The Airsoft Experience
The Airsoft Experience
Building Better MILSIMs With Worst Case Ontario and Andrew Mitchell
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The snow is still chest-high up north, but the calendars are out, the contracts are written, and the props are being built. We brought back Andrew Mitchell of Worst Case Ontario to share how a small, scattered crew runs big-feeling MILSIMs that actually flow—tight planning, clear roles, and rules that sharpen play instead of clogging it.
We talk through the backbone of their events: in-person design sessions for missions and rules, daily comms to keep momentum, and defined owners for sponsors, tech, and timelines. Then we get into the fun stuff. This season they’re capping medics across an entire side, encouraging quiet “hit” behavior to boost immersion, and limiting each team to a single drone operator with time-boxed flights and counters. The goal is fewer sky-cams and more decisions that matter on the ground. NPCs return with purpose, too—think a DMV clerk who controls your vehicle plates and a hardware storekeeper ready to defend his turf—plus mission props that players can lift, haul, and swear about, from rice sacks to a scratch-built “artillery” piece that booms without risking safety.
If you’re new or bringing friends, Big Igloo is the perfect on-ramp: all-day teams, a lunch break, simple objectives, and an easygoing vibe that cuts the intimidation of nods and armored rigs. It’s also a smart place to test your kit for longer tempos and find your limits before the larger MILSIMs hit. And the community piece runs deep—Worst Case has delivered over 7,000 pounds of food to local banks, with plans to add new sock donations this year. Sponsors get involved not just with gear but with prizes that amplify giving, proving that strong events and strong communities grow together.
Ready to rethink your rule set, refresh your mission design, or bring more people into the sport without losing the edge? Hit play, then share this with your squad and tell us the one change you’d bring to your home field. Subscribe, leave a review, and drop your favorite prop idea—we might just build it.
Northern Mission
Ballistic Prints
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089181244866
SlingX
www.slingx.ca
Lightfighter Milsim Airsoft Team www.facebook.com/lightfightersmilsim
Nsceibelab Laser Designs
www,facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089285134479
Army Issue Surplus Inc.
www.armyissue.com 905-271-1665
Thank you for listening to the podcast.
check us out on Facebook and Instagram for all your upcoming episode information.
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088900910305
Instagram @the_airsoft_experience
Want More Content?
check out our awesome friends at THE CANDO EXPERIMENT podcast.
these guys are always having a great time listen to there antics on all your podcast streaming platforms.
https://linktr.ee/TheCandoExperiment?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=5c7718e1-98db-4eaf-bbba-6cf3f8cc19a6
Snowbound Start And Field Prep
SPEAKER_00And welcome back to the Airsoft experience. I am Magic, and we have a second time guest on the show. So I'd like to introduce and welcome back, actually, Andrew Mitchell from Worst Case Ontario. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01I am doing perfectly okay. Enjoying the 7,000 feet of snow that we have up north.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. The snow, uh the snow is gonna be the the bane of uh my existence and your existence, getting the fields uh opened up for sure.
SPEAKER_01Right. I am we so in our backyard at home, I have an oil drum for burning things. There's so much snow that the snow is at the very top of the oil drum. That's that's it it's been a very long time since we've had that much snow. And then our security camera up at the field, there's like at least three feet of snow on top of our seed container. If not more, it's wild.
SPEAKER_00I mean, hopefully things are training for the or trending, sorry, for the better. And uh we'll get a lot of melt uh in the month of March uh and a lot of rain. Like that's what we're hoping for. We do have some uh some plans to get out there and do some new builds this year. Last year we got smoked by an ice storm and that totally shut us down. But uh this year we got some we got some good ideas and and some additions for the field, and uh, I'm sure you do too. And we're just excited to get out there and uh get things opened up for players that are itching to get out on the field.
SPEAKER_01I know some of my guys are getting stir crazy.
SPEAKER_00It is very, very difficult to get out. Um personally, for me, I have uh really bad back, so running around on concrete floors just doesn't work for me, unfortunately, anymore. So indoor airsoft is kinda kind of out for me these days. Um, you know. That's fair, yeah. Yeah, I just can't do it anymore. I can't run on the concrete floors, it just it it kills me. And then uh like say I go and do uh you know a couple runs at action or a couple runs at uh at uh urban, uh I'm just done the next day. Like I can't even move.
What Worst Case Ontario Is
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I feel you on that one. For us, it's it's just uh well, it's a four-hour bus drive to get down there, but because it's not like outdoor games where we can just you know pop a tent and camp, we'd have to get a hotel. It becomes a whole adventure for us to go down just to play for like six hours indoor. So we want to get we want to get down there to check out those fields, it just it's a little bit of a different situation for us.
SPEAKER_00Definitely a different situation, definitely way more expensive fuel, uh, hotel, uh all of that stuff. It just adds up. It's the same thing when people uh travel to both of our fields. Um you know, there's added cost, and it's just you know, sometimes you just gotta sacrifice uh you know a little bit of dough to get out there and play. But it looks like weather looks like weather's trending. So I I want to get right into you know a positive spring thought of okay, airsoft is gonna start soon. So let's let's kind of get back to the roots and get some information from you of what exactly is worst case Ontario? Where did it start? What is it exactly? What kind of entity is it? What have you guys have planned?
SPEAKER_01So Worst Case as a whole is a production company and a team, kind of like you guys at the light bite. We originally started with just our core group of players, um, and just like one small team, and then we kind of expanded and brought in some other teams um that were older teams and needed to kind of get eaten up. So the team itself is located in northern Ontario. We have a few members uh across Canada, I guess, at this point, because we have two members from Quebec and Southern Ontario. And it what we've done is with the team itself, worst case, is we kind of just we made it so that when we could go to like when we go to events like Narco or anything else that wasn't overly serious overly wasn't necessarily a serious super serious MILTIM where just anyone could go to, like guys that could only play for a few hours or guys that have to get a hotel kind of idea. So that's where the worst case mob came into into creation. Um and generally you can see us recognize us by our jerseys because we have the um speed soft paintball jerseys done up. Um that we just offer to anyone that wants to be part of the mob. So that's kinda like where the team started, uh and that was all about a year after we opened up Nipposing Airsoft.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
Organizing A Spread-Out Team
SPEAKER_01And it's grown since. And when we're doing events and stuff like that, we lean on our our mob to help us out and give us a general hand at events like guys running Chrono, people running the registration table, refs, just anything and like it's anything, yeah. Yeah, and it gives them that sense of like helping out for big events too, instead of just like coming along to with us to big games and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00For sure. So it's they're they're pretty much involved from A to B to Z. So they come and support you at games, they play with you at games, but they also organize, set up, run missions, MPC, all of that good stuff involved in mill MILSIMS that you guys uh host as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Definitely set up better than I did. Uh I was just gonna say, and like between all the guys on the team, we've probably done around like 30, 40 MILSIMs. So I'd like to say we're at least a little bit experienced.
SPEAKER_00Oh, for sure. I see you guys uh at so many, so many events uh all over Ontario at multiple fields, which is great to see community support like that. When you guys are so spread apart, like even I find it with my own team, uh, especially lately when the Canadian military has taken half of my team away. Um uh how do you still stay organized? Like, do you guys do um you know Zoom meetings, Google meetings? Like, do you do once a month, once a week? Like, how often do you guys stay in touch? Because I know that there's an awful lot of stuff going on with your event and a lot of planning, and and you guys are very organized and the community notices that and it takes a lot for that to happen. So, how do you guys kind of stay tight knit and and keep everything on the tracks when you're so spread out across Ontario and Quebec?
SPEAKER_01So, a lot of a lot of the planning when it comes to like for instance the no plague aspect, that we kind of keep closer to our chat um within me, Paul, and Keegan, who are the founders and the main kind of dudes of work case. Um like the mission planning and stuff like that. What we'll do is we have we're just big group chat. We have like big group chat guys, we have so many ongoing Facebook group chats like most airsofters do. Um we just so we we talk every day. Um, we're always in contact with each other. Um, anything that has to do with the event itself, we are now doing an in-person meeting. So if you want to be directly involved on like a more serious level when it comes to the event, you need to come to us in the thing. So like for some of our guys that live in southern Ontario and are Quebec guys, they can't necessarily get involved in like the furious, like uh more like making up the contract and stuff like that. That they can't be a part of because we find it better to do it in person. But then for the team itself, like Millie Boys, which is our milk and we can find the water with different apps every year. So, like score, signal, uh this year, the big one that we found is an app called band, and it gives the players on the team an opportunity to see all the events that we plan on going to, and then if you can decide if you want to go to it, and all the information there, but also you can tell me through accepting the invite if you're going, and then that also works with Google Calendar. So it's been that part's been pretty helpful, but like we're just in contact all the time because we're all really good friends. Like, I mean, we all work, but we're also all like night hawks too. So in the middle of you know, midnight, we're on a Discord call together.
SPEAKER_02For sure.
SPEAKER_01So, like, yeah, and sometimes we're just shooting the shit, sometimes we're talking about snow flag things or igloo things or whatever kind of idea. So it just it it's kind of just work that we really mesh together with the schedules we have.
Refining Planning And Roles
SPEAKER_00Nice. Do you ever find that too much input is almost a negative aspect for game organization and uh mission writing and uh anything kind of involved in writing a milsom? I find on my end, you gotta kind of keep the like you guys keep the circle a bit smaller for the the meat and potatoes because stuff just can kind of go sideways based on too much input. Do you find that kind of happens with you guys?
SPEAKER_01So I think that's why this year, like we did the the in-person sit-down. Like the last two years, we kind of opened it up to anyone on the team in the mob that wanted to help, and it kind of got noisy. Yeah. And this year we wanted to refine how we were doing things to make things easier on each and every part that was involved. So that's why we did the sit-down meeting where we went over the general what contracts we're gonna bring back, come up with concepts for new contracts, and then once that was said and done, we talked rules that needed adjusting from the year before. And then we always open ourselves up to like player comments, like, hey, what do you think could be done differently? Kind of again. So we go we wanna go through all of those and kind of like, okay, that makes sense, that one doesn't make sense. So yeah, it it's just making that like in-person meeting has been really key this year, just because now I'm not getting we're not getting messages from anyone else on the team about contracts because they missed the meeting, so they know that their attention's gonna be focused elsewhere. And then from the to keep things a little bit more organized, we kind of branch ourselves into like like I'm in charge of talking with the sponsor. So Egan and Paul don't talk to any of the sponsors, it's only me. So I'm I only communicate with them. Egan handles all the internet, internet, all the websites, uh behind the scenes technologies and any of the future techs that we're going to bring to games, which I can't tell you, but there's some fun stuff coming from No Flight 3 tech-wise. Um and just we just keep each out of each other's noses, I guess would be the word, where we just kind of like we we have dates set on like project. It's kind of like a we have a project manager almost where they're like, this is when this needs to be done by, this is when this needs to be done by, and then we just make sure that everything is done by that date kind of idea, if that makes sense.
Commanding, Standards, And Event Quality
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it makes sense perfectly. It's literally what I do for a living is is manage projects. So you pr pretty much give tasks to uh to certain individuals and and they have a time to get that task done, and it it takes any sort of onus off of somebody else because they know that that task is that person's and they can focus on what they have to do. So it's a really good approach and it's obviously a proven method in uh multiple businesses. So it's definitely like I said before earlier, it it shows you guys are definitely organized, and it's it's obviously a peak game that people are interested in playing. And uh like I look forward to commanding it this year. I know I I put my commanding shoes up, but I I appreciate the offer to come back and and do it one more time. I don't know. I'm just I'm I'm looking forward to the game. Everybody that I'm talking to is super pumped. We just uh every time we talk about worst case Ontario, we talk about how organized you guys are, how much you got your shit together, and it's just it's really appreciative on the player standpoint, even as a commander this year, like just everything is laid out for you. You have all that information, you know exactly who's signing up and you know their team affiliations, like all of that stuff is very, very, very important to a commander for organization, but it's also important to a player um to know that a you know, crony, safety, and all that stuff is taken seriously, documented, and done properly. And it's just it's I give kudos to you guys. It's this will be the third year that I attend the event. I've been to everyone and I've had a blast every single time. And I I drag my entire team. I don't drag, they all sign up individually, but I bring my team to this event, and I I'm happy to say, other than all the guys that got stolen away by the liberal government, uh uh we'll all be there this year. So it's great.
SPEAKER_01It's uh it's one of those where we've just we've been to so many Millsons before we started No Plague that we just saw what works and what doesn't work, and we were just like, okay, let's let's import that into our game, and then we're we're learning as it goes. So like you know, like some of the stuff like the vehicle the vehicle stuff, like that's our rules are based off of your guys' event because you guys did it so well, and same with Connor. We took like Battle Dwarf, we took your guys' two vehicle rules and we mashed it into our style. Yeah and just grab work like I think that's where like we've talked about it before, where it's important as a game runner to not only the safety aspect, but being involved in other games because you can see what works and what doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've I that that's the one thing that's super important to me as a player, as a pass commander, as a game host. I feel like it's very hard to uh what's the best word? To to touch your audience. That sounds so dirty. To to hook up and be on the same mind frame as your players um that you're looking to come to your Milton if you're not involved in the sport in any way. Like if you don't go and play events, you're not going to learn what works and what doesn't work. And things can get stale because you're not attending other games. So I absolutely I definitely have seen that in the last you know six, seven years that I've been in this community, and I've always voiced my opinion and I always let people know that I will give them honest feedback of their event. And that's obviously just my opinion, and that's it's one of the reasons why I did start this show, this podcast, is to give information to the community and and kind of guide them by sitting down with other members of the community and and talking about stuff like this, which kind of brings us into our next couple of points here. Like, what is your goal or your goals as a host for this season? And the second part of that is is there any thoughts on how this sport should progress or change on the Milsom end?
Goals For The Season And ATAK
SPEAKER_01Okay, so first point to that. Uh, goals as a host. So I think the most important goal is to pray to the rain gods and the weather gods and make sure no tornadoes touchdown this year. Um as a host, though, it's just about player satisfaction and making sure that we're doing everything in our power for the our players to have fun from a no-plag perspective, making sure our missions are interactive and enjoyable for everyone that's doing them. And then from an e glue perception is just making sure again that we can bring in new players to try the sport and visit our field up north. I guess yeah, that would be my my goals as a game host, as a player for me personally. It's just learning ATAC. ATAC is my goal this year is to learn and understand it. I am sometimes technology dumb and it is one of those things that's coming into the sport that I need to understand it a lot better than I already do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's honestly it's the future of organization on the field. Um because of most events being open comms, it it becomes the only way to securely send messages uh via network without Connor listening to what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01I was just I was just about it's funny. I was talking to Connor this week, and he was telling me about like how well he was intercepting comms at Gunrunner 2. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, I don't want to ever command again. Any team that has Connor as his RTO because it's just gonna be pigeons and smoke signals, because anything that goes over the radio, Connor's gonna hear you.
SPEAKER_00100%. That's that's actually my challenge this year, believe it or not.
SPEAKER_01That's that's me going up against the Yeah, I don't even I'm not even gonna get into that. Like, I don't even because we've had some conversations just as friends, and he's shown me some things. I'm just like, oh god, dude.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. I I I I am anticipating some uh some comms follies for sure and some cool stuff, but like at the end of the day, I've got a j I've got myself a Jake as well. So we we've got some stuff up our sleeve.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It'll be it's gonna be interesting from a game runner perspective to watch the Jake versus the Connor. Not just some not just the Mike versus the Mike. It's gonna be the Jake versus the Connor also.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, it's gonna be good. I honestly I'm uh I'm a big fan of Wartooth. I I I like his command style, that's why I signed up for him the the last two years. So I am looking forward to battling him this year for sure.
SPEAKER_01It's gonna be I think it's gonna be a great it's gonna be a great event. So I I'm excited for that. Yeah, you guys are gonna pass it all day and all night.
SPEAKER_00I can't wait. It's one of the the biggest, like the bigger events that I'm actually gonna be able to attend this year. Like this year, I won't won't be playing as much airsoft. Like I said, I got that the disc in my back that's just not cooperating properly, so I gotta look into getting that fixed. But uh, you know, day by day, hopefully things change around. But this year it'll be more of an administrative end of airsoft for me and hosting a couple more games than usual. And uh yeah, but uh let's get back to uh under no flag three.
SPEAKER_01Um so yeah, uh my thoughts on how sport should progress. So this is one we've talked about a few times um as a group, and there's things that we'd love to see. There's things that we wish could happen, and then there's the slowly implementing them in our game to see how the community likes. So the biggest one I think would be awesome to see in Ontario Airsoft is the the route that Milton West does where limited ammunition.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
Comms, Intelligence, And Counterplay
SPEAKER_01And it's such a I find it to be such a tricky thing because I don't know how to get over the players, well, I need this weight, or I need this weight, or I need this brand, and just get them to use whatever brand and whatever weight as a game runner we're able to get. And I and I think Mill Sim West can get away with it because they have a much bigger community than we do in the state. So we're limited to like, let's say, four or five hundred serious Mill Simmers in Ontario. Yeah. If we were to do a game like that, I don't know how many we could actually get. So so that would be that would be awesome to see. Um one of the other things that I like, and excuse me, sorry. Um one of the other things that I like to see, and I know that it would cause issues for for a little bit until players get used to it. Kind of what the black line does with their events where you you don't call hit. You just go down. You can scream, you can pretend to die, or you can just fall to the ground quietly. So I'd like to see that more from players. When I go to events, I don't really yell hit per se. I just put my hand in the air, pull out my red flag, and go down to the ground. Because sometimes I don't want to give away the fact that I've been hit because some player on the other team has just got an amazing angle on our entire squad. And if I yell hit, then everyone's gonna be like, where did Andrew get hit from? And then gives that away kind of idea. Right. So I'd like to see I'd like to see that more where players are just putting their hand in the air and going down to the ground. And if you get overshot after that or you take extra rounds, it is what it is. So I'd like to see that. Maybe our community's ready for it, maybe not. We don't really enforce uh the when you get hit, calling hit aspect to our events. Just you want to go down, go down. Like take a knee.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Are you talking about even implementing um the medical cards like Sean does at uh Black Line? Or it's just uh kind of keeping quiet and doing the acting end of it.
SPEAKER_01So we've talked about that. Uh we've talked about implementing them to note like three. Um we decided we'll give it another year because of the way we just kind of want to introduce things slowly. So, like this year, you're only given the 10 medic, 13 or 15 if we jump up in numbers. And those are gonna be the only medic that you get for the entire game. So, like you as a commander from an wartooth will be required to give me a lift uh your medic before the game starts. And those are going to be your medic for the entirety of the game. So if your medic goes down or doesn't want to play anymore or needs to go home, that's it, you're automatic. So that's kind of where we're starting. If it goes well this year, then yeah, next year maybe we'll jump into the medic cards that Sean kind of does. It'll just be, I think, I'll probably have to have some hard some big conversations with him, just kind of like he does it on a smaller scale. How do you do it on a larger scale with it being successful?
SPEAKER_00For sure. And then you have the uh the issue of whether or not players are following the cards.
Medic Limits And Immersion Rules
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think what we with us being a commander invite event, um, I think we'll have a little bit more ease with that because you're yeah, yeah, you guys are gonna have players that you don't know fully on your team, but for the most part, you're going to trust 75%, 80% of your team. Oh, for sure. So yeah, I like to see those little changes in the community at events. I just know it's gonna take time.
SPEAKER_00It's definitely gonna take time. Uh working uh 10 medics across, you know, 150 players is gonna be an interesting twist to uh I mean 150 on either side is gonna be a twist, uh, which is gonna get you know used to. Some players are gonna have to get used to, but it's it's it's real. Like there's not 450 medics with 500 soldiers. It just that's just not how it works. There's a handful that take care of a group. And uh I like where you're going with it. It's gonna be, you know, a challenge as a commander and a challenge as uh leaders on the field and a challenge to the players itself. And that's what we as game hosts try to do is challenge people because that's what the community is looking for. Like they don't want well, some people want a certain type, and then some other people want you know something that's a little bit more involved. And uh yeah, it's just it's great to hear that you're pushing for you know change, even if it's uh let's say an experiment and see how it goes. Um it's just it's great to see that that's happening. What about the the drone end of the airsoft and and how it goes with yours? Because you're one of the few games that does allow uh munitions to drop.
Drone Policy And Aerial Ordnance
SPEAKER_01So last year was our first year doing it. Um it went very well, unfortunately. It was very one-sided, where only Ryan's team was the one to have the capabilities of dropping things. Uh, so what we learned from that was one, they were dropping bags of chalk. So we want it to be a little bit more realistic. So we're asking that the ordinance dropped, or at least not bags of chalk, uh, have a little bit have a little bit more density to them. Um and then, but we've also seen at other events, even events that drones can't drop things, that there's a lot of drones in the sky. And it makes it very hard, even from a command perspective, to do anything when there's always drones in the air and you don't have a way to combat. So our our tactic this year is you're going to be given an armband for what's going to be called the drone operator. They are going to be the only one that's going to be allowed to fly a drone on your team. And I believe we have a perk that you can purchase to take down the other drone for X amount of time. That one's a key in project, so I'm not I haven't fully read into the rules on that aspect. So I don't really have all the answers for that part of it. But we wanted to in a sense how many drones were going to the air just to kind of give the players a little bit of a better opportunity than, you know, 20 drones up on one team and 10 drones up on the other team, and nobody can do anything without the other team knowing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Is there gonna be a I I'm pretty sure there is uh from reading the rules, but there is a time limit that the drone's allowed to be in the air. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You're right. Too many drones is just too chaotic. And if you have one good drone guy, he can give you the the info and run ISR um and be, you know, advanced uh units that drop on on uh vehicles. So I really like that twist. It's it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01If there was a way to battle drones without it being illegal, um I I think I think it'd be a little bit different out there, but because of the federal laws that are in place when it comes to drones, it just there's there's no there's no good way of battling it. So that's why this year we're like, okay, let's just do one drone operator per team, one drone up at a time. You're only allowed to drop one thing at a time, and then it's just you know, then at least they're not chasing a vehicle around the field for half an hour trying to drop tea bags on them, kind of idea. Mind you, that footage was absolutely hilarious. It was absolutely great. Yeah. When he when he send me all the footage, I didn't realize how much it was, and then all of a sudden I have a hundred gigs worth of videos to go through, and I'm like, ah, that's a lot of footage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's crazy about a footage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What about uh what about the NPCs? Are they all coming back this year?
SPEAKER_01That one's kind of a touchy subject. So we're gonna bring back certain NPCs, but we're not going to heavily focus on NPCs like we tried to do in the past. You guys have done an absolute killer job on NPCs with the Gun Runner series, and we know we could never come close to doing what you guys do. So we're like, okay, that's that's their thing. Until we can figure out a way to do it just as well as them. We're just we're gonna have a couple NPCs out on the field, they're gonna be in buildings, they're gonna have a purpose, and that's it.
SPEAKER_00Nice. Are they gonna are they gonna be directly involved with the contracts?
SPEAKER_01Some will, some won't. So last year, the one NPC uh that was key for the commanders was our DMV employee. Um, our DMV employee will be back, so you will be required to go to the DMV and fill out some paperwork uh before you can get the license plates for your vehicles to be out on the field. And in the country of Halleston, unfortunately, instead of your license plate lasting for 10 years or however long it is here in Ontario, uh your license plate's only valid for four hours. And then you uh you gotta go back to the DMV and get yourself another license plate. Uh maybe there'll be a lineup, maybe there won't be. You just have to find out when you get to the DMV.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01I'll say, I'll say just make sure you fill out the paperwork right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. Uh is that something commanders have to do or uh the guy's driving the vehicle?
SPEAKER_01The guy's driving the vehicle. So, like last year we made Riztik leave the CP, little Sioux still parked there, and he had to go all the way into town and get the paperwork and fill out the paperwork and then bring it back to the DMV employee who may have been on lunch when he went back, but you know, and then he had to wait around and then he finally got his paperwork signed.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. That's amazing.
NPCs With Purpose And Licensing Gags
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, that like that NPC will definitely be back. Um, I think the hardware store will be back in operations. One of the things that we're gonna focus on is we're going to outfit the buildings. Uh so the buildings that the NPCs are in, we're gonna make it, we're gonna do our best to make it look like the actual DMV or make it actually look like a hardware store kind of idea.
SPEAKER_00That's pretty cool. Uh, I love hearing that like any sort of uh you know, pushing the boundaries, you know, like setting the scene, I'm gonna say, as I do air quotes, like that, that type of stuff really brings people into uh the event and and gets them like very involved. And that's you know, as a Milton player, that's something that's very important to me. I want to feel like I have a purpose on the field. I want to feel like I have something to do, and I'm not just like aimlessly looking for a firefight, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's where like we've when it came to our commander selection, like Wartooth, Ryan Tan, and now you, we know that you guys one of the reasons why we went with the people that we did is we know that they're not just going to focus on having a single squad or two of their favorite people running the missions or contracts. So you're going to we know that you guys will involve as much of your team as you can with doing said missions because when we first got into MILSIMS, we in we something we saw and we noticed was like a lot of the commanders would just kind of have they had a core group of players that they trusted, and those were the dudes that did the missions. And I 100% get that, but there's there's a point in the game where as a player who doesn't overly know the community that well, they're just you know running around pulling security or looking for gunfights, and the games can kind of get mundane from that point. So I think that's where when we pick commanders that we know will use all of their player base, it's it's it's really important to us.
Props That Drive Missions
SPEAKER_00That's uh that's a great point. And over the years of commanding some events personally and giving uh different squads that even I'm not familiar with a chance to go do something, it's literally opened my eyes to the amount of talent in this community that you like, I would have never known that this group was so capable to work together and complete a mission so quickly. Because, like you said before, if you're not in that circle, like I I don't think it happens so much nowadays, but you know, five five, six years ago, if you're not in that circle, you're right. You're going, okay, you know, go to Northfield and hold that down for three hours, or go to, you know, two-story and hold that for two hours. Um, I would always try to give every squad a chance at doing something and squat people around because player engagement is key. That is the only thing as a game host that matters to us. We're doing this for player engagement to continue the sport to grow. That's literally the only thing that game hosts are doing. So when you kind of uh limit yourself as a commander uh and kind of only trust a couple of squads, A, you're burning that squad out early. They're gonna be done because all they're doing is running, running, running, running, um, which is just you know counterproductive. So that's uh that's a really good point that you bring up for sure.
SPEAKER_01And and and I guess that's also where like having our NPCs, yeah, people who are just you know, you you know, you're pulling security in town. It can get boring, especially if the other team's not really fighting you anymore or can't even get to you having that NPC interaction. Like, um, I had Mac Capone at uh a hardware store guy last year. You know, he was screaming at people to get out of a store, and he's like, Can I shoot them? I'm like, that's a fucking loot lead. We're in your store. Defend yourself. And he's like, All right. And he started like shooting at dudes that were like encrouching into a store. And then that's that's a building now that they people that players can't use anymore because they pissed off that NPC guy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's real life. Yeah, it's it's simulated real life. You're gonna go piss somebody off, they're gonna they're gonna hold their ground, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00What about uh what about props? Is like the is the contracts gonna be prop heavy? Is it gonna be, you know, stuff like that? I know you can't give out too many hints, but I'm just trying to get like a a broader base of information out for people.
Inclusive Command And Player Engagement
SPEAKER_01So props is kind of the one thing we really like to do. So now that our contracts are written up, we just have to do the fluff aspect of it before we start, before we can put them online for players to see. Um, but now we're spending our time building props for said contracts. So, like an example, the last two years we've had uh a weapons and food style contracts, and we're trying to we try to switch up what we're doing. So, like the first year I stole those sandbags from you and I filled them full of sand and I wrote rice on them. And I can't remember what team had to do that, but they had to lunge around like 15 sandbags of rice. And then last year we had the water jugs, and you know, so we we like to focus more on the prop aspect of it because we love seeing that player interaction. Um, one of my favorite moments from year one no flag was so we have a broken down plane at our field in North Bay, and we've had some kind of plane contract for the last two years, but every year we grab a different piece of the plane and bring it down to be a prop in the contract. So, year one, we brought down like an airplane wing, and I remember I was in the palace with the president, and all you hear is thump, thump, thump, thump of aluminum like running across the field, and I'm like, what the fuck is that? And these three guys come running in and they're like, We found the plane wing, and they just come around the corner with this giant plane wing, and we're like, oh, hello. So it's all and then the one contract I can talk about because it was public last year, but neither commander um took it. Actually, let me just confirm that it wasn't a redacted mission last year. Or I'm pretty sure it wasn't redacted. Because with our contracts, most of our contracts are open for the public eye, but some of the contracts are redacted, so you have to complete part one of the mission before you can see part two. Uh and we make that available for everyone to see. So not only do the commanders get to see it, but the players get to see it too. Like I know you guys got to do the closet boxes last year. Was it you that did the yeah, that was fun to watch you guys running around the field with the blast. Yeah. So it was a two-part mission last year was our artillery cannon. Uh the first part was open for the public, and the second part was redacted. So that mission isn't going to come back in the words that it's written from last year, but it is going to come back because nobody did it. So we're rewriting it to so that we can reuse it this year. Nice. So anyone that came up to Chrono, which should have been everyone, may have seen we had a 40 millimeter artillery cannon sitting up at our chrono.
SPEAKER_00You sure did.
SPEAKER_01So we didn't just build that to be, hey, look at our cool thing sitting at Chrono. We built that as a mission. So that was actually out on the field and was going to be a contract for a commander to take, but neither of the commanders took that contract. And that there was a lot of work behind that building that because we built that from scratch. And by we, I just kind of stood around and watched them build it. But Keegan and Paul, mostly Paul, built that cannon and it fires, it shoots fucking rounds out of it. Not safe to shoot at players, but it will go boom. And it is heavy. So that prop will be back. And then we have we have a couple other props that we're working on that again, I can't go into detail yet until the contracts come out. But yeah, props, props are kind of a thing that we want to focus on. Um, there's a lot of events don't do props, and I don't know why. And then a lot of uh most of the newer guys like you and uh Connor, all have amazing props, and it's just having that interaction with something physical on the field instead of something invisible is is key.
SPEAKER_00100%. And it's how you I find it's how you use the prop too. Like if you're if you're gonna use the prop specifically for a mission, I find it's better than more of a kind of search all over the place to try to find multiple little things. You know what I mean? It's uh it it gets it gets weird after a while because you're doing just the same old thing over and over and over again. So I kind of try to like use it specifically for a specific reason, and then if it's not a reoccurring reason, then that prop is just done for the day.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And like when you have like the reoccurring missions too, because they're gonna happen, like you you need those like filler mission contract that both teams can take. So like you just kind of like that prop is gonna get used maybe one, two years, and then just don't bring it back.
Big Igloo: A New-Player On-Ramp
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Or change it. Or yeah, or change it or rewrite it and do uh a different thing, yeah, for sure. So it it sounds very, very promising. It's it's never disappointed. So I'm definitely again looking forward to uh you know commanding it this time. I've played it both times, but this time it's gonna be uh a whole different ride for me for sure. The weather I you know what? I'm I'm looking at the weather now. Most people that know me know that I I usually work outside and do uh cool construction, so my entire life is outside. But uh it's looking like it's gonna be a rainy spring right now, from what it's looking like for the next you know, three weeks, but hopefully it gets it out of its system and then just leaves May to be beautiful and sunny uh like we want.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00I want to move on to your other event. So Big Igloo. I know we touched on this a bit on the last episode uh me, you, and Ashley had. Let's just break it down a little bit for uh the players that haven't experienced it yet and uh what the real goal around Big Igloo is.
SPEAKER_01So Big Igloo this year will be Big Igloo 7. We developed it as a mill scrim event for players at our local field to be able to experience a semi-big event in the aspect of not just a game here, a game there, a game there, a game there throughout the day. It just being an entire day of being on the same team and having objectives to do all day. So it gives the newer player a chance to be in his kit and play, eat and drink, and reload on the field, a chance to experience that. So one of the things that we do differently with this event is we actually have like a lunch break in the middle. So they get there at nine o'clock in the morning, the game starts at eleven, it goes until one, starts back up at two, and then finishes at six. And you're on the same team the entire time. So this is just it's a new player mill scrim event. And then over the past seven years, it's just perpetually grown every year. So Eagloo 1, we maybe had 25 people. Eagloo 2, we hit just under 50, and then 100, and then 200, and then it's just kind of stayed around the 200 plus mark for the past couple of years. Nice. Um, but it's it's been fantastic.
SPEAKER_00So basically it's it's getting new players uh getting their toes wet in the Milton sense, which is is awesome. It's it's definitely needed for sure, and it also brings people out or up to the northern part of the uh airsoft country.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think like one of our main goals was just obviously the helping the newer player get an introduction to Miltsim's, but it was also to try to get people to come up to North Bay and check out our field. Because we understand that we're not going to be able to drag players up for just a for a Sunday pub play kind of idea. People aren't going to drive the however long it is to come up north just to play with a bunch of randoms where if we involve camping and prizes and whatnot, then we're more inclined to get people to come up because it's a in-air quotation, a big event. So that's kind of where the mindset of the game originally came from. And now it's become so big for our community and it's nice because it's such a simple formatted game where we don't have to stress out about it. We don't have to plan anything for it. It's it's a cookie cutter kind of game.
Beating Intimidation And Testing Kit
SPEAKER_00So it's definitely something that's needed. Like you I find that there's uh sometimes it's a disconnect on uh on new players end where they're almost fearful to come to event. Like I'm going to use the disarm series a lot of people are you know they they're they're a bit confused on you know the seriousness of the event when it's it's really just an a bit a really basic event that you don't need to be afraid of. I will be putting an episode out about it and I don't really want to get into it right now but I just find that that's fair events events like big igloo are important to get people out to the field to get over that fear of big game uh atmosphere if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely and and we like that we see that a lot with our igloo event where um one of our regular players her name Sarah she brought out like four co co-workers last year who have never played air soft four never played paintball have never been up to the field and they came out and they tried e glue as their first time playing and they had a blast all day. They just ran around with their tiki shirts and they just shot at people. Nice and and for us that's a win because we're introducing people to the sport we're introducing people to a big game and they're having a fun time with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah it increases that comfort level of the you know the the walk on player being like hey look this really wasn't bad it wasn't scary it was you know well organized and it's just something that you gotta get into like I found even even when I started and I was doing a lot of uh I spent a lot of time playing at Flag Raders and Teddy and Patricia's games and I wasn't really getting into the Miltim's and then I started doing uh West's Miltims back in the day and then you know uh moved up to Zim and uh opforest and then you know uh the bigger and bigger and the bigger ones as we go and it's just you just gotta get an event where you get your feet wet and get over that initial fear of oh you know this has got to be you know directly military and you gotta only talk this way and you don't do that. That's just not how it is at all. So I just want to get a yeah go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I was gonna say I just think I think every field needs and I think most of them have it but I think every field just kind of needs to have their own e glue event where players won't feel as intimidated when they see because like if you were to go to I'm gonna use like Gunrunner as an example. If a new player shows up at Gunrunner and it absolutely is a player friendly event but seeing everyone tacked out in their gear because it's like a tan versus green you it can be intimidating especially for someone that's never played before like dudes with their you know their nods and their full kits and 10 pop-armored vehicles running around exactly like that that can be intimidating but when you have like a military versus civilian game where you know and it's very lighthearted seeing dudes running around in like tiki shirts and shorts or you know camouflage like stuff that's being purchased on Amazon and stuff like that. Like not the greatest stuff you you're not as as intimidated from it.
Event Picks: Narco And More
SPEAKER_00100% it's uh it it's right on the nose it's like I can go and wear my my shorts and a regular shirt and you know put on a gun belt and go have fun for the day. It's it's it's you don't need that military uniform. Um so yeah it's it's a great step forward if you're wanting if you're out in the community and you're Hunter and you want to experience a big style game without the big kind of military force then check out Big Igloo. It's a great way to get your feet wet in the Millstone world and uh you'll get over the fact that you might be fearful of a bigger event which you just shouldn't be because there's always something for everyone uh at every event uh in a certain way some some event yeah go ahead yeah it's it's also like a great aspect for like those players that think they're ready to try out their kits too like you think your kit's ready for a big game but have you ever actually played a big game in your kit yet? Yeah that's very important. Yeah being able to last too like it's it's good to know like what your limitations are like you you don't know whether you're gonna go four hours you don't know whether you're gonna go six, eight, ten. It's just you you kind of build your your milteam muscle up as I say to uh to attend a full event start to finish, right? And uh Digley's a good step forward. So it's definitely something that if you haven't experienced it yet get out there and experience it. And it's good that game hosts are out there doing uh new player friendly events. And I know Can Ops as well like their event is very new player friendly. Looking forward to seeing that one this year as well. So they're and same with narco there there's definitely a lot of events out there.
SPEAKER_01Well the narco's narco's like I love the Can Ops event but narco's been around longer. Narco is like my favorite it's our it's our go-to event that we invite everyone from the North Bay community to come to like if you've never been to a big event before other than Big Eaglu this this is your first out of town MILSIM event and it should be narco because it's such a great game just uh you don't have to take it super seriously you don't have to push yourself a hundred percent you can go and have fun and do silly things with your friends but still have some kind of command structure to let you know what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00For sure for sure it's a great event it's a great event too because you can pace yourself.
SPEAKER_01You don't have to go go go all the time and it's it's a good numbers event uh usually great weather just rate smack dab uh the start of August so it's definitely a great event no more black as a color yeah those were some brutal uh brutal years at PRZ wearing black for the couple years that I was uh that was yeah that was like Mitch asked me to command last year I'm like my one request is no more black let me have a different color as much as dudes look good wearing multicam black and black kits it's August people are dying yeah let me have some colorful shit 100% yeah it's cool to see it it's uh it's a well-rounded event and I look forward to forward to playing it again this year if my body will let me if not I'll definitely be there the last one yeah it's the the the very end one so I want to try to get get my boots on and get out there. Or you join my team because I'll be commanding again this year and you can put sneakers on because we like to have fun.
Core Memories And Winter Games
SPEAKER_00There we go. All right well you convinced me you convinced me if you want I bro I busted my toe the last uh the last uh narco actually no it was the one before it because I think I was in the truck last year I want to say I was in the truck last year I can't even remember I thought your toe was at um uh Wes's snowman event that was when I got my tooth shot out oh okay yeah that's when the lower tooth got pushed back I remember that very well that was a long time ago man it's like five years yeah I love the snowman events they were so much fun they were fun I I remember having this battle just me and Zimming in the little town there towards the end it was snowing heavily and we had to knock over a a snowman and I got a video of me like wrestling it off the top of the boat it was just I remember that clearly it was a fun time for sure I loved that that that was snowman two and or wasn't that snowman one I think it was one it was a long time and yeah but the game started off beautifully like we had we had like some of Zimming's guys were in shorts because I was on Zimming's team and I just remember as the evening started to pull in it started getting darker but it started just beautifully snowing. Oh yeah and then there was just a lot of snow it was coming down like crazy it was a true snowman for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah um that that that that game actually is one of my like core airsoft memory games because of the snow coming down.
Food Drives And Community Impact
SPEAKER_00So let's let's move on because this is a really important point uh and it drives home for me I'm a big big big I I'm I'm really about community and surrounding community uh especially the northern community around my field uh and the same uh around yours there's a lot of people out there that need help and we bring hundreds of people um on weekends together and the biggest thing uh prominently uh with you guys is your massive food drive campaign which directly affects so many people and it's just such an empowering thing to see that you guys do every year. Um I want to kind of touch on that because I did see a post um about the whole campaign that you guys are going with this year again. So let's touch on that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01So for us the food drive events started three years ago I want to say when did yeah I want to say two three years ago we started implementing food drives into our event. Um for us what really got us into it was taking away from what Wes was able to do with his food bank game. Oh yeah and then Siege also back in the day used to do a lot of food drive days and donation days. So we felt that that was something important to bring to our events and when we reached out to a few of our sponsors there was one very specifically after when Siege closed uh cleared hot I was like I I reached out to them on a whim after Siege closed and like hey my name is Andrew this is my event this is what we do we'd love to have you guys on board and they were like sure absolutely the only thing we ask is that food donations be a thing. And we're like that is an amazing idea it's something we've talked about doing this just clarifies it for us. So we've been doing it since then and it's it's been amazing as to what the community has donated and like the vast quantity of it. So over the last three years we've been able to donate over seven thousand pounds of food between the North Bay Food Bank and the Minden Food Bank which was our first time donating to them last year.
SPEAKER_00That was insane insane and you guys deserve a hearty standing ovation for that 7,000 pounds of food ladies and gentlemen that is unheard of and crazy and I know that the surrounding communities definitely appreciate all the hard work that our community you guys and everybody that's involved with that goes through so thank you so much from the bottom of our community and the surrounding community around our fields because it's very important that we as uh field owners and game hosts we intertwine harmoniously with the surrounding community if that makes sense.
Expanding Donations And Sponsor Strategy
SPEAKER_01Absolutely like for for a lot of events like for instance at the compound we're we're more than just spending money in the community because spending money only goes so far and the communities like the community of Minden doesn't always see what players are spending when they're in their community. Like PRZ for instance when PRZ closed I imagine Picton as a town probably saw a big decrease in sales. Probably not a crazy amount because they are a very tourist town to begin with but there is probably a percentage because the amount of bodies of air softers and paintballers that were there every weekend that are no longer there. So having players come into the community and spending money is awesome but the general folks don't see that. So when you have something like a food drive and you're able to donate a large amount or any amount to be perfectly honest, it's showing our community interacting with your community like the community of Minden. And it just creates positivity because now we're not just these these guys driving around town and taking up parking spots at the local Timmy's dressed in camo. We're those guys but we're also the guys that almost every month are bringing in like anywhere from two three hundred pounds of food to a thousand pounds of food to the local to the local food bank.
SPEAKER_00Yeah for sure it's it's something that just it it also takes away from the community stigma that we're just a bunch of crazy gun people too because you know there unfortunately is a group out there that uh that sees us as that and we're just definitely not that we're just normal people getting together having fun and uh you know producing a bunch of donations for the surrounding community which is just it's just amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah so the one thing that I'm doing different this year. So the food drive sticking around that's not going anywhere. I can't remember who it was that um I think it's socks for sold. So this year we're gonna be bringing in not only can we do food donations but we can also donate new socks for soul out there that they can go out and new socks to people who don't have home um socks are very important. And especially during the winter time as like a normal working flow I'm sure you go through a craft and a lot over winter time. Oh yeah yeah so like imagine if you were homework and you didn't work you didn't have you really incorporate here. I just want to find out the details with the journey and make sure that I can get them because it won't be something local it'll be something um for Ontario instead of like for um for all of Ontario. So I just want to make sure that I can religiously something we're incorporating new this year um with our donations and when I when I speak for response is I always I always the first question I always have to know what do you want and I never know how to answer that question because I'm like I don't want to what I always do with like how do you whenever I reach I always try to always the first question they ask what do you want and I think for cool things so I always like to tell my sponsors I might we run our event event so the bigger and better prize you can give me is something I can use to promote so that way the food donations are bigger. So two years ago when we gave away PDF 14 at our Kinglo event a lot of that a lot of the food that we got donated that year was because we were giving away free night vision that year we donated four thousand pounds of food and a lot of that has to do with because people like I want to win free night vision.
Season Hype And Closing Plans
SPEAKER_00Yeah for sure that's uh that's honestly whatever things that you guys are doing to promote community engagement and promote community help is just absolutely amazing and the community definitely notices all of this stuff um they noticed it in your game organization they noticed it in you yourself and your team as players on the field and just your amazing attitudes on the field um and the community surrounding the field noticed it by your compassion and how much you guys actually donate and the amount of effort you put into gathering stuff to donate. So it's just it's amazing to see and you just sitting down and talking to you today has definitely got me super pumped for this uh upcoming season and this upcoming event and uh honestly man I I really appreciate uh you being a community member and and uh doing everything you do and your team and uh your organization so thank you. Hey thank thank you to you too for having me I mean you guys do a crazy amount of stuff for the community too like with the field and everything else that you guys do bringing new events to the scene for players to be able to try like we we appreciate it and we love it and we want to get down to your disarm series because we've been looking forward to another event to try so well hopefully we see you guys in the September one um we'll definitely have some cool missions coming up for that and uh you will see us at uh multiple events like uh you always do and uh I look forward to seeing you in a couple months I think it's uh it's like 70 something days on the counter now I think uh yeah I gotta look that up we have that fun counter on our website yeah I look it up I I always check when uh people message me for tickets I keep checking and uh like again I I want to say your organization is awesome and we're at our limit here on this episode so I am going to say thank you for coming on and I appreciate it and maybe we can do a recap episode after uh after NoFlag. Absolutely maybe down for that maybe uh me you mike and uh someone else from your organization we can just talk about the event and how much fun we had that that would be absolutely fantastic.
SPEAKER_01I got the storm rider guys coming too so like I'm sure that's even something that I could get you guys you and Mike on to from a different perspective getting asked different questions.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely we are definitely down for sure. So again thank you for coming on the show I really appreciate it. I hope you have yourself a great rest of the night and I am going to jump on a Zoom call right now with the MPC organizers for Gunrunner. Ooh have fun with that I will it's always a great time um again I appreciate it thanks for being on the show.
SPEAKER_01Cheers thanks for having me take care bye
