used any other way due to the tree canopy , either it would get stuck on the way up or on the way down , so it had to be fired on a flat trajectory ,i know it must have looked crap but it was how i was instructed to use it , otherwise we would not have had any artillery on the German side. the Russian anti tank gun , well in the heat of battle it was not always easy to hear the shouted message about where it was aimed especially if you had no direct line of sight on it so a player letting you know you were dead was the only way to know some times, i know i was blown up twice when i was behind the building in question and did not know i was dead until told and then took the kill with good grace.
i think there is a split between the two perspectives of the German and Russian sides on the criticism of the game ,most German's seem to have had a better day with more variety as we covered the hole site progressively over the day whereas the Russians were in a smaller area and were driven back all day witch is always a little disappointing .
on the taking of hits , well i think i died about 20 times and probably only made 5 kills ,the assault was far harder from our perspective than it may have seemed to the Russians.
ammo was never in short supply , i had 3 mags with 30 or so bb's in each for my mp40 and i never got to my third mag before dieing all day, again this may have seemed like we were cheating but from my point of view i don't think there was ever the need to cheat.

In general I would say I agree with Headshot's and Rich's comments. regarding the 'destruction' of buildings, and the 'pretend you haven't seen them' I have little much to add.

The odd paardox was that I found was that playing with the artillery guns was most enjoyable part of the day, yet it further confirmed my general view that they just don't work in airsoft, there is no way to make them meaningfully take part. It is impossible for those being fired at with them to know they have been shot at as there is just a distant bang, so in functional terms they become a distraction. Like I say it was fun to play with them, but I agree with Steve and go further - not anly do props not make a game, they can distract from it. I mean making noise in uniform is fine, but I could get that from a re-enactment battle if I wanted it, I like the additional element that airsoft should offer.

We had spent a lot of time doing nothing very much, and I am fine with that. I dont want a shoot, die, respawn, all day as it gets boring after about an hour. when you have to man a front, then you have to cover the front. The attacker has to concentrate on an area and that means that - if doing it properly - some defenders will always be holding an unengaged flank.
Could it have been rotated around more - so the Germans alternated their objectives, or the defenders relieved each other to share in the shooting - sure. That's something one learns with time, and the best laid plans can often go awry accidentally leaving a group on the quiet front in succession, it can happen to any of us very easily.

The standards of play too, I agree with Steve. By no means was there anything unbiquitously dodgy on either side, in fact most were playing as superbly as we have become accustomed to. But one or two were, in the most concise term, attrocious.
So when we were finally in a firefight my jaw dropped, and afterwards I was even thankful I had spent so much time not engaged. Someone would wander around the side of the building I was covering and then bimble back after being shot repeatedly. I always give the benefit of the doubt but after the third time I saw a shot bounce of them I could not any more. When I was hit (by someone else) I told Rich not to bother bandaging me, because I wasn't going to waste my time and bullets on more of that. In the counter attack I ended up against the same person, actually two people. I found it impacting my 'decisions' - "Dean can lay down cover fire and I will advance to... oh wait, we cannot do that as they are far enough away to get way with not taking their hit".
In the next attack I just could not work up the desire to do it. I kind of walked forwards with people, got clipped (by a nicely concealed German in a defensice position with a great shot I must add) and thought I have had enough, I am going back.
It was a minority, I hope only these two guys, but it totally destoryed my desire to 'fight', I was trying to check who I was engaging, trying to avoid them and short of walking up and sking their names I could not report anymore than 'a german in fieldgrey wool' to the CO - which was no help for them resolving the situation I quite understand.

It also highlights reasons why I do prefer what has come to be called the 'combat mission' structure - certainly on smaller games. Confusion can lead to it being thought of as scripted, or open-day like - but the most scripted and open day like games I have been to were re-gen games.
It allows a better control of the 'flow of the game' when you do not have lots of players to 'feed in and out', or a very large site for which the regen does not become a 'reload and run back to the front', so it is easier to keep check of who is sat doing nothing. Cheating is also easier to pin point as players are not constantly comming and going from the front. finally ammo limits have more impact - although this is also better accomplished by not having a re-load upon death in a regen game, so even if you die you have to take a token.

So in conclusion: There were some minor niggles which can be worked on and it was the experience of bad sportsmanship that had the worst impact on the day for me.

Anyway, thanks to Bigkie and Lardy for running the event. Please don't be downhearted by the "constructive criticism". It's a learning experience and I'm sure your next event will deal with the issues from this and be a blinder.

This, 1000 times over.

Just a heads up. Photos are up on the RIFT website, think you need to be registered to veiw

http://www.riftairsoft.com/albumall.php ?

Pics are up at RIFT

it appears from reading this each squad had a bit of a different day , as for most of the day we hardly saw any of the other 2 squads as we defended our bit of land , except a odd encounter at the bunker etc or bit of help attacking the big building .

for us rifles 2/ engineers etc it was mid afternoon that we really saw any of the rest of the site and that was only after a epic hard fought battle with the germans did we lose our minefield and we had to drop back and rejoin the main force. But before that time we had some slow bits and some fast bits though they were mainly shooting germans attacking the middle that maybe drifted our way a little too much.

But having talked to my 2 team mates who were with me we only had 1 case of cheating that we saw and that was later on in the afternoon and another german said sorry to my friend who was involved in it , and that was it for us, so we can't really say about any cheating. i really hope maybe it was just the 1 person who in all airsoft pops up in games , but thankfully in the ww2 scene not that often

on the ammo side of things our squad was using 5 rifles and 1 ppsh who was mainly our support from time to time and stayed away from any long bursts , but i never thought to myself that the enemy seemed to be spraying us a lot , we seemed to encounter more trading odd shots from rifles and grenades , i remember a few very very short bursts and that was it.

We never got really involved in the building attack apart from a few grenades etc , but i can understand the issues of the building been out of play if its there so to speak , only moan i had with the building was as it had a few rooms as soon as you put a nade in they ran to the others rooms lol and was hard to take out the germans inside, and that was when the artillery was brought up and yith blew it up lol

from my view our squad had a cracking day with a few really good fights , and did not seem to encounter some of the issues others had , only gripe i had was nettling the hell out of my hand so to recap again we had a great day , ache lots and would happily book again

some cool photos and some building not sure i ever saw lol

a few pic's

Taster of RIFT photos now online, almost 400 of:

http://www.riftairsoft.com/content.php as stated above you have to be registered but tony will be on it asap.

I'd just like to say regardless of comments be they negative or positive, well done Lardie and Bigkie for organising the event. More events are always needed and it's only people like yourselves who are prepared to have a go who will gain the experience to run first class events. Every individual will have had a different game experience which along with their own personal game preferences will form their opinion as to what an enjoyable game should be. This will always be the case. It's neither a good thing or a bad thing. It's simply human nature. Once again guys WELL DONE!!!

Cheating. I witnessed a very bad case of cheating by a German player in my own squad. He was shot from ambush by a crafty Russian who hid himself well and had had the patience to wait for the correct moment to fire. The cheating player ( I don't know his name ) was hit first and then I was hit a second later. I yelled out and took my hit. I was then shocked to witness the other German turn around and at a distance of perhaps 8 feet, he lit up the Russian with a full auto burst. The Russian was yelling for him to stop. I was telling him to stop. He then walked away mumbling to himself, leaving me and the Russian player looking at each other in disbelief. I advised the Russian not to take the hit and said I was sorry for what the other German had done but that I did not know him. I later reported the incident to Bosh when I next saw him.

Steiner. You may know the mans name? He was the one that you said had been banned from Gunmans games. I think someone said he was also banned from AGS games as well?

Late in the afternoon - firing the MP40 one handed. I think that was me. Sorry guys. Got carried away and knew I was about to die under a hail of Russian fire. And guess what! As soon as I stopped shooting and put my gun down to tend my wounded comrade. I died under a hail of Russian fire. I think It must have had a rush of blood to the head, having spent the majority of the day using my bolt action rifle and feeling very naked. I'd been killed at least a dozen times without hitting anything myself.

On a brighter note : Here are some of the photos that Tony ( the site owner) took on my camera. I hope you like them.

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I was going to add some more photos but the computer says NO! It actually said "Sorry the board quota has been reached"

maybe just put a link in mate for people to follow be best

I agree with the comment about the different squads. From my point of view as part of Russian squad 1 I had an enjoyable day, we even had a real Russian in our squad! I felt the site had a good WW2 feel to it with lots of good and varied cover and although small, worked well with the way the game had been planned. The start of the day was nicely paced with us in squad 1 patrolling the “line”, while turning a blind eye to the German pioneers mine clearing (you have to use some imagination in these games!) and our comrades installing our communications infrastructure, all building up the suspense for when and where the Germans would finally cut the wire and push through. I think the props worked really well in this area as something was always going on and we were not just sitting around waiting. All play seemed fair on both sides and the ammo limit seemed to work well as we were always very aware not to waste our ammo, even using an automatic I had only used 2 tokens before we lost our ammo tin towards the end of the day. There was some good back and forth fighting in the middle of the day over the buildings in the middle of the site, although I was not aware that our artillery had destroyed them (which maybe was a little harder to imagine). Towards the end of the day our squad got a bit fragmented and the fighting lost its focus a bit, and consequently our final push back against the Germans was less of a death and glory charge and more of a lets get it over with charge. But all in all a great day and for a first game you guys did a fantastic job, also commendations to our squad leader Johnny for organising our defence and keeping us in order as best he could.

Result of me taking absolutely loads of pictures, I've hidden them in a spoiler tag so you can hide the list if you want as there is 100 which may slow peoples viewing of the thread down

Spoiler

Link to the album here: http://s647.photobucket.com/user/Fredde ... t=3&page=1

the incident cheeky chappy mentioned was the one i was on about , and the only 1 we encountered

Nice pics, Komrade.

good pic's Komrade, where did you find the time to take them all

Great pics everyone

...only moan i had with the building was as it had a few rooms as soon as you put a nade in they ran to the others rooms lol and was hard to take out the germans inside, ...

Running from grenades... naughty...