"home team" Syndrome

[Lance Jackass]

On the subject of hit taking i played a game a while back where our team defended a hill top against the attackers. I pushed pretty far down the slope to ambush anyone coming up it and subsequently got shot out fast. over 50m across open ground from my team mates, there was no way i'd get medic-ed so i just watched the rest of the game unfold from the enemy's perspective.

 

Surrounded by enemy, i started getting shot at, and bbs were hitting the blokes around me. They fired back and couldn't hit anything. So the cry of "Hot gun!" goes up and accusations of my team (the defenders) not taking hits.

 

Except the attackers were firing uphill, into wind and the defenders were in bushes.

 

In airsoft theres far too many reasons why a bb won't make it to a target, yet someone else's will hit you. As gucci of F&O allways says in the safety briefings "its up to you to take your hits, not to call out those who you hit."

 

As for home teams, im not sure the idea of teams works in airsoft anyway. Teams are lads you talk with in the pub, share lifts with etc, but prepare to be split up when you play. And for home teams, well i have a regular site, but the appeal of airsoft to me is trying new sites. New environments enhance the feeling and the expereince. Whether it's having to use a map to find the other team's base, or running into a building not knowing the layout, swapping round sites keeps the enjoyment up.

[davecymru]

The whole issue of constantly "calling someone out" was one i'd encountered YEARS ago in Electric RC car (and boat) racing when the spoilt brats who's daddys had bought them all their kit were CONVINCED that their car should always be the first to be recovered when their - less than accurate - driving skills sent them off the track. and to this day i match up "spoilt brat" with an image in my head of stuck-up munchkins shouting "marshall marshall" before they'd even crashed.

 

So when i compare airsoft to that, i suppose that there may be something in what The Waco Kid says. Although i must add in my defense that i've only ever got in a real strop once in the last few years and actually called a marshall in. But i was shooting someone with my L96 through a scope and could plainly see the bb's bounce off of him! He even rubbed his arm once!

 

Also ,thinking about what Lance Jackass says, there does also seem to be a matchup of "home team stropiness" and incidents of people claiming that other people are running hot guns!

 

I was on the end of this at Ground Zero back last year (an otherwise SUPERB site i hasten to add, and this was the only problem i had encountered all day) when at the top of hamburger hill someone claimed my TOP M249 was running hot as i was out shooting his souped-up uber M15 and (in his words) "everyone knows that TOP aren't that powerful and i should be easily out-ranging you! you're obviously firing over site limits!" So i went down to the chrono - chronoed at 270ish - chuckled to myself - went back into to game - waved at prat with M15 - was smug for the rest of the day.

[GuzziHero]

Gotta say, for marshalling F&O are spot-on. Ive seen very regular players cautioned for calling on others to take their hits. Theres no bias in the marshalling at all. They have a few VERY site-experienced marshals and if one plays on one side, they make sure the other side also has such an experienced player-marshal.

 

The worst cases of not taking hits Ive seen: On a CQB site, sneaking above the opposing team and zapping one lad in the arm through a gap in the levels with a 1J M15 (wasnt close enough to 'bang'). He shouts in pain, rubs his arm furiously then goes to carry on playing. Another zap sorted him out.

 

The other is one player who wears that much chest gear that he cant feel hits on a frequent basis. Its an issue that has been discussed many times but keeps occuring

[evansy]

this is true... i know every rat hole at lfu and get accused of not takeing a grenade hit when im in another room...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

not anymore you dont

 

But the preferential treatment i've seen towards home team members REALLY gets up my nose!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thats one of the main things that gets right up my nose too. I was at one site which had a sniper limit of 400fps and someone chronoed at 450-460 and was told "go see the boss" he was then allowed to use his gun which was over site limits. I've seen the very same thing happen to someone who was using a gas sniper in the summer which chronoed at 400 in the am but as the day went on it went over 400 due to the heat and he was banned from using the gun.

 

The other is one player who wears that much chest gear that he cant feel hits on a frequent basis.  Its an issue that has been discussed many times but keeps occuring

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thats one of the things I'm paranoid about, I've just changed to a FSBE vest from Alice webbing and now I take hits that should/could have hit me as well as the ones I hear and feel just so noone will accuse me of cheating.

[Leadmill]

There used to be a real problem with home team syndrome at LFU, got to the point where only the 'home team/marshals mates' could have command positions and only they could use the vehicles. They also tended to have hot weapons too.

 

A few teams also don't like being beating by people who they see as inferior i've seen people with my 'gun am bestest syndrome' trying to use 'calling out' as a way to get their way before . One time Bella and I were holding the top window in the command block at LFU putting down suppressing fire etc. We have a marshal standing next to us who we were chatting to, next thing the marshal gets a call on the radio from a marshal with the people we are firing at saying the opposition say we are not taking their hits and swearing at them, the marshal with us responded by saying there just throwing their teddy out the pram because the can't get near us.