This review of an Infiltration event at Eversley was originally posted on the ASCUK forums.

Hi all,

As promised in my previous post, this is my slightly elongated review of Operation Infiltration, the Milsim event held on the 16th July by Ambush Wargames and AMS.

The day started off well as my brother and I arrived at the gate to the Eversley site, to be greeted by Mark of AMS. I guess we could have been perceived as being overly keen, as we had arrived well before anyone else, which gave us a great opportunity to take in the amazing playing environment that Eversley has to offer.

Once at the actual safe zone we quickly picked a spot and dropped our gear and admired the rustic charms of the safe zone. Although basic, one thing immediately jumped out to us and that was the extremely high safety netting that shrouded the whole safe zone from the game area. It may seem trivial to comment on this, but with people always banging on about skirmish site facilities and some very worrying experiences at other sites recently, I found this apparent focus on site safety at Eversley a welcome token of merit.

But what really got the pulse racing was the amazing play area that spreads itself across two sizeable valleys. The whole area is a roller coaster of features, with natural mounds and gulleys that wind their way over the two valleys. In addition to these features, the site is covered in heavy vegetation, with all manner of plant forms from pines to ferns. The later of which offer a wealth of hiding positions. It's no exaggeration either, as we hid on two occasions from the opposition as they passed within feet of us. All in all a top notch site.

But onto the important part - the game play. As previously mentioned the 12 hour Milsim was a joint event hosted by Ambush Wargames and the AMS team. This was AMS's first event of its kind and the guys had created a day of interlocking missions that encouraged all forms of game play and problem solving. Each team were initially given a map location that would be their base camp for the duration of the days missions and added to whole experience as each team set up their staging post. The mission types were challenging, involving intel sourcing missions with agents (played brilliantly by the superb marshal team) giving you specific grid positions to piece together the next part of a mission. Through to direct action missions which involved blowing up structures like an enemy tower in one of the valleys. All the while competing against and at times engaging the opposing player teams, who were also busy trying to be one step ahead of the next team!

The atmosphere was charged to say the least, a fact that was heightened more by the fact that you could never be 100% sure of who or what you may end up running into and the guys at AMS wanted to make it as memorable and nerve wracking as possible! They employed various means of doing this with hidden gun emplacements, booby traps, through to the use of a fully operational vehicles, one being a 4x4 technical with fixed gun emplacement in the rear, manned by an assortment of target hungry marshals eager to draw a few kills. By the end of the day, the chugging sound of the diesel engines instantly made you stay a little lower in the ferns!

The games were superb and kept running using a really brilliant kill system that avoided the normal long trudge back to a designated dead zone, which would have been very frustrating if employed as the missions utilised the whole play area and it would be extremely difficult to hook back up with your team mates. And most players were great sportsmen who took their hits and the marshals were strict on anyone who didn't!

The crème de la crème of the missions came at the end of the day as the light was starting to drop from the sky. It was a "Downed Pilot Mission" role played by the Bafta Winning Paul, of AMS. He was complete with working comms, flight suit, helmet and flight webbing and was stranded in the woods waiting for extraction by the most efficient team. His location was roughly marked on the map and each team had to head out from their assigned staging base in a race to secure him and extract him under the noses of the opposing teams and the marshal killer teams who were lurking at various locations. As luck would have it our tactical advance to the location was unfortunately beaten by a mad dash from opposing teams, however in true Tortoise and Hare fashion the opposing teams ended up in a mad gun battle losing the pilot in the process. We swiftly moved in collected our olive drab and white helmeted package and whisked him off to an extraction zone. This panned out to be a cat and mouse game as we ducked and dived, trying feverishly to stay ahead of the competition. Then as we edged closer to the extraction zone our pilot informed us that is was a mobile extraction and we were to all pull out with the pilot, using the 4x4 technical as our means of escape.

After some tense moments sneaking up towards the pick up vehicle we had a mad dash to the vehicle... As five people tried to clamber onboard the rear of the pick up it was evident that almost 12 hours of play had taken its toll on a few of us (well me, as it was not one of my most gracious entries I have to admit!) But then the adrenaline was forced back around the system as a reported ambush was fed back to us. By this time we had presumed that it would be a quick drive through ambush and then into the safe zone to bathe in the glory of a clean extraction! But the AMS gentlemen had other ideas as a large explosion and a vast quantity of smoke grenades and BB's forced our mode of transport out of action. What followed was a mad dash through the woods, with the opposing forces hot on our heals before we finally and triumphantly got our package back!

Once back in the safe zone Mark of AMS set about counting up the score cards for the day and then relayed the scoring to the assembled gathering. A few tense seconds passed as he went through third and second place teams before declaring Team Yellow the overall winners... Much to our collective amazement we had only gone and won the event, which was truly the icing on the cake to a brilliant day.

So to all you guys and girls out there, I cannot recommend Eversley high enough as a site to play at and the AMS day has really moved airsoft to a new level in our minds making the normal walk on days feel very staged and fragmented. All I can say is if you are in any doubt or have the opportunity to undertake a AMS/Ambush Wargames event, just do it... You will not regret it.

And I'll hopefully see you there!

Mr. B