Gareth (our events manager) and I took a trip to the uprising event at the combat festival in April, held on the Swynnerton training area. Swynnerton is an active army exercise area in Staffordshire which used to be a munitions store. As such it is a big and somewhat overgrown playing area with a large number of bunkers, stores, warehouses and mock up FOB’s. Much of the area was quite overgrown with thorns so it paid to have thick trousers (DPM might be comfy but I’m still pulling thorns out of my leg 2 weeks later). The player numbers for the game were substantially less than expected which meant that the playing area had to be restricted. Personally I enjoy games with only a few dozen people per side and a restricted playing area, as the action is friendly and fast. It was certainly a change for the huge Uprising events held on Sennybridge training area; the Uprising team hope to hold an event at Senny later this year, have a look at The Uprising Website later in the year if you are interested in a big scenario led urban game. The Uprising game which was played on Saturday was furious and fun for the players. The training area was given over to the ‘scenario paintball’ players on the Sunday. UKAPU manned our stall for much of the weekend and tried to make these fellow geardo’s aware of the awesomeness which is airsoft! We also managed to recruit a few airsofters to UKAPU which really helps the association. On the Saturday evening the paintballers had a big party which we left when they started eating large volumes of paintballs. Paintballs are non toxic but I’m not convinced they are good for your health!
Overall the combat festival was well organised but the opportunities for airsoft play were quite limited as the Sunday airsoft events which were organised by the other companies were cancelled. I hope that the airsoft players were able to get a full refund for the CQB training which some of them had paid for in advance. I’m not sure that airsoft fits in so well with the festival but the players enjoyed themselves and the Swynnerton area is certainly worth returning to if any more airsoft games are played there.
Tim Clark aka KaRcop interviewed a few people at the event, including myself. The video can be found here.
Matt Furey-King
Chairman