Longsword

Does anyone know who all was out there taking photos on Saturday and Sunday? I've seen albums from Milsim Media, Zshot.com and Hard Contact Photography but I was wondering who else was out there?

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.967076830067240.1073741836.554060704702190&type=3 Check out the photos from ESR-19 4 ala the Drunken Rebels Feel free to like, share and tag yourselves.

Longsword's AAR for ESR-19 4 Intro: This has been my fourth AMS event and as it was hailed at the 5 year celebration for the organization I was really looking forward to it! That being said, while there were some awesome things to take away from the event I was ultimately left disappointed. Let me clarify before I break down the different days that AMS and it's staff were once again stellar! The new rule changes didn't bother me at all, staff were on the ball at all times and you could tell they were giving it their all as always. Friday: We arrive at the AO Friday afternoon and set up our tents at Camp 2 (We camped in field as CDF). We're excited to try the new night game and see how it runs. It's game on, eye pro equipped and not soon before the ATF agents show us and start questioning us. I loved this little addition to the game, even if brief. We were also told before the game starts that we'd be mostly just hanging out and relaxing til after 11 PM. We still had to wait on getting our still so as it stood we were completely non-hostile. It wasn't 10 minutes before ATF had left that we were eating hotdogs and grenades started getting tossed in our camp. Naturally we all take cover and begin to shoot back but it left us confused. It was nowhere near the time we were told to expect action, and I could even be okay with that, but we still had not even been given a still yet. As I understood, UFS were supposed to attack us if they had confirmation of us holding a still and they would take us out and apprehend it. I couldn't tell if it was miscommunication or just a squad of some trigger happy guys, but it wasn't the best way to start off the event. Later on, as we are out in the field trying to avoid friendly-fire (which was happening to both sides), we are hearing that the UFS soldiers were throwing grenades into people's tents. Really? There's nothing immersive or fun about that, it's just a plain low move. Went to bed later that night, zipped up my tent and hoped for a better Saturday event. Saturday: The game starts off fun enough. We begin to push up on a UFS advance and secure ourselves a battle line. For the first few hours there is a lot of back and forth and it was great! It got even better when we were tasked with smuggling some 'shine to Camp 1. We had an intense moment in a ravine, all bunkered down as a UFS patrol walked by us no more than 10 feet away. It was a miracle he didn't see us but the pulse-pounding nature of that moment so much fun. It took us a bit but then we get to the riverbed seperating us from camp 1 and have a bit of back and forth between some UFS soldiers stationed there. While the gunner yelling "get some!" over and over as he shot at us got annoying after a while, I'm sure he was just getting in the spirit of things. Eventually we hide the 'shine and Viking and myself help The JP in an epic, yet ultimately futile death charge against the UFS camp that was worth it just to say I was there. I noticed some hit shrugging during that battle from the UFS, but I just "shrugged it off" (I know, lame jokes ) Walking back to camp 2, I link up with the rest of my squad, Drunken Rebels, who managed to get the 'shine to camp 1, successfully completing our frago. My younger brother's gun goes down so I loan him my MTC-3 and stay behind with my pistol. It wasn't long after they left that a whole swarm of UFS rushed camp 2. I was taken out and stood there with a dead rag, trying to figure out what I should do for respawn. And here is where it began to get bad for me. As more UFS roll in, I see one guy spit on a bag when he notices the CoST symbol on it and one other guy forcibly kick my tent over as he passed by. For real, folks, smack talk is one thing and friendly rivalry is all well and good... but we come out to these events to have fun, not act immaturely and start damaging people's personal property. It's even more heartbreaking to see that this wasn't just happening to me and others at my camp but to RoninKiros as well. In general, most of the UFS players I encountered were snarky, aggressive and a little too overboard on the faction rivalry. If it hadn't been for a few UFS who came up to me after and were kind, I probably would've just walked off the field so I didn't lose my cool. That being said, UFS isn't all to blame. I heard a lot of needless complaining, speedloading on the field and hit shrugging from the CDF as well. I get a lot of CDF were frustrated by the brazen attitude and cheating from the opposing force but it shouldn't be an excuse to do the wrong thing as well. I later linked up with my squad at camp 1, who were already out and waiting to respawn and ran into the Ozark Mountain Milsim guys there. Great players with a awesome sense of sportsmanship and remembering that's its just a game. In my opinion they are the coolest bunch on the UFS side We go back to camp 2, I fix up my tent, we grab some gear and we head to Camp 3 which is currently being overrun by the whole of the UFS army. Already we are hearing that half of our guys are gone and we are outnumbered 2 to 1, which was disheartening but I was okay with it. Nowhere did we agree to a fair fight But it was especially encouraging to hear that while we were outnumbered, the UFS were hours behind schedule meaning that we were doing our jobs. After being pushed completely out of camp 3 despite our best efforts, my squad and I made our way back to Camp 2. The sun had gone down and we decided we'd rest and eat. We were under the impression that we were out of play. One group of UFS came up on us while we were in our tents and were decent fellas. They didn't shoot at us and figured we weren't play. Cue to later on in the night when we were all around our fire, cooking spam in the pouring rain. None of us had gear on, guns around; we were just about to enjoy some dinner. Well, a squad of UFS light us up around the fire. They did apologize to us, not realizing that camp 2 was out of play and that they had been told by Top to secure it. I'll chalk that one to a communication breakdown. Was it aggravating to be attacked while trying to eat a second time, especially when it was clear we were out of play? Sure. But mistakes happen, I got over it and the squad who ambushed us were more than cool and were were laughing it off in seconds with them. After the game ended was when we had to make the mad evacuation from camp 2 and to the schoolhouse as the flood hit us hard. Sunday: Stayed around for the raffle, a couple of our members won guns so it was all good Final Thoughts: It was pretty obvious AMS had big things planned for this event. They were wanting a good 5-year anniversary event to commemorate. I thought they did a bang up job of giving us changes in gameplay, immersion and a spectacular use of the field. Where it really fell flat this year was the player base, on both sides. To the UFS, I don't know where the charged aggression and spiteful attitude came from please... tone it down. It's a game. We are here to have fun. No one wants to deal with damaged property because someone took themselves too seriously. To the CDF, whining constantly and cheating in return offers nothing. I bring up these points so we can improve on them, so we can have an amazing next AMS event. Let's not stoop to the level of returning bad with bad. It just makes us look even worse. For real though, folks, it is just a game. A good majority of us are grown men and women, playing dress up and shooting plastic BBs at each other. 99% aren't spec-ops or badasses. We pay to take time away from our personal lives and come out to a weekend where we expect to have fun. It's a shame really because in past events, I've hive-fived and fist-bumped guys on the opposing side, shared laughs and really felt like we were all just coming together to enjoy ourselves, that the rivalry ended as soon as someone yelled hit. I'm really, really hoping this was just a fluke because I can't help walking away from ESR 4 feeling bittersweeet. I had some truly awesome moments I will never forget but the very poor sportsmanship all around me soured the whole experience. So, let's step it up next event huh? Let's be the cool and fun players we've been known to be. We will only damage the sport and drive people away if everyone sees us as players who take ourselves way to seriously and only contribute toxicity to the environment. But thank you again to the AMS staff for your hard work, a shoutout to players on all sides who kept it cool and were fun to play with or against and hopefully I'll see you at Broken Home (where you can feel free to tell me exactly what you think of me and my opinions if you so choose ) -Longsword, Drunken Rebels

Welcome to the forums, little brother!

Haha, Specs stop shamelessly recruiting for the UFS. But in all fairness, he is right. You could run Russian gear with multicam and it would actually fit with a Ruskie loadout.

Electrical tape, lighter, paracord, zipties, allen key, pocket knife, spare batteries, AO map, permanent marker and a pocket notebook are all definitely must carry items. I also make sure I carry an actual first aid kit with me too, not just two rolls of bandages. You never know. Oh, and also my Leatherman multi-tool!

Looking through the feedback, I can definitely see positives and negatives. Here's my personal input on the matter: (Get ready for a TL;DR) PROS 1) Immersion. I like the fact that, unlike Call of Duty (video game comparison... please don't flay me), we will need to be doubly sure of our ammo count. It'll make decisions in a firefight that much more meaningful. Sometimes it's easy to feel like you're playing a Call of Duty campaign (Yeah, I'm actually one of those people who play the game for the campaigns) and just never being concerned about ammo. To me, I think the mag restrictions will be great for the most part, much like the semi-auto rule for riflemen. I'll address my qualms in the cons section. 2) The changes to the vehicle ruleset are great! No complaints here. Also, I assume by no gun trucks they mean no pickups with a machinegun mounted on it? I am personally okay with that as it did feel a little dorky at times to see a bright red Chevy Silverado pull up with just an m60 on top. But that's just my personal taste. 3) I think it'll just promote more engaging gameplay. We are "Milsim" after all. Though I do like that fact that we offer a great balance. Enough so that newbies can plunge right in and have fun (I was one of those people!) but then give enough tactics and military-esque traits so that the more veteran players can keep having fun. There are other companies which offer a more "hardcore" experience and for me personally AMS has struck the perfect balance. And as an added bonus, I think along with forcing more methodical gameplay, we can avoid the fatigue that I know is setting in for some with these OPs and that is "Force on Force", meaning at times it feels like we ultimately just throw our armies at each other and duke it out. MAJOR props to AMS for the what looks like big gameplay changes coming down the pipeline to freshen things up and give us what feels like actual battlefield objectives. CONS: 1) I can't say I'm totally sold on the ammo resupply issue. I'm all for beta testing it (stealing your phrasing, Specs ) at ESR but I do know this has been tried by many other promoters and it only causes issues. A fascinating idea in theory, don't get me wrong! But we all know that communication is the first thing to break down in the field. In a perfect environment I could see it going fantastically but I'd like it if maybe we tested it at two smaller events before deploying it at Broken Home, which I still consider to be THE quintessential AMS event. But as others have stated, we do need to make sure we are evolving our gameplay, offering something fresh every now and then. Time will tell. 2) I do worry about GBB mag players. They've always been at a disadvantage as it is with a smaller ammo capacity. The amount of ammo being able to be slung down range for them compared to an AEG player is very much in favor of electric gun mid caps. Fielding testing will definitely provide more accurate feedback on this issue though. 3) Immersion is great and fresh gameplay ideas are fantastic but I also hope that as AMS switches things up that we offer that nice balance between local field play and events like Milsim West. I'm all for AMS offering special events that are a little more demanding (like a straight 24 hr our 30 hr op) but then offering the more classic gameplay we've come to know and love at the regular events too. TL;DR - I like that fact that AMS is proactive in moving forward. We can't ever grow or evolve without experimenting or trying new things. The only thing I don't ever want to see happen is folks not view AMS as fun anymore. (And fun can come in a variety of shapes. Don't always have to be firing your gun to have a blast!) American Milsim has always been great about ironing out ideas and offering the best experience possible for their attendees. It's what keeps me coming back

Welcome back! Broken Home V looks like the perfect event for you to come back to as well.

It's an interesting idea, but just from a "lore" standpoint and the current political climate I don't know how well that would go over storywise. AMS already has the new Pacific State Alliance faction coming in and who knows what else down the pipeline. But you never know ^ And what Dave said. Definitely seen a few squads running around that use exclusively Russian kits. It's pretty cool to see.

As many others have stated, you really cannot go wrong with M81 woodland. It's cheap, works great for terrains such as Broken Home, still looks cool (at least in my opinion) and when you see woodland, you know it! There's no confusion about sides. I'll admit, camos like Project Honor and Kryptek Mandrake do look really neat, but have led to more than a few issues with friendly fire. OD is also a great choice as well, hard to go wrong with that one

^ Could someone maybe clarify this? I've seen squads not match before but the rules for the event say that they have to? I looked through the ruleset and didn't see anything so if someone could clarify this for me that would be fantastic (Apologize in advance if this is a silly question and I missed something completely obvious)

A good number of us Drunken Rebels are in Benton County area!

Thanks everyone! Good to know so I can have an idea of what I want to use for a loadout (Half the fun of airsoft is dressing up, haha!) Can't wait to get out to End State 4 and fight for the CDF! Appreciate you all taking the time to clarify this for me -Derek "Longsword" Kosina

I got the name "Longsword" from my dad when I was a kid. I was talking to him about how, in video games, I liked playing a character that was versatile and could perform in a majority of situations (though maybe not with those exact words, haha) and he said "So, you'd be like a longsword then." And then it stuck. It's been my callsign, gamer tag, etc. And yes, I actually do have a pratice longsword. Might have to bring it out to an event one of these days

Welcome to the community! Hope you enjoy your stay and stick around. There's lots of fun to be had here!