If You Go Down To The Woods Today.....

.....you're sure of a big surprise! Well, maybe not that big, but a surprise nonetheless, or perhaps calling it a 'bit of a twist' might be more appropriate. I'm referring to the April woodland game at Fireball

I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that everyone in attendance, and there were about 90 of us there in all, was treated to an excellent day's airsofting with close to perfect weather conditions, games written with clear, achievable objectives and marshaling which kept the games moving and everyone on their toes

Preparations being made in the safe zone

In the morning, both sides were given a fairly straightforward objective, to locate a power source, in the form of a large ammo crate, and bring it back to our respective bases. We had to hold it there for 10 minutes while it was 'connected up' and then our base would have power. Once that was achieved we were given a number of locations, each of which we had to take control of and hold for 10 minutes before progressing to the next. First team to achieve all this would be declared the winners of the morning game

Yellow team members defending Batt House

Straightforward enough, and fairly standard, but the game author successfully spiced things up a little by throwing in some minefields and giving each side an 'engineer', readily identifiable because he had to wear a red or yellow plastic hard hat. There were six minefields in all, three on either side of the border crossing point which divides the site approximately in half. The location of the minefields made it somewhat harder to attack each of the objectives. You could go around them, of course, but the only way through them was to have your engineer lead you through them a bit like the Pied Piper. If he was shot, then you were stuck there until you could medic him, and if the enemy managed to throw a grenade into it then that, as they say, was that! Everybody dead and back to regen

Two views of the Border Crossing point showing the very recently added bunker building, that's the green wooden thing with the two slitty windows! A nice addition to the site, that. A big thumbs up to the builders

Fireball members, as usual, made up the bulk of the red team and I'm delighted to say we won the morning game

For the first game in the afternoon the minefields became the objectives. The three on the red team's side of the site had to be neutralised by the yellows and vice-versa. To neutralise a minefield your engineer had to stand in the middle of it for 10 minutes while the rest of you held your breath and prayed he didn't take a hit. If he did, then a) he had to be healed and b) the clock was restarted! Establishing a perimeter around the MF was pretty important, but you could also surround the engineer inside the MF with a bodyguard. The engineer was able to find a safe passage through it, remember!

 
This game could have gone on for some time, but in the end it finished quite quickly because the red team managed to neutralise all three of their objectives first time round whilst the yellows didn't even manage one!

End ex was called and the final game of the day was announced. Red team were to start at Block House and the yellow team at Border Crossing. Our objective was to push the yellow team out of BC and back to the next rearward base, and from there to the final structure at the one end of the site, before end ex was called at the end of the day. Yellow team players could be re-spawned once by a medic at each base but if they were hit again they had to retreat to the next base. Red team players had no medics. When hit, we had to go back to our base and regen. Each time we pushed the yellow team back, then that base became our new regen point

Yellow team members at the Border Crossing

I think Andy, the game author, wanted to let the yellow team win one. Unfortunately for them, the red team hadn't 'read the script' in quite the same way. We rolled them back to the end of the site and took the final base with a massive 20 seconds to spare!

All in all, a great day. Thanks to Andy for writing the game, and I can't wait for the next one!