Here we go again here for another trip to New Zealand. As soon as they announced that the travel bubble would open, airsoft freaks started organizing this event and this trip to NZ.
Accommodation and transport was handled by the AAMS managers, I dont havw the words to thank these guys, as they make our lives very easy, also always getting the perfect accommodation. We stayed in twin rooms, super comfortable, with microwave, fridge and netflix!
As always when we arrive in NZ the first thing to do is visit the two main airsoft stores, Unlimited Airsoft Shop and The Arena, to pick up our airsoft guns that have been in the storage since our last visit and also to buy supplies. I had the great pleasure of collecting Iggy's new pistol, the pistol that I used during Friday's skirmishes, which made me imorive my pistols kills. However the review of this pistol will be written by Iggy after we all attend the next even, hopefully in october.
The main event for this trip was Saturday and Sunday, but as always we use the days beforeto go to the field and play small games to make the trip worth as much as possible. We started by running a capture the flag in the village, one of the best areas of the field that will unfortunately be demolished. After changing sides of the capture the flag, we played a free-for-all game in pairs, where I played alongside my squirels friend CountZero (Timothy), and we did our part well and we won that game!!!
Then we went to the compound area and played attack-defense, some pistols only and even a game of zombies. The last games on Friday was in the Fort area, which despite having only 5 of us playing, was my favourite part of the day. We played rush, a game where attackers need to push defenders back to the end of a straight area.
Now I'm going to talk about the main one: Rise of the GLA. The event story takes place in a universe where the USA wages a battle against China to define control of the world. Global Liberation Army or GLA is the violent non-state actor that is trying to bring chaos and anarchy to the world.
I joined the American army along with most Aussies, my squad consisted of squad commander: Preacher (Phill), Sniper: Rattlesnake (David), Gunner: CountZero (Timothy) and two assaulters: Rocket (Sven) and C-4 (myself), very proudly, all are from our Australian gelball Secret Squirrels Milsim squad.
Saturday at 1000 we were sent to the American base to start the game from there. The first mission of our squad was to undertake recon on the whole eastern area of the field, which allowed us to find and capture two key points. As one was a central point, we were holding it for a long time, which was a good choice, as we eliminated a small group of the Chinese team who tried to take the point around 1130.
At 1300 after supporting two other American squads in capturing a third point a little further north of our position, we left those capture points with another squad and we moved to the base to take on a mission with our general. The mission was to head west towards the village and help the Chinese army rescue a hostage from the GLA.
At 1335 we left the base and shortly afterwards we found the Chinese army already engaged, the most surprising thing is that we got very close to them before they noticed, lucky for them our mission was to help them in the rescue not take them out.
When we started to push towards the village, I pulled away from my squad, because I was running from cover to cover to heal the wounded Chinese soldiers and pushing the attack towards the village. I was the first one to find the hostage, but the place was full of traps (mines, claymores, grenades, trip wires and dynamite), so I ran looking for the Chinese engineer to disarm the traps and thus save the hostage. It was then at 1410 that together with the Chinese engineer we managed to save the hostage with very little time left before the end of the mission.
As soon as we returned to the base we were greeted with the last mission of the day, where our army had to protect five tanks from being destroyed by the GLA in the area east of the field where the tanks are located. At 1500 and we were already suffering a massive attack from the GLA. Our army effectively insured the integrity of the tanks, with a little confusion in the rules by the GLA team, we did not lose the points of victory for this mission. So the first day ended well.
Sunday 1000 our army was back on base just waiting for the start of the second day of the event. And soon we got there, we received a special mission, where our squad leader, Preacher, received a coin that could not be taken by the enemies, which was very difficult because it meant that he could not die and be caught by the enemies all day.
After the game started, our squad was assigned to make the perimeter of the American base and keep it safe while other squads ran to return a mortar to our base, a mission that was largely completed.
Just before 1200 our squad was sent to a compound holding some GLA prisoners with the mission of keeping the prisoners until 1230. We fulfilled the objective, it was well beyond 1230 and the prisoners were still under our surveillance. However, the GLA enemies still wanted to rescue their allies and they kept attacking us with more and more numbers, which made us leave the place to preserve the Preacher's life.
At 1400 our army received the most important mission of the day: escorting a vehicle from our base to the west end of the field, a location very close to the GLA base. At first our squad was more retracted covering our 6 and also serving with a contingency squad. However, as we were having a lot of American casualties and we had a mobile respawn behind our men, Preacher released us to attack and join our soldiers. That was when my assault/medic side came into action, I started to run saving the wounded soldiers while also pushing to reach more ground and make the GLAs retreat. After a long confrontation and lots of ammunition fired we managed to successfully escort the vehicle and thus ended the last day of the event.
I couldn't ask for a more perfect squad, we all played our role perfectly and honestly. It is very satisfying to play alongside such good players and especially with such teamwork. Phill, David, Sven and Tim, it was really an honour to play with you.
Special thanks to all the referees, but especially to Candyman and Bipty for organizing such a wonderful event. Absolute legends of our sport.
