I’ve been without a team for a while now. Sniper events and other sniper-related projects keep me very busy. But I do miss the experience of running with a team, doing some of the short range stuff and the social aspect of not being alone in the field for two days. So, I’ve decided to start a new team with some friends.

Now, this might seem like nothing major, but the processes involved in building a team from the ground up might be interesting to some people, so I thought I’d blog about it as we go. It also helps the structure of the blog as a whole because I’ll start dropping the non-sniper side into its own section, so it’s not overlapping too much.

This isn’t going to be a skirmish team where we all get a patch and then launch ourselves headfirst into games and get a photographer round afterwards so we can do individual pics and give ourselves numbered callsigns and then link all the instas together so we can get sponsors and artworks done.

This will be a team focused on delivering in big events and milsims, built thoughtfully from the ground up, with a focus on tactics rather than expensive kit. It’ll be a bit more serious and a bit more hardcore mode. I know many in the airsoft community look on milsim players as elitist, and certainly there are many who obsess over the most expensive “real” kit they can find to show off with, but the general issue stuff will do just fine for what we need. The working title for the team is CHALK 4, for Black Hawk Down fans. We were assigned that at a Stirling BHD event a few years ago and it’s being reprised for a forthcoming Defiant Event, Operation Irene. Being quite an uncreative bunch, it’ll do. There’ll be no Multicam high-speed, low-drag gear involved; we’ll be running 90’s/2000’s surplus because it’s much cheaper and just as effective. And looks much cooler.

As we organise ourselves, gather kit and go off to do events, I’ll write some pieces (as will the guys) so we can show what we’ve got and why, where we’ve been and what we’ve learned. At a recent big event at my local site, which I reviewed here, there were some remnants of my old team in the field. I watched as we played. These are guys with a lot of years of experience at England games and AI500 events, and there was a noticeably different approach compared to the regulars on site, despite perhaps a couple being a bit rusty. In that moment, I thought “I need to get these guys back together”. It’s a waste seeing them do a couple of skirmishes every year, because they’re damn good players.

Last week, sheltering in a pub during a thunderstorm, things started taking shape, so I’m going to blog to help keep that momentum up. If there’s anyone reading this in the UK that looks at skirmish games and wonders if there’s anything more, or wants to up their game, please do get in touch. It’s not for everyone, and I know most modern airsofters prefer being warm and dry and their kit clean and tidy, but the door is open.