Not a review…
I’ve done 2 months at Phoenix consecutively now so rather than churn out the usual review template I want to mix it up a little. Yes, Phoenix again. No, I’m not being lazy.
The Weather
The weather deserves a special mention in this post, it absolutely slung it down all day long. There was very little let up and I think my gear is still drying out. It was one of those days where if you hadn’t pre-booked you’d have stayed in bed or at least gone to find a CQB.
Accompanied by
For this game day my usual partner in crime wasn’t present so I arranged to meet up with Al (Fat Badger Airsoft) and Andy, two guys who can more than hold their own out in the field and where Al hadn’t played Phoenix before is a part of my bigger masterplan.
The Games
A very good mix up on games for this visit. As the numbers weren’t high and wet is an understatement, a lot of the games focused around buildings.
The first was brilliant, starting from the safe zone, we the Reds needed to go and find a fuse which was in enemy hands in the village and deliver it to a bomb in the 5-a-side. This was brilliant to showcase to Al how big the woodland was one of the routes to Village is up onto the central pathway and just keep walking. After some brief encounters in the village, we delivered the fuse into the 5-a-side, it was a push to get into there and the bomb was armed. We’d been told we had 40 minutes to deliver that fuse, we now had to defend it for another 20 minutes. Blue team pushed hard at us and I found myself perched up at the side wall facing quite a few opponents. Great for getting my accuracy dialled in on the Article1.
The next game was more of a traditional clearance of the “main 3” buildings on the entry road. Terminal, Kill House, Fuel Dump. I will absolutely give it to Blues, we had to fight hard to get up to Terminal. Once on the doors though, my Article made short work of getting in and going through the near pitch black inner maze. I don’t think I’ve ever been “that” thankful to have picked my weapon appropriately (ironically I hadn’t chosen it, my sniper was running a touch warm due to an ammo weight change so it came off the subs bench). We had a lot of confusion at the Killhouse where there was a lot of Red on Red killing before we decided to go and attack fuel dump. I took a couple out who were sneakily hiding between the huge stacks of pallets up there awaiting build but it wasn’t enough. We didn’t complete the mission.
No shooting into or out of Switzerland!
The final game of the day was incredible. We played “a” version of this a long time ago but it’s evolved so well. We were placed in groups of 5. Each given a gold coin (plastic obvs) and dispatched into the woods at intervals. Simply, fight, confirm your kills by taking coins and then go deposit them with the bank in the taped off area called Switzerland.
Marshalls were in and around Switzerland ensuring nobody hung on the edges picking people off and the amount of freedom afforded to players was brilliant, you could go and hide, come back with your coin, you won’t win but you will survive or go find people and massacre.
We were slow to get out of Safe Zone with a group in front of us who had gone and bunkered into the first structures they could find and then a group released just out of engagement distance with us we were pressed from the start. Al dropped to a knee, turned and managed to drop all but one of the following team, that slowed them enough so we could plough forwards and get bunkered in, collect ourselves and come up with a strategy. Whilst we were doing that, another team kind of patrolled onto us, there was no mistake this time, we dropped them all and Andy went in to collect the spoils.
We then pushed horizontally through the woods ending up on the edge of the valley into the Village. We spotted some movement and after a brief engagement we’d downed 2 maybe 3 players but there was no way we could push in. We disengaged, went into hide, recollected and swapped mags.
It was now time to make a push for Switzerland, with the enemy in the village recovering and nothing behind us we made a dash, we only had to make it into the boundaries for Switzerland, we did it and deposited. That’s when things started going downhill.
The Rookie Mistake
Rather than coming back out of Switzerland in the direction we’d come from where we knew we were safe, we exited to the side, this put us in a questionable position, we had a team below Switzerland and at least one now in front of us although a fair way off. We got some distance between us and Switzerland and dug in with a view to using a downed tree as a base to move out from and back to. Going into an uncleared area was the error here, we found ourselves being closed in on by 2 teams with a further 2 attacking those as well as us. There was no moving out, we just had to grit it out. Thankfully after some very tense firefights End-Ex was called and we hadn’t had our coins taken. We almost added to our scores but a group I’d downed didn’t have any coins however the winning team won by a landslide so 3 I would have gained wouldn’t have tipped the win in our favour.
Final Thoughts
I’ve got some teching to do. My SRS has already had 2 aluminium rings dropped off the piston so it’s now back under limits again. My ____ (I’m not giving it away yet) is progressing well, it shot roughly where I wanted, the hop is set but that was pointless now the next swathe of parts has come in. My Article1 never fails to impress me, it’s brilliant (but then again it’s a short barrel MTW so it should be).
Next month I’m in two minds of where to go, I was going to head over to Killzone for an easy fix but they’re running a Battlesim which doesn’t fit with what I want to do at the moment so it’s likely going to be a trip either further afield (if the weather bucks up) or if it doesn’t I may just end up back at Phoenix again as a final prep day before April’s shenanigans.
