Here's my somewhat belated pix-post.
Firelotus,
Warmonger, and I roused ourselves out of bed at the anus-crack of dawn for the two-plus hour journey out to the ACO field in Lowell. It rained fairly hard on the way out, but by the time we pulled up, it was only a light drizzle. The
GK contingent headed up to the loft above the barn, where I took this shot of the assembling players.
FL and
Wargy get suited up. It was about 9:30 in the morning at this point, but already it was hot and muggy.
'lotus made the right decision here - to sport a T-shirt instead of BDU top. It doesn't feel all that hot wearing long sleeve BDU tops and twenty pounds of gear at first. Once you start running around, though, it's sweat city and a recipe for heat exhaustion. Later, I wised up and shed the heavy BDU top, which was a great choice, except for one thing. That I will explain later.
Some of the players assembling outside the barn.
ACO provided some excellent maps for the event. Here, a member of Squad 1 (the Good Guys) marks up some key location. I think my navigation would have been better had I a compass. Until the last scenario, really, I had trouble navigating the field. Some of the grids on the map were without good landmarks of any kind and I led some poor guys into trackless areas at times. Sorry, dudes!
A shot of Squad 2 (the Bad Guys). Capable foes, indeed. Some if these guys had never played before, but proved worthy adversaries. A few ACO guys inserted themselves in each Squad, which helped big-time for navigation.
Squad 1, ready for game-on, at the spawn point. The bunker was quite cool - the first of its kind I had ever encountered on an Airsoft field.
There were two (three?) bunkers like this: sunk into the ground, with pine log walls, sandbag barriers, a roof, and camouflage overhangs. This one's got a wooden ladder for entrance and egress.
With a few minutes to spare before the game began,
Firelotus posed for this pic inside the bunker. He's a tall guy, and he's standing upright here, so that gives you a good idea of the dimensions.
Much later (two games, in fact), Squad 1 pulled off a spectacular victory. We met with the ACO Militia, and exchanged
detonators (really one of my M&M's Minis containers with BBs in it) for a crate of loot (a real, and heavy steel
crate). The team hauled it out to the other end of the field, in the enemy buner/respawn. After defending it from the dastardly Squad 2 goons for 10 minutes, we won the scenario. With the help of the camera's self-timer, I took this shot of the victorious hoarding their fat spoils! Let it never be said that
Firelotus does not have possession of 'da Benjamins.
Sometime later,
Firelotus posed for a shot. I passed the camera to him, and he took the following shot of the author:
...and he managed to cut off my feet. I had to crop another 500 pixels off the top of this image. Way to aim,
FL!
If I remember correctly, this was the third scenario - a hostage rescue. Squad 1 was sent to find a VIP held by the armed forces of the Evil Squad 2. Unfortunately, this proved to be quite difficult. After about 45 minutes of stalking around the thick, steaming forest, I grew discontent. I spent the day humping the Tokyo Marui M14, which is a damn brick. Combine that with all my kilograms of gear, goggles literally dripping with moisture, and the blisters on my feet shouting for attention, and you have one pissed-off
Enki. I slung the M14, yanked out the pistol, and stopped giving a shit. So it happened that I came upon a series of bunkers and shelters that appeared empty. Striding forward with a devil-may-care attitude, I spied
Bishop, taking pics. As I walked into the clearing, I suddenly noticed movement. In one of those rare moments in which time seems to stand still, I saw with vivid clarity a member of Squad 2, prone behind the corner of a bunker. For an instant that appeared to stretch out into the infinite, my brain puzzled over the incongruity as my arm moved with agonizing slowness in a attempt to point my pistol at the foe below me.
I stared into his eyes just long enough to know that he had the drop on me. My slow trip though time and space and cognition slammed into the present when he pulled the trigger and sent three rounds directly into my belly. The one spot on my front not covered by gear or heavyweight twill. Silently I cursed my decision to wear a t-shirt as I staggered backward - more surprised than in pain. After three steps, I fell onto my back, a sharp heat now coursing through my midsection.
There's a video of this up on the ACO site, but I don't feel it captures the gravity of the situation. In context, it was really quite funny, if embarrassing for me. In isolation, the vid-cap shows something a little different - it looks like some damn fool walks right up to a guy, gets shot, and then walks away. I assure you, that's not what went on.
During the last game, Squad 2 was to attack and neutralize a bunker (the one pictured in the 6th, 7th, and 8th pics of this post), defended by Squad 1.
Firelotus and I got the devious idea to hide in a machine-gun nest on the hill that provided the most likely attack route. It was hoped that we could delay the assault and take a few enemy out well before they got to the objective. So here
FL and I waited.
Of course, they did and end-around on us and managed to secure the bunker after all. Bollocks!
All-in-all it was a good day, if tiring. ACO's field has a lot of interesting objectives. I was disappointed in the third scenario, which involved a whole lot of circling the thick forest looking for the enemy. In hindsight, I believe that if conflict can be centered at the bunkers, dugouts, and MG nests while the wild forest can be used for troop movements and ambushes, you'd have a better time. The second scenario, the weapons-buying one, went the best for us Squad 1 guys. That was the highlight of the day for me.
Then we went home and went to Red Robin and I got a huge beer which was like liquid Heaven and also a huge burger and then I fell asleep in the car and had embarrassing photos taken of me.
Yay!!
