I woke up at 0600H, to a wet safe zone and still few people awake. After doing my morning rituals, I went to grab coffee, pulled out my laptop and check on updates to the Popular Airsoft. Master Chief woke up before 0700H and we went to grab breakfast where there was already a queue to the breakfast van.

The mood is a bit subdued for this Saturday morning whereas last year, people were already in full gear and checking their guns at the Saloon shooting range by this time. Perhaps because of the rain last night, people remained inside their tents until it was bit drier outside. By 0800H the queue to the breakfast van was already longer and we saw more players arriving already in full gear even if briefing was still two hours away.

Preparing our camera gear for the first day of firefights, there are more camera crews this year bringing drones, DSLRs and what have you. So apart from the action cam footages that players posted on social media, expect more professionally made videos from the Pew Hub, WA03 Media, Cybergun, and more.

We finally met the TrueMobster crew, a massively popular YouTube Channel with over a million subscribers. They do a lot of a videos with airsoft guns as their props and it was their first National Airsoft Festival. Eager to learn more about airsoft skirmishing apart from using airsoft sites for filming, they are a nice group of very young men and we highly recommend that you subscribe to their channel to find out what they are up to. Two of their most watched videos are Fortnite Battle in Real Life and Airsoft War: Modern Combat Frontline In Real Life.

By 0930H the grounds at the Marquee tent was already teeming with airsoft players from the Bravo, Delta, and The Others, the three factions vying for supremacy each year, all eager to rock and roll and sling BBs at each other. Whilst most are in the usual BDUs and camo gear, a good number come in more fancy costumes, from a Hen party group, to an all-pink cowboy. Well, there are notuniform requirements at the National Airsoft Festival, come in whatever attire you want. I remember years back, someone was in a Mankini to raise funds for charity.

Finally, the “H” climbed up the tower for the briefing. This briefing is always a reminder of the house rules in airsoft such as calling hits, safety, communications, and also, lost and found announcements. It was a quick one that by 1030H all factions were already on their way to their staging areas. Bravo will start from The Burrows; Delta will have Fire Base Charlie as their HQ; and The Others at the Landing Zone.  As we play for The Others, it was the Landing Zone for us.

It’s Woody again for The Others as the Commander and most determined to have a win this year. The Others are always at the bottom in scores and rare is the win for the group. We really don’t mind losing as it is more about fun and mayhem when playing as a group. Of course, winning this year would be a big bonus to keep our party going. He took his place by the bales and drums to give his briefing and morale speech to get his troops psyched up for the intense day ahead.

By 1100H the fireworks and explosions that signal the start of the hostilities were set off. Game on!

Quickly, we went to the Trenches and The Nest, two of the magnets for all three groups to capture and hold as these give them vantage points and can pick off opponents from those heights. Bravo were there first already keeping both the Deltas who were approaching from the East and the Others from the West from overrunning their positions. The Others positioned themselves at the Heartbreak Ridge which is also a good vantage point to pick off approaching enemy whilst Delta quickly took over The Prison Camp and The Village, which are also major objectives in the game.

Intense shooting all over the Ground Zero Woodland and BBs were just zinging over our heads. As expected, we got hit more taking photos and videos more than when we were actually shooting. Even our orange hi-viz on, we can only just ignore the hits and just keep on doing the photos and videos. It’s all worth taking shots, with our cameras of course, airsoft players who are either all smiles for lots of targets to shoot at, or all business and accomplish the missions to grab as many points as they can for their groups.

At around 1230H, The Others and Deltas were engaged in a long range battle as they try to shoot at each other from their positions that were in full view of each other. The Deltas at Firebase Delta and The Others at the Stag Camp. The shooter who had the longest reach got to reap the reward. Walking our way around, we finally found ourselves back at the Safe Zone by 1300H, which means lunch and get into playing gear.

After a heavy meal of Greek Gyros, we changed from cameras to airsoft guns. I got the SGR-12 of Tokyo Marui which is a hefty piece whilst Master Chief took a sniper rifle with him. At around 1400H, we were at the Landing Zone to find it out being attacked by Bravo. So we immediately moved forward under fire from Bravos shooting The Nest. Whist the snipers from The Others tried to tap out those at the Nest, I tried to lob a few BBs with the Marui shotgun, which had a good range. I heard a “hit!” which meant one of the BBs found its mark at The Nest area. But then, Master Chief got hit shortly and then myself also got tagged so to the Respawn area for us for five minutes before getting back into the game.

Moving forward to The Nest was tough as Bravo did have a good vantage point and what we can do was wait for Bravos to move forward when they thought it was safe. It was a see-saw thing but the Bravos were doing a good job. It was back to the Respawn for us several times.

By 1600H, it was time for the big push before the shooting day ended. It is usually a push to The Village for us but Woody decided to bring a big bulk of The Others to raid Fire Base Charlie whilst Delta made their way to The Village. We joined this group and we split up, with Wood as we were to approach Fire Base Charlie by circling from the East. There was a blocking force Deltas at around 1630H and they pinned us down. I found myself to be taking point when another Delta just jumped out and aimed at me. He missed, but I was unable to respond as I ran out of batteries on my SGR-12 and when I went for my backup, it was also out of gas. No batteries and no gas meant that I was out of the fight. Since there was nothing more that I could do, it walked back to the safety zone leaving Master Chief there to carry on the mission with the remaining The Others.

At the Safe Zone, whilst waiting for the first day of hostilities to end, it was more of a chit chat with Bill of Air Action, Stef Meets, Gavin of Viper, and Amy-Louse Simpson. More of catching up as we usually meet only once or twice a year. For me, it was good to be out of my gear and let my feet breath a bit. From afar, we head the whistle blown, marking 1700H and the staccato of airsoft gunfire started dying down. Slowly, airsoft players started trickling back to the Safe Zone. I changed clothing to more comfortable ones and got hold of my camera one again for the Day 1 debrief and Raffle Draw.

The “H” went up the tower again by 1900H, as always, for the quick debrief which really was very quick as it was just a 7 minute talk, and did not waste time to announce the scores. Rich took over with an even better entrance this year, popping up a red smoke grenade to make his appearance to the glee of the crowd below. With Rich, the much anticipated raffle draw started with the most important raffle prizes drawn in real time whilst the rest were already pre-drawn given the large amounts of raffle prizes that were given away, or else it will take a more than an hour as was the case years back.

After the days debrief many went back to their tents whilst others stayed to order food from the food stalls. For us, it was a long wait at the pizza as there were loads of orders from hungry players. It took 30 minutes to get our pizza and it was almost 2100H by then and players for the night game were already heading out. As we were famished, we made quick work of the pizzas.

Ben and Jody from the ASG booth joined us at the Media Tent for quick chat until they decided to call it a night at around 2230H. For me and Master Chief, I guess it’s our ages that we felt we decided to hit the sack at 2300H. After a tiring day, sleep came quickly and we never noticed the players from the night game back at 0000H.

Scores on the first day:

3220 Delta
2880 Bravo
4000 The Others

Photos for the second day on the Popular Airsoft Facebook Page.

Read Day 1 of the National Airsoft Festival 2018.
Read Day 3 of the National Airsoft Festival 2018.