Milsim exposure, letting people have a go

TheDoc

Well I had a little lightbulb, probably prompted by the amount of recent threads discussing cheaters, **** gaming, airsofters being morons and exposure to the general public.

Well there is also a need of exposure within the sport and its milsim. Skirmishing holds the market share, with more then the average being happy enough to play their skirmish and enjoy it and thats cool.

However the talk on the numbers dropping thread, (albeit flawed and not realistic imo) I feel that the numbers were never there for milsim, and coupled with the idea of this exposure video for airsoft, I got a little idea for exposure for milsim.

Alot of players probably feel intimidated to join in a milsim, especially new players.

Requirements for milsim are usually.
Midcaps.
Specific camoflauge
Specific equipment
Honor( seems lacking overall in this country :P )
Among other things, but mostly patience.

It is often also labelled more "hardcore and intense" and I guess (and know from experience) that going to one of these games, for the first few times is intimidating. Your usually playing with and against the best, and your surrounded by all the veterans.

Perhaps for the new year, some ideas can be thrown about to promote milsim. There is no doubt that some site owners are experimenting with milsim, and that some site owners are big supporters of milsim. Hell we have a dedicated company now for milsim.

We have Mac, who run dedicated milsim games. We have Rules of engagement who run dedicated milsim campaigns ( best thing to happen to airsoft here imo), we have sites like HRTA who support milsim regardless of the hit, and we have sites like Red Barn who are looking into it, and will take the risk. ( they run one or two limited ammo games a day, which are always the best ones) Now I may have missed a site or two who run milsim, dont get a hissy, I just havnt heard of you or the events, and well thats what I mean, exposure.

Anyone thats ever been on the Wales trip, never had a **** time, it was always amazing. Wales is your pinnacle for your milsim ambition ( alongside other uk and foreign events) But I feel its the most accessible, where the most amount of irish players attend annually to make people feel comfortable if they are on their own.

So it might be possible to run a milsim introduction day, or a demo day or something like that. I cannot stress enough that if you have never tried milsim what you are missing out on, your missing out on airsoft. Realism, working as a team, depending on the guy beside you, picking your shots, beating bullets of sweat realising your down to your last few rounds with a swarm of enemy coming. Watching one of your team mates in the open injured, and you need to get a medic to him.


This stuff you dont get in skirmishing. There are pros and cons of both, we wont get into them, unless theres people here with specific questions surrounding milsim.

And I'd also encourage people to ask questions in this forum, that perhaps we can anwser some questions, squash some urban myths and expose milsim.

Site owners can do their part. Most sites dont run day long scenarios, it is coupled with a series of smaller games. Throw in a limited ammo game, throw in a medic game. Semi auto only games. People usually moan at first, because they think it will be rubbish and they will be at a disadvantage. But it promotes people to push themselves, develop their skills, and even playing one or two of these type games in your scenario list for the day, throws diveristy, and adds some milsim.

Some wont like it, but from experience on sites, its usually the best games, and most people usually like it.

I also find milsim games and days to be more socialable. Because you are forced to interact and converse with your team, you will talk to more people. So if your on your own at the start of the day keeping to yourself, after half a milsim day, after being involved with your team, I guarantee you, youll have people chatting to you, nevermind you to them.

I'd be interested to get some thoughts. On a more positive tone from this " o **** airsoft is going to blow". I'd encourage anyone new to the game, or eeven experienced players, to ask questions if they have any about milsim.

Here you have literally a world of information at your fingertips, you have the best players, the most informed, and all the business' and retailers here to anwser questions. You have people like Hivemind, extremetaz, paul carey and evilrobotshane that can anwser loads of milsim specific questions etc.

Where do I get midcaps?
Where do I play milsim?
What is milsim?
Medic rules.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Is it for me
Milsim loadouts ( alot different to skirmishing ones)

Let the positivity begin!!!!

di11on

I think this is a fantastic idea.

What Milsim events are there currently? I'm aware of the Jebrovian Conflict, but who else runs milsim games/campaigns?

cpb

ABZ in Laois run milsim every weekend have not been there so thats as much as I know. They do have a thread in the retailers section. Their site is here

TheDoc

di11on wrote: »

I think this is a fantastic idea.

What Milsim events are there currently? I'm aware of the Jebrovian Conflict, but who else runs milsim games/campaigns?

Thats the point in reality, its very limited at the moment. But sites are trying to experiment, throwing some watered down milsim ( medics, limited ammo games) into their game rotations and it seems to be succesful, I guess the task is to get the people who liked the experienced, trying it out for a more prolonged period. (half day, full day)

mcshape

I think this is a farking great idea!, And i think like me quite a high percentage of people on boards want to get into milsim, or certainly just give it a go, I think Doc the best thing you can do is agree with a site to run a milsim event for a few months in the future, then use this thread to educate people on what they need to know for the rules and gameplay and loadouts, Set the date, create 2 teams (i know a bunch of milsimn noobs dont want their first experience against a full milsim team) and mix your experienced milsim players between the two teams.. and let the death begin!

Daz1214

its definately something i want to have a go at. I think with the experience of constant playing over the past year or so, my style of play has moved more towards milsim anyway..i know we have spoken with dave in rathbeggan about holding a milsim event in the near future but we need to work out how to best utilize the site and space thats there...i would definately like to know a bit more bout it though

evilrobotshane

Definitely anyone who wants to try milsim (and anyone who likes milsim and wants to play it) should get themselves to Airsoft Battle Zone. It takes less than an hour to get there from Dublin and they're running high-quality games that need you to use your head, every weekend. I'd be there all the damn time if I could get there.

The place to store whatever information comes from this thread for antiquity is probably at the MilSim page on irishairsoft.info which has yet to be written, but anyone can get in there and start typing.

Milsim is what got me interested in airsoft in the first place so I don't know what it'd be like coming at it from the other side. What questions do people have about it? What preconceptions and what uncertainties? What reasons for not having tried it yet?

StevieGriff

Definitely want to get into more Milsim orientated games but the fear of elitist *** heads taking it way too seriously and killing any bit of craic, and with fella's like that there's always the "arggh! it's a teenager" stereotype. Maybe that's just me being a bit overly intimidated by it?

(Great thread btw.)

mcshape

StevieGriff wrote: »

Definitely want to get into more Milsim orientated games but the fear of elitist *** heads taking it way too seriously and killing any bit of craic, and with fella's like that there's always the "arggh! it's a teenager" stereotype. Maybe that's just me being a bit overly intimidated by it?

(Great thread btw.)

Good point stevie, But i think what the Doc is saying is this will be an "introduction" to milsim, and id say this should mature after the first introductory game into a more regular thing moving from site to site and then we will all have the experience and be on an equal footing, its in the best intrest of the milsim crowd (excuse the branding) to get more people involved and i think its in the best interest of our SPORT to move it to a more mature level, Speedball will always be available on any site regardless of what happens here, I just HOPE that this becomes more than just a thread, im willing to invest time in this, Ill assist and back anyone who wants to get this organised, i think its something we MUST do to progress our sport as other threads have show there is way too much bad feeling around the sport at the moment as recent threads have shown

And i certainly dont ever go "argh its a teenager" i dont care what age, gender, race, size anyone is, as long as they take their hits and play with honour

This isnt just a great thread, its an EPIC thread

zero86r

I'd like to give it a go, but as i'm not part of a team how will that work? Different loadout, different camo etc. Also i own no comms gear, another essential i'd imagine?

Puding

zero86r wrote: »

I'd like to give it a go, but as i'm not part of a team how will that work? Different loadout, different camo etc. Also i own no comms gear, another essential i'd imagine?

i would not worry, milsim is not down to camo or rule sets or the equipment all these are window dressing, milsim is im my eyes at least down to the mind set of the players, as long as your willing to have a go and suspend reality a little that is the most important thing

Firekitten

Yup.... As puding rightly says, Milsim can be done with 10 30 round mags, or 1 300 rounder... its a mentality alone that separates you, and changes the game.


I've been doing Milsim games pretty much exlusively for the last 4 years. Regular sunday games lost thier apeal rfor me ather quickly.

What do you get out of milsim games besides the obvious?

- A camaradre and sense of achevement.... you complete your objective... its hard, it gives you a good feeling.

- Greater physical test: The work required of your body is harder... you go furtherm carry more, operate more realistically... its good for your fitness in the long run.

- The suspension of disbelief: Best it can get in airsoft... you're that person, there, and then, and getting into the mindset of milsim/live roleplay airsoft milsim games really change the dynamic and makes the games so much more involving and dynamic... it feels amazing...

- Actually playing milsim, you'll see a lot of the gucci and elite mentalities of sunday games begin to melt away when players learn to depend on skills and abilities to win and the pose factor is a smaller element on the whole than doing the job. bad? no, but your priorities change when its raining, dark, and 3am and you;'re patroling a border of some far away land...

Why try milsim?




Why not?

evilrobotshane

zero86r wrote: »

I'd like to give it a go, but as i'm not part of a team how will that work? Different loadout, different camo etc. Also i own no comms gear, another essential i'd imagine?

You typically sign up for one side or the other either on the day or in advance. If you're part of a team you can all sign up for the same side if y'all want, but it's not necessary. Much like a weekend skirmish, you'll be in with the guys on the same side as you, and most people will be in that boat.

Mostly what makes MilSim is the rules and the type of play that those create - if you don't have thousands of rounds and getting hit means being out of commission for a while, there's naturally more emphasis on stealth, tactics and using your noodle.

Camo restrictions and all that is pretty much like playing dark shirts versus light shirts in a soccer kick-around - it's instead of an armband. If you particularly want to be on one side in a particular game you might want to pick up desert camo or something, but I haven't really seen too many of such restrictions.

Comms certainly isn't essential. It's good for team leaders to have it, and CAN be handy in some situations, but I've seen more problems caused by too many comms on a side than too few.

Thinking about it now, it's pretty hard to generalise, there are loads of types of game that fall under the misnomered umbrella of MilSim. So for current Irish conditions, you don't need to be on a team, you'll almost certainly be able to play with whatever clothes you currently own, load-outs don't matter at all, and you don't need comms.

Edit: Also, I've never seen any elitism in a MilSim game. As I've seen all over the airsoft culture, people are welcoming and delighted to team up with someone who's interested in their favourite thing. Teenagers too. Nor have I seen it being taken too seriously - everyone's aware it's only a game.

Stonewolf

Milsim is definitely where it's at and in my personal opinion (woah there!) it's closer to the true spirit of airsoft than the Sunday skirmish.

My own personal background is from gaming (of the tabletop variety) and LRP*. LRP is something that never caught on in Ireland because it was very niche (and you want bad press? an LRP group once while having a regular training session were raided by Armed Gardai complete with helicopter), so you had to go to England to get your fix and while those games were a lot of fun, making that trip is a major drag, imagine only getting to a half dozen games a year if even that. One of the reasons I took up airsoft is that a) it's fun and b) it's here. Now, while skirmishing is ok and all really I'd love to see more milsim, we used to say in the LRP community that if there was a game on over here we'd go every weekend and I think the same is probably true of milsim (though maybe not EVERY weekend).

Since I only started recently I can also give an idea of what it's like as a newcomer to milsim. I started out with my AEG, a hicap, a complete inability to aim at anything and a penchant for running my batteries dry before running out of ammo. I also had a set of ACU fatigues and that's pretty much it. When I started Jebrovia I picked up a very very cheap box of ten 30rd mags and a vest to put them in. I would say most airsofters have a vest of some kind anyway so that just leaves the mags and there's nothing stopping people out there from running a single hicap milsim. The first big thing you'll find is that unlike skirmishing milsim is not constant balls to the wall action, maximum aggression and maximum firepower will not win as the game requires a more considered and tactical approach especially when its more complicated goals are taken into account. The second thing you'll encounter is that you don't have a Mega Family Bucket o' BBs with a side order of BBs. Think of that clock they had in that terrible Battle of the Bulge movie, that was supposed to represent how much time the German resources could last on full assault, well you have only 3 or 4 hundred BBs for the whole day or until you buy the farm so you've got to be conservative. I learned to aim a bit more than not at all (still can't hit the side of a barn unless it's on the wrong side of the border though) and use semi more, but most important of all for ammo conservation is burst fire. You don't hold down the trigger until victory in RS, you don't do it in milsim either and if you're any good you don't do it in computer games. A lot of the reasons for this don't apply to airsoft (unless you have a GBBR but you probably don't) but the big one does and it's called ammo conservation, in milsim if you need auto you do three round bursts, it's a technique that only takes a couple of minutes to master but will significantly improve not only milsim but skirmish performance as well. Those things covered there's one other matter, being dead. Dead men don't talk especially in milsim. Depending on the ruleset dead men also probably lay around waiting for a necromancermedic to raiseheal them usually for a fixed length of time before they go to the safe zone to drink some tea and reload. What kind of strange voodoo the medic does is very rules dependent but essentially there's a penalty for getting shot and that penalty will probably apply to your team as well as you!

In short, if you're new to milsim you need to know this:
* You need an AEG(or GBB), some mags, somewhere to put the mags, and an appropriate costume but you probably already own nearly all of that anyway
* You need to calm your heels and think things through, talk with your team and plan
* You will have much less ammo and as a result your shooting style will need to reflect this with more careful aim and conservative shooting
* Getting hit is a big deal
* Make sure you know the objectives and RoE (I know I didn't say that up there but it's important)

After that, if you get into it you can look forward to a happy spiral into the pit of being opinionated about camoflage, buying a hundred squillion MOLLE bits you'll never use, asking what channel everyone is on again and complaining that skirmishers are ruining the hobby.

Milsim is great and you should at least try it, I'd love to see more games going on over here (especially if I can get a job to pay for more play) and will try and get to as many of them as is practical in the coming year.

* LRP is a Role Playing Game** taken out of the tabletop environment and played in a live action manner using costumes, armour and solid core foam weaponry, so essentially milsim in a fantasy setting

** A Role Playing Game is form of moderated cooperative adlib theatre in which a group of nerds pretend to be interesting people

MerryDespot

Thanks Doc for bringing this up - as someone who is new to the sport and who has been slow to go the milsim route without some pointers this is just the sort of prod that I needed to start looking seriously at milsim.

If any new players out there want to buddy up before heading to a milsim game feel free to give me a PM - safety in numbers say I!

knifey_spoonie

I do like what everybody is saying here, but there no need to go alter site that are already running as speedball sites. Theres MAC in longford which by all account is top notch and i mst get up there.

My experience is in ABZ in Portlaoise and i have to say its a big step up from normal sunday games.

Every day starts with a briefing, objectives are set for the day.You are also recieve set dead lines for each of you objectives. Thats it your on your own, you plan your day from that moment on.

You can have anything upto 5 seperate objectives to complete over the whole day, some have to be done by a certain time, its a mix of attack and defend.There have been times when you may have to stand on stag for upto and hour just watching the tree lines.It may not sound like fun but it is seriously fun.It really brings out the use of tactics into its own.

Once me plus one (thermo) sneaked behind enemy positions, auctually using the river as a natual pathway, ended up behind about 10 enemy players, at one point one auctually turned around and talking to us. In the end we killed about 6 of them, got shot and returned to dead zone. To me thats what real airsoft is, using you head and taking 30 mins to flank the enemy, instead of this rambo style that is seen every sunday country wide.

I have played games where borders are marked on maps and in field, you may not cross the border, you may not fire across a border.These games require discipline.Thats what i think milsim is about, its about using your head.

If any one even thinks they would like to try milsim, do it. You wont look back.

Fireborn

I would love to see some more milsim, I've only just jlined the hobby but the main reason I have is to take part in milsim.

Fireborn

Growler!!!

Will echo what Despot said. I'm glad you brought this topic up Doc. Its opened my eyes to Milsim and a slightly more "mature" (in the sense of airsoft progression - not age) way of playing.

For some reason I had the idea of Milsim being a load of lads pouring over their Tac Aides (TAM's to ye young 'uns) and calling each other by Ranks etc.

My experience of airsoft so far has been "speedballing" with Hi-caps and 9.6v batts. I 'm willing to try something new and give the limited ammo and objective based games a go.

MerryDespot

I was talking to a regular player a few nights ago and he mentioned the 'three month courage build up' to starting airsoft - between first hearing of it or stumbling across it (as I did on youtube) and actually starting to head out to a sunday skirmish. I reckon that the same may hold true with milsim - you get the 200 round hi cap hosing out of your system and then you want to try what's next, but don't know how to go about it. I reckon an buddy-up/organisation thread for relative noobs like me might be the way to go to get people out to play. I'm willing to give it a go if there's enough interest in it (and if I can get a bit of guidance from some of the old hands out there).

birdman 1979

My experience is in ABZ in Portlaoise and i have to say its a big step up from normal sunday games.

These games require discipline.Thats what i think milsim is about, its about using your head.

If any one even thinks they would like to try milsim, do it. You wont look back.[/QUOTE]


Totaly agree with you on that one. I played their last Oct, it was the best day out i have had. I have played some normal games since then and i have being bored out of my head. To much mindless trigger time, players not takeing hits, guys moaning about people not takeing hits. It gets old very quickly!

Hopefully we will see the milsim movement, make its way to the west. It would give the sport a good kick in the right direction.

Firekitten

Growler!!! wrote: »

For some reason I had the idea of Milsim being a load of lads pouring over their Tac Aides (TAM's to ye young 'uns) and calling each other by Ranks etc.

Can be..... and some people confuse that...

There was a big game recently (summer) that had ranks in use... big strop.

They didnt pay attention to the fact that it was a Roleplay game. Thats one aspect that can function in a game.

Most milsim doesnt have ranks. And folk that run around calling eachother by rank, and saluting, are just propper walts.

The key feature of milsim over regular sunday games for me, is Objectives....

When doing something... some objective, or aim, will result in a change of the whole battle. That one action can change an outcome.... it sure beats brapsoft.

k99_64

So what would the spec camo be for milsim?

Stonewolf

Bring what you got.

In The Jebrovian Conflict series the teams were "Green" and "Not Green" and that would generally be the trend (I think it's something similar for Berget too). Most milsims wouldn't restrict you by pattern unless they were being very specific. In fact, ABZ don't even split teams up by any kind of differentiating features, there aren't even arm bands, you've got to figure it out as you go along.

Puding

k99_64 wrote: »

So what would the spec camo be for milsim?

milsim normally trys to stay away from arm bands so camo is normally use as a divide between team dark/light or green/brown are common divides, im not 100% shore as to what you mean by camo spec, but tbh it normally dictated by the team or the look your going for, what ever you find comfortable really again its more important to be there and be willing to try, one thing that is always important to remember is that especially with milsim you get as much out as you put in

but to anyone out there i would not worry about camo or gear as a priority stuff like that will sort itself out in the future, to much time somtimes is put on gucci and gear (and this is coming form a self confessed russian gerdo ) and the fashion parade that is airsoft sometimes

Bernie Mac

I must say I would personally love to play a milsim event and when i was working in Rathbeggan we did try to get them organised...however the main issue was the fact we had never been to any so didnt know what to expect.

but this is an issue, not a big issue, and i hope i dont offend anyone or set anyone off on a rant on this one but i always felt to partake in a milsim event u have to have the gear. now i dont mean u have to have th gucciest piece of kit hanging off u i mean u have to invest in mags, spare batteries, if u dont have any load bearing gear it would be to your advantage to invest in some and it slowly builds up.

I dont know now but i was always interested in heading to somewhere like stirling airsoft but the money involved in the kit let alone the ticket and transport is pretty pricey.

Thats my only issue with it otherwise i would love to try it and will give a hand if needed in organising any events!

Sperminator

if it helps to promote the sport, then i'm in (the tree line doc with the sniper rifle )

Firekitten

Bernie Mac wrote: »

I dont know now but i was always interested in heading to somewhere like stirling airsoft but the money involved in the kit let alone the ticket and transport is pretty pricey.

Thats my only issue with it otherwise i would love to try it and will give a hand if needed in organising any events!

Stirling is a team that run games in the uk... not a site. They use several.




To be honest, and this is a suggestion to Ronan and the others here.... Why dont some of us more experienced in the organisation and planning of milsim games, (and players) get together and organise a larger milsim game within Ireland? Something battlesimesque to ease people in and give them a taste of things on the wildside?

Any army training areas we can snaffle for it perhaps?

End up with a big anual event if it goes off well....

StevieGriff

Firekitten wrote: »

Stirling is a team that run games in the uk... not a site. They use several.




To be honest, and this is a suggestion to Ronan and the others here.... Why dont some of us more experienced in the organisation and planning of milsim games, (and players) get together and organise a larger milsim game within Ireland? Something battlesimesque to ease people in and give them a taste of things on the wildside?

Any army training areas we can snaffle for it perhaps?

End up with a big anual event if it goes off well....

I've heard of people trying to get permission to run airsoft games up the Curragh but it was a big no no.

Also now that you've mentioned Stirling, you think it's too much of a leap for a milsim noobie to jump straight into an event like Stirling?

TheDoc

wow this really kicked off whilst I was away,

erm I feel bad, friend bet me a tenner I couldn't get more then 20 thanks on a post, so I had a boring management class and went for it...


milsims ****e like, its so 2009....






milsim rocks my balls and cox combo

Firekitten

TheDoc wrote: »

milsims ****e like, its so 2009....






milsim rocks my balls and cox combo

Got penis evny tonight doc?

StevieGriff wrote: »

I've heard of people trying to get permission to run airsoft games up the Curragh but it was a big no no.

Also now that you've mentioned Stirling, you think it's too much of a leap for a milsim noobie to jump straight into an event like Stirling?

Ah, no.... Its not a paticularly steep learning curve, The games dynamic is quite variable... and there is a wide diversity of ability and styles in the games. The sites are one of the best reasons to go... Its certainly a buz to spend the day on a 5 storey rooftop providing sniper overwatch that essentially took a third o the site out of play (due to transit routes passing in range) even if it did result in heatstroke.... (Lemming had to drag me off the roof and force isotonic solutions into me before I could get back to playing... no shade and lots of work = hard on the body)
The games are by no means 'elite' or 'super hardcore' as advetised sometimes, Tacops by Townassault are good.... hardcore, milsim, but the hardcore that the posers dont last long in... the wet, cold miserable kind. (feck that myself. I had enough of it when being paid, why would i want to pay to?)

Hivemind187

Firekitten wrote: »

Stirling is a team that run games in the uk... not a site. They use several.

To be honest, and this is a suggestion to Ronan and the others here.... Why dont some of us more experienced in the organisation and planning of milsim games, (and players) get together and organise a larger milsim game within Ireland? Something battlesimesque to ease people in and give them a taste of things on the wildside?

Any army training areas we can snaffle for it perhaps?

End up with a big anual event if it goes off well....

We're working on it but there are three things in the way.

1) Military land in Ireland is pretty much a no-go as far as we have been told. The MOD doesnt want a bunch of civvies making a mess I guess :rolleyes:

2) Infrastructure. What we have in terms of venues available to us is great for a day game or a few hours here and there but the truth is that few (if any) airsoft venues in Ireland have the capacity to cope with an extended game with very large numbers (60-80+). Add to that the apalling state of our transport system, unreliable weather conditions and myriad other logitisical hassles (catering, toilets, refuse collection etc etc) it's not really feasible at present.

3) The 1 joule limit. Sad as it is to say, attracting players from abroad would be the only real way to put enough players on the field to make a game of that size (even if we had a venue) and that limit will put many of them off. People will try and pretend that it wont but it will, the average punter is fickle and the sniff of not being able to play because their kit isnt uber-l33t (or more likely because it's over the limit and unusable on a responsible field) will trim the numbers.

It sucks because we originally planned to have the RoE thing develop into something on that scale. We simply didnt get the money to do it this year and we dont have a venue that can support the numbers.

On the up side we are planning to re-launch the RoE game this year with some seriously huge changes, more serious game play and a different approach to nearly every aspect of the game. Part of it will be running (hopefully) more SWAT games like the Los Angeles and Chicago games from last year, which are quite complex and require careful planning and co-ordination but are still accessible to anyone who takes the time to prepare properly. Another part of it is changing our approach to the logistical end of things at a planning level.

All that is however entirely redundant without the player base to actually support it. Myself and Sean were ecstatic with the turnout of our finale, and suprised by the number people who actually managed to make nearly every game. But these die-hard vetereans of the Jebrovian conflict are still - in the grand scheme of things - only a handful of what is needed to support a full scale MilSim operation.

Someone get me a venue (and a couple of months notice) and I'll sort out a game.