ASCS 2003

Tue, 19 Aug 2003 05:48:43 +0000

A late update here - last weekend was ASCS 2003 - the Big Annual Airsoft gathering.

Basically, airsoft is a bunch of people in military gear running around with realistic looking air and electric powered guns firing plastic pellets at each other.

This year’s games were 250 vs. 250 affairs over a huge playing area - woods, streams and open hills. A lot of fun, but a bit repetitive, even though the teams were made up of 5 small teams and were rotated. Previous years had similar team sizes of 30 or so, but it was a 1 on 1 style in smaller areas, with specific objectives - capture the flag, defend a balloon, or such. This year’s was 5 games of the same thing - find coloured cans and bring them back to base. Unfortunately the lack of knowing your team-mates and having no overall strategy meant that the games often descended into stalemate small unit activity.

Our team is called Tokyo Gaikoku Butai [ TGB] (aka Foreign Devils or just ’those gaijin’), but only 7 of us made it up, so we joined with a few other small clans and made one team. We make up a pretty small percentage of the 500 or so participants, but the reception is always friendly, and doesn’t affect the game play at all. I’ve been playing for about 3 years now, although I only seem to make a few games - but I always go to ASCS. If you fancy giving airsoft a go, have a look at that group, or Google it!

The weather for the weekend was warm on Saturday and raining on Sunday, and today is pretty miserable too. I hate to whine on about the weather here, but for Japan, this is really odd…middle of August and I’m not melting.

Airsoft on Nanikore

ASCS 2003