MAW
MODERN AIRSOFT WARFARE
The website says: “Guns, grenades, pain and
sweat. This is the promise. No frills, just fast
paced simulated military combat.” Pain and
sweat? Best we let Nige check this one out!
I
am not my best at 08:00, especially
when I’ve been driving for nearly
three hours, but the welcome I got at
Modern Airsoft Warfare (MAW) could
not have been warmer. Coffee and
mince pies were particularly well received –
this was, after all, MAW’s Christmas Bash!
MAW is based just outside Melton
Mowbray in Leicestershire, on the site of the
old Asfordby Gun Range. It’s one of those ‘I
wish I could step back in time to see what
it was like then’ places. Unfortunately there
is not much history available but so far as I
can tell it started life in 1918 as The Holwell
Proof Butts, and was used for servicing and
testing heavy calibre guns. The guns were
dryfired into long tunnels built into the hillside
until it was closed in March 1971 after local
residents protested that the vibrations were
slowly demolishing their homes!
018
February 2012
Most of the buildings have subsequently
been pulled down but there are quite a few
that remain. There’s also a raised walkway
that leads off into the trees which gives this
part of the site an almost Myst-like feeling
and makes it perfect for the first game of the
day – a Zombie warm-up!
The site operator, Jay, had told me that
he expected about 30 players for the day
and, although I didn’t do a head-count, there
seemed to be quite a few more than that. As
it was MAW’s Christmas Bash some players
had arrived in costume, including four Santas,
a Christmas Cracker and (no, I am not joking)
a 6ft Turkey! Fair play to these guys, as they
wore their outfits for the whole day!
I was really pleased to see that first
things first meant putting every gun over
the chrono. Each was then tagged to show
this had been done – no tag, no play. Once
chronoing was finished Jay called everyone
up for a very good safety briefing and
outlined the order of play, starting with the
aforementioned Zombie warm-up – which
would start over at the Railway Station and
use the walkways into the forest.
The Four Santas would start as Zombies
so the rest headed off into the trees and
buildings along the walkway. Zombies could
not be killed and any player hit had to go
back to the regen point where they instantly
became Zombies and returned to the game
on the other side. Needless to say this
led to some pretty frantic (and sometimes
very funny) action but the game served its
purpose and got everyone acquainted and
ready for more.
This is very much the MAW style. Jay likes
to start the day with short, theme-based
games before moving into longer, objective-