MSW: FLASHPOINT ASTANA! A HIPPIE TALE!

Hey everyone, and welcome back to the blog!

On the weekend of 26th-28th October 2018, myself, Unicorn Leah, Jet DesertFox and Dayton from the House Gamers left DesertUnicorn HQ for MilSim West’s infamous insurgency style game at George Airforce Base in Victorville, California named ‘Flashpoint Astana’.

The insurgency style games are worlds apart from their other events - insurgency focuses more on the role-playing aspect of the game with players creating businesses, an economy and also an intricate social/political dynamic. For this game, instead of picking up a weapon, myself, Unicorn Leah and our friend Kat decided to be non-violent anti-war protestors very much reminiscent of the Vietnam war protestors in the hippy era, the 1960s & 1970s. Whilst Leah, being a flower child at heart herself already had attire that fit the bill so to kit me out, we took a trip to the local goodwill to find me some hippy-esque clothing. Which we did! Once our outfits were on point, it was time to get to the craft store for posterboard, glitter glue and artificial flowers to complete the look! You can check out my ‘MSW Flashpoint Astana Prep’ vlog here!

Next, let’s chat about the AO - George Air Force Base! It is a former US Air Force base in the town of Victorville, California. It was established by the US Army Air Corps in 1941 as an Advanced Flying School. It closed at the end of the WWII but was re-activated as a training base at the start of the Korean War in 1950 where it remained an active training base until it finally shut its doors in 1993. In the 25 years the base has been closed, with no maintenance the AO has naturally degraded meaning it looks more like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie – from fell trees and collapsed roofs, broken glass and missing walls, it was gnarly and the perfect setting for war-torn Kazakhstan. It has a complete road system that spans the entire site and over 100 derelict buildings to fight through.

After arriving on site, we set up our sleeping quarters in the government building just behind the main square of the city. Which due to the AO required dust masks for when we cleared all the debris out of our room - by the end it looked like a post-apocalyptic hippy college dorm. Once we were set up, we walked into the square for registration and gained our citizen cards which identified us as a citizen of the city of Astana. After a quick brief from Astana’s government officials, we got our boombox, protest posters and camping chairs and set-up in the town square. Shortly after we sat down the local Shark Tank approached us wanting to invest their Fetty Bucks into our not-for-profit business - ‘Party for Peace’. After our encounter with Shark Tank, we decided to take our investment money into the town and live our slogan, party for peace. 

Our first stop was the Spice Rack - the local nightclub in Astana. The Spice Rack was a small hole in the wall covered in graffiti, yet inside it was a fully functional club - from disco lights to a sound system and a makeshift bar - the Spice Rack had everything needed to make the citizens of war-torn Astana forget their troubles for a few hours. As the only nightclub in the city, it became the HQ for the Sisterhood of the Travelling Panties ‘Party for Peace’. We were welcomed into the Spice Rack by the doorman who proclaimed ‘ladies enter and drink for free!’ And we began our mission to get the citizens of Astana to party for peace. After half an hour or so, the party was truly raging and we had assimilated another sister into our sisterhood - Sharon. Whilst outside the club we heard rumours that a tattoo shop had opened in Astana so we made our way to the outskirts of the city to check it out - we walked into the shop and was met by Pauly and his assistant. We began perusing the artwork on the walls and in the design books and came across a few designs that would be perfect for us. One by one the Sisterhood of the Travelling Panties made our way into the tattoo chair and go ourselves inked up for the event. 

After visiting the tattoo shop and the gallery that had opened in town, we visited the local casino - where citizens and government officials could relax with a spot of gambling. It’s where I learned to play ‘Blackjack’ but after a few lucky runs, I decided to dip out. As we made our way out of the Casino, a couple of friends approached us saying that NATO forces wouldn’t let them return to their base just outside of the town confines so we decided to set-up a ‘hippie escort service’ - we convinced the Police force patrolling the city fences to allow us to help our friends get back to their home and set about walking the short distance to their quarters. As we walked down the path we shouted ‘We are unarmed, please do not shoot’ and ‘party for peace’ to ensure the NATO forces knew we were unarmed civilians. Within 5 minutes we had made it to their quarters and were on our way back to the city. After this, we decided to retire to our quarters.

On Saturday morning we made our way onto the main street in the town to demonstrate against the violence in Astana as there had been a lot of shots fired in the streets by all sides, as we sat in the blistering heat in the middle of the road with our signs and flowers it was announced that a trial would be held for a man accused of robbing the casino! As Sevant had helped the hippies the previous evening, our hippie in chief Leah chose to be his public defender - unfortunately, it was judged that Sevants crime was too severe and he was executed in the street by the Police which started a small firefight.

As night fell, the music festival began - DJs from all over the city came to the Spice Rack to showcase their talents - the sisterhood of the travelling panties was out in force to encourage the citizens of Astana to ‘party for peace’. At around 1am, the sisterhood retired for the evening. During the night, after the hippies retired for the evening there was an attack on the Spice Rack, although by whom and why we were not sure!

On Sunday morning, the air was full of excitement as the citizens of Astana gathered in the main square of the town, armed to the teeth ready to take the fight to the corrupt Police force that had plagued the town over the weekend. Fetty Slav and his officials rounded up the civilians and we stormed through the town towards the Police FOB. As we got within reach of the FOB, the battle was already a go - with NATO and Russian forces attacking the 2 story building the Police were residing in. The civilian forces flooded the outside of the building, in a haze of smoke and with the distinctive sound of blank fire in the background. As myself and Kat stood in protest popping smoke, Leah ran into battle screaming hippie battle cries. The battle raged on for around an hour, with smoke, explosions and blank fire popping off in all directions until Leah emerged from the Police station with a very dead police chief (Jet Desertfox) and holding his beloved ARP9.

With the battle against corruption won, we made our way back to the main street in the town, where another battle was raging between NATO and everyone else - Rusfor and civilians. Our civilian fighters ran out of ammunition but luckily I had hoarded some in my sleeping quarters. My friend Michael had given me a pistol to help me get through the hoards of NATO surrounding our sleeping quarters, as myself, Michael and Cooke made our way around the outsides of the buildings, NATO troops searched room after room looking for any civilians up to ‘no good’. Eventually, we made it to my sleeping quarters, jumped through the window and found the ammunition, as we started loading mags we heard footsteps in the building. There were around 10 NATO soldiers in the building. I and Cooke stayed still and silent in the wardrobe space in the quarter until we heard them walk to the back of the building, all 3 of us then made it to the next building along where our government officials were waiting.

Endex.

So what are my final thoughts on Flashpoint Astana? This instalment of the MilSim West insurgency series is one of the most hilarious and fun mil-sim games I’ve played in my 4 years of airsoft! It was really fun playing a none-combatant, but I did have an itchy trigger finger by the time the final battle at the Police station came around! 

Photography thanks to MilSim West

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MILSIM WEST: OBJECTIVE STAVROPOL!

Hey everyone! So I get a lot of questions about my time spent in the States, and MilSim West: Objective Stavropol is always a topic of conversation! When I was asked this weekend about it I remembered, I hadn't posted the blog post of MSW so here it is!

On the 26th April 2017 myself, Unicorn Leah and Jet Desertfox flew from Ontario, California to San Jose, CA and then finally onto Seattle, Washington for the next instalment of MilSim West. As many of you will know from watching Leah and Jet's social media feeds that they are avid MilSim West fans and they took me along to pop my MilSim West cherry.  We arrived in Washington a little early - a couple of days in fact so we had a few days to chill before the game. On our first night we visited the 'Rep House' to hang out with the Rushing Russians. After our stay at the Rep House we made the enormous drive from Seattle to our next stop - an Airbnb in Centreville which was around 5 hours away via car. On the drive through it seemed like we drove through every season/every terrain - from the snowy mountains to the rolling green hills. Washington is absolutely gorgeous. We arrived at the Cadre house in the afternoon and set about relaxing before the event. We left for the op location at 12pm the next day.

Once we arrived at the op location after a short 30 minute drive and we started to get kitted up and reshuffled our rucks ready, whilst we were getting our gear sorted we met up with the rest of our section which included Omar from Enola Gaye, PNW Punk, Dayton from The House Gamers, Poi and Lupe who is behind the IG account Slayerella. We spent the next few hours chatting, preparing our kit and eating in the barn waiting for the game to kick off later that evening.

At 7pm our briefing began, the Russian and Militia Cadre briefed us on what the next 36 hours would entail, the AO and the mission we had to undertake - remove NATO forces from the area, by any means necessary. They then made sure we had everything we would need - we had to lay out all of our kit and show our Cadre that we had everything on the tacsop document. Due to the testing nature of these games it is super important that everyone is prepared to prevent discomfort and injury. 

At sunset, all Russian and Militia forces organised into their sections and mobilised, we slung on our rucks and started walking in formation to our first FOB which was around 1 mile into AO, the walk took us around 20-30 minutes. I've never had to ruck anywhere before so this was a completely new experience for me, it was tough going but we all completed the walk.

It was almost pitch black when we arrived at our Militia FOB location so it was pretty tough going with uneven ground from rabbit warrens, debris from fallen trees and rocks protruding from the ground. When we got to our location we set up a defensive perimeter as our squads prepared their kit for the night. Militia HQ squad went out on a raid during the early hours of the morning and for Lupe (@slayerella) and I, it was time for STAG duties. We were on STAG for around 3-4 hours, we positioned ourselves amongst a mound of debris from a fallen tree and stared into the night with our weapons raised ready to engage any NATO that entered our FOB. Temperatures dropped pretty quickly Friday evening from a lovely 10 degrees celcius to around 1 degree at 3am. 

I have been to Ops in the UK where it has been cold as fuck mixed with rain but nothing quite prepared me for MilSim West. Our Op location was opposite Mount Rainier, so we had a deathly cold wind blowing in from the mountain along with the low temperatures. Shortly after 3 am, myself and Lupe made the decision to get in our sleeping bags, despite both of us wearing cold weather gear and wrapping a sleeping bag around us on whilst we were keeping watch, we were both shivering. That night I barely slept, it was so cold as we had no shelter to shield us from the wind and sleeping out in the woods. 

During the night, our Militia section hit 2 NATO patrols during the raids and returned at 4am. At around 8am whilst we were preparing for the day we were informed that enemy platoons were on their way to our location so we all threw our tac kit on ready for a scrap. One thing about MilSims is the pace of play can be slow at times and after around 20 minutes of waiting NATO troops to descend on our defensive positions, we decided to take the fight to them.

Militia HQ taking orders from Space Commander General Jet

We walked out of the FOB in the cold, brisk morning air and started closing the gap between our position and the NATO FOB. Jet took a small team ahead with him to their position, leaving myself and a few others to maintain a defensive line. 

Dayton in a defensive position

Waiting 

Our scout squad returned after around 15 minutes with details of the NATO FOB location and orders to attack their base, orders were sent out over the radios for the Militia call signs to join us at our location so we could launch an attack.

As our Militia call signs arrived at our location we started moving out towards the NATO FOB, as our other call signs flanked left to get the drop on NATO, Militia HQ and Honour guard squads walked across the open fields hooking right to distract and divert their attention. As we approached their position we popped smoke grenade upon smoke grenade to cloud their vision and our blank fire squad disorientated them with a barrage of shots.

Once in range we started engaging the NATO troops, taking out those that we could, popping smoke and medicing our squad members that had been hit in the advance. On our advance my gun failed meaning I was unable to engage anyone, so I instead supported the rest if our squad by throwing pyro and medicing those who needed it.

We had distracted the NATO players so well with our right advance that it gave our Militia call signs on the left enough time to infiltrate their base without being heard or seen. Once we had call signs in the FOB, we took out their troops and gained ground quickly. Once the FOB was cleared of enemies we started to search their bodies for intel and ammo - once located we moved this outside their base so we could load it into our vehicles that were en route to our location.

Searching bodies

'Vape nation'

After the attack on NATO we walked back to our FOB and started packing our gear up into our transport vehicles to take us to the Russian FOB on the other side of the base. When we arrived we started making a shelter for the night to come. Whilst I collected dried, dead leaves to lay on the ground of the shelter, Dayton and Poi dug the ground out from behind a pre-existing barricade.  

The night for the HQ squad was spent refuelling on food and sitting by the fire. Russian and Militia forces were out at all hours of the night, hitting the NATO FOB on the hour, every hour.

At around 5am, there were shots fired into the Russian FOB, a small group of NATO soldiers had managed to evade all of our patrols. We woke up to pyro being thrown, shouting and guns being discharged. Our squad member Poi exploded out of bed and into action, throwing our rifles to us before he ran out into the darkness from where the shots were coming from.

We sat up in bed, clutching at our rifles, listening intently to determine where the shots were coming from and how close they were. BBs started hitting the tarpaulin of our shelter narrowly missing us so we hunkered down. After around 5 minutes, the shots ceased.

We were up early, at around 7am. Militia and Russian troops were still out fighting against NATO. We started packing our camp away and reorganising our kit in anticipation for the very last assault. The last assaults at MilSim West are somewhat legendary! 

The last battle came an hour before the Op was due to finish. At 10am, a wave of NATO forces pushed their way from the treeline into the Militia/Russian FOB. As I was sat by the fire digging a tick out of my arm, we heard shouting and weapons being discharged so we stopped what we were doing, picked up our weapons and started running towards where the shots were coming from. Once we got into the tree line we saw our Russian brothers and sisters getting stuck in. The engagement lasted around an hour with mortars being dropped, smoke and pyro being thrown all over the shop and rounds whizzing past. The battle cries in russian added to the atmosphere.

I can honestly say, that MilSim West: Objective Stavropol was by far the hardest experience I've undertook in my 3 years of playing airsoft, from the cold to rucking all my kit, gun failures, sleeping rough outdoors it was an experience but after I embraced the suck, it was fucking awesome. I would fully recommend MilSim West to anyone looking to take their MilSim game to the next level.  I also want to say a huge thank you to MilSim West for flying me out with Jet and Leah to take part in this awesome op. 

Check out my gameplay video from the final battle at MilSim West: Objective Stavropol below:

Photography thanks to Poi Apeles Photography.

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