1st instalment!
Took me 2 hrs to get to site from Derby. Easy to get to if a boring journey - M1, A14 and a short distance to site but easy to find.
The site isn't that big - car parking area, large brick, roofed safezone building, easily usable for accommodation/socialising. Adjacent is a couple of large buildings that are in danger of collapse so out of bounds but can be fought around. A short distance away is the 'village' - a group of 12 buildings, dilapidated but generally with intact roofs. In one direction is a wood composed of scrub, plantation & varied tree cover leading to a bounding track-way. Track-way leads to a farmers compound and the road can be followed round back to the safezone. He has a good relationship with the farmer so there is no conflict with using track-ways or crossing fields, depending on crops. The wood is host to pheasants but I gather in March there will be no restrictions on our movements, shooting season having finished.
Other points arising:
I confirmed our 'arrangement' foregoing D-Day player levy for free site use.
He did ask that we cover running costs such a fuel & heating - as this will be minimal I didn't raise an objection.
Over-nighting no problem.
Told him that we wouldn't need high-vis marshals and that 'official' representatives could be the minimum he felt necessary for site safety or security.
Told him this would be a restricted numbers game and it's a CiA game.
Should have use of two troop carriers by March.
There are cookers on site so we can offer lunches as a facility or included in game fee. Might be able to sort this for breakfast too.
Not directly related but came up in conversation. He has use of woods nearby - his 'Airborne' games may include these by trucking players across.
He definitely isn't on the same wavelength as us. He's caught up in providing the 'experience' and making airsoft less rough and ready and more organised like paintball. I don't have any objection to this - airsoft generally serves the customer very poorly unlike the paintball experience. I see this as a positive move, adding to the mix of airsoft events generally and WW2 in particular. So, he may open the market to a new type of player or he may find that rough and ready is fine!
He has 15 players yesterday and 25 today - looked like any other open day, nothing 'LARPy' about what I saw. He is very keen on marshaling though and he regrets not having more marshals in-game at D-Day thinking that there was too much cheat calling and frayed tempers. Strange as I saw none myself and thought the axis players were very level-headed (but the allies were cheating bastards!).
I am minded to play at his first Feb game (for free!) to see how his idea or players vs crew pans out.
Next up - site plan & photos...
Nice work CW, no "grey areas" now. Regarding catering, what does he do on normal game days?
When we were a Kingdom it was run by a King
When we were an Empire it was run by an Empress
Now we're a country we're run by a..........
Tea urn, couple of gas grills - burgers were something like £2.20 - £4, canned drinks, choc bars. Don't see why we can't rig up a BBQ for the night before?
Forgot to say - he was disappointed that only two of his site regulars went to S.Wales although some seem enthused having seen the photos. This tells me he is good at 'ideas' and undoubtedly a good organiser (i.e. he makes shit happen) and certainly is looking to the main chance but is a poor marketeer. He has taken quarter page adverts in AI mag until D-Day +2 (or whatever he is calling it).
BTW, he openly admitted that Paul Monaf said he didn't enjoy the event at all. However his son did and persuaded his Dad that he had approached the event with the wrong mindset. It will be interesting to see the article - hope it doesn't turn out to be negative... the event wasn't crap (but could have been better). At least, I hope the genre appears to be something exciting for players to explore - I'm sure the photos are going to be much more important than the blurb!
I'll explain few things about Monaf that i've learnt over the years.
1: I've never seen him play more than 1/2 day at a site.
2: He's a lazy fuck. He wont walk further than he has to.
3: FAR prefers to stand at the back and hose things with a Hicap.
4: His son is as lazy and annoying as he is.
Here's the funny thing. Two other Ai crew were at the event. Jason V and Chris P. Both enjoyed it immensely. And both of them are hardcore players.
The article, however, wont be negative. I'll make sure of that.
When we were a Kingdom it was run by a King
When we were an Empire it was run by an Empress
Now we're a country we're run by a..........
Heh, Josh did say Monaf moaned on and on about the walk to the beach and dominated every conversation - so that ties in nicely with your description!
I've only just realised Lawrence wasn't there...
Thanks for taking the time to go there today David, and sorting Josh out. Without wanting to sound too Nazi , after reading some of his stuff on the Rule7 forum, I reckon the bloke is a little deranged, certainly when it comes ot the WWII period.
Following DDay , my only interest in Gunman is the use of his site for free in March, on March 4th if I never have much more to do with him that'll be fine for me. His route ot airsofting is so much different from ours, frankly couldn't care if he drops the AEGS and picks up some dice, TBH I've no interest in trying ot make his events "better" in fact there is an element that says if his approach fails with our regulars that might not be such a bad thing / if it succeeds with the LARPers then it keeps them away from our events.
Synical I grant you , but just in that mood today . 
Bottom line, can you see us doing TEHL there ?
Fullsome report follows, sorry I have a load of work to get done this evening...
Have to agree with Guy about Josh. Just can't get the measure of him.
Oh, and BTW, I lost my temper on the Sunday just before we took the fort. After getting nowhere for an hour because of dubious hit taking and medic camping I walked across open ground to where guy was with my bandage held high to squawks of, "Ooh, he's mediced (sp?) himself, ooh, did you see that, he made himself better, that's not allowed, ooh, what's he doing, he's breaking the rules, ooh" only to then get hosed about 5 times as I stood in open ground next to the Landy to have a conversation with Guy about how to approach the game now that everyone had got split up. I didn't swear, I just told them to use their common sense.
Pink line denotes site boundry.
Pink tint area is cropped but may be traversable depending on crop, but not playable.
Solid pink line is track from main road to SZ building.
Green dots are unstable buildings, no entry but playable around.
Blue dots are group of 12 nissen huts, concrete construction - all useable but derelict. I would call this the army camp, Gunman calls it the village.
Orange dots - proposed German DZ.
Southern roadway leads to the buildings from it's west corner (vehicles OK) and to the wood from the east corner (following the tree/hedgeline on foot only).
whats dimensions ?
Yuk, difficult site.
I guess you could start with a full out cat and mouse chase with the Yanks in the camp and the Germans at the drop points. Yanks get intel that there's been a drop and have to formulate a plan very quickly to work out what they're doing.
Germans could have to hook up to the main part of the site to hook up with Irish underground operative, for example.
Just two immediate thoughts.
What I think we should do is keep the plot and game content pretty close to our chests like we did with Wotan. It kept people guessing and heightened the anticipation.
Camp:
Start of woods - undulating floor, plenty of natural cover
Scrub adjoining wood. Has bit of plantation plus barracades than can be turned into pillboxes with use of some camo net
Eastern boundry - path leading down to German DZ
Looking across the central field from wood towards camp - currently grassed
Those pics are dead links for me.
Same here.
When we were a Kingdom it was run by a King
When we were an Empire it was run by an Empress
Now we're a country we're run by a..........
Not for me! I'll check at work...
Edit: works fine from work lines, Firefox and IE
Now they work apart from the last two.
Put another 50p in the slot or press F5?
Just copied the geocities link into a new tab and it said the bandwidth had been exceeded.
Will wait.
