AA LEGION: SWEDEN

from Airsoft Action - September 2022

RELOADED: EVOLUTION LONE STAR RANGER SBR

NEXT LEVEL ARMAGEDDON!!

THINGS ARE REALLY RETURNING TO NORMAL, WHATEVER NORMAL MIGHT BE FOR AIRSOFTERS, AND THIS MEANS THAT FINALLY EVERYONE IN THE AA LEGION IS HEADING BACK ON OUT TO PLAY ON A MORE REGULAR BASIS! WE’RE REALLY PLEASED TO SEE THAT OUR GOOD FRIEND AND “RESIDENT VIKING” BJORN IS BACK OUT TO GAMES, AND THIS MONTH HE TELLS US ALL ABOUT ONE OF THE BIGGEST FIELDS IN HIS NATIVE SWEDEN!

Stråssa is one of the biggest fields in Sweden and its based at an old sintering plant. It’s owned by a Company called Batalj (www.bataljevent.se) and has been in the industry for more than 20 years! To give you an idea of what they do here’s some info directly from their page that gives you an idea of how big the area really is! ”The scenario facility at Stråssa mine consists of a large number of old industrial buildings and service buildings, where the mining office (>6000 sq m) and the ball sinter plant (>15,000 sq m) stand out as the largest. In the area, we also own over 4 ha of land, where the track is built and the service parts are located. Additional land is leased and used at the larger events.

In the facility you will find a lot of exciting things. For example virus labs, morgues, office landscapes, machine rooms, power stations, warehouses, residential quarters, trenches, bunkers and much, much more. For the larger houses, we currently have about 95 40-foot containers and concrete houses, many with several floors. The facility is developed to be able to arrange battle scenes from smaller groups in scenario games to large-scale games with hundreds of participants. The facility is particularly well suited to Apocalyptic Lives.

Construction is ongoing all the time in Stråssa and is therefore increasing both in size and service level.

TV series such as Dystopia and Hide and Seek have been recorded here and of course a lot of music videos.”

They usually have as many as 500 players at the field on a Saturday game, and this field has everything! High ground perfect for sniping, sneaky dark areas where you need a light to manage because it’s pitch black, tight CQB areas, dunes of sand, forest areas, small roads… I could go on, but I think you will get the picture!

So, last month I went to Stråssa together with one of my old friends, and I was hoping there would be more people but as Berget “Broken Arrow” 2022 was still running the amount of players was greatly reduced. About 60-70 players showed up, which is small for Stråssa as the last game there was over 300! Of course that ,eant there was more space for those of us playing, and the organisers really made that work…

Everybody has to chrono their weapons with the BB weight they use and get a coloured tape to show what class their primary falls into and its safety distance. Inside the big Sinter-plant you are only allowed to fire CQB Class (max 1 joule) but you are allowed to shoot out through the windows from the second floor and up with any gun you like as long as you keep the safety distance. If you know you have a stronger primary or sniper rifle I highly recommend you bring a sidearm.

The conditions were excellent, cloudy but warm with high humidity that made us sweat! I was running steel plates in my plate carrier from OneTigris and a Geigerrig water system, so I wasn’t running light!

GAME ON!

The games consisted of some really fast and tight “capture the flag” games that every airsofter loves; three games with three teams, red, blue and yellow all trying to reach the other teams nest to snatch a flag! If you lost one of yours you could still try to take it back and also take another, so it was constant attack and defend all at once! In this game you really have advantage if you know the area as you can

sneak up and around the opponents, but it’s also a great game to show newcomers a lot of the site too. I must say I had a few good runs because of this “prior knowledge” ha ha…

As a bonus there was a flagpost near the centre that if you held it when the end signal blew you could get 5 extra points, but this was more difficult than you’d believe! At one point we had “dead” players from all teams laying around that pole at the end signal. Everybody was 100% giving their best!

Then we also tried something new that they called “Fortnite”. Only CQB Class (1 joule) were allowed for this game as you had to get really close-on on each other. You teamed up in pairs and then scattered over the field and every time a signal sounded the field shrunk, and if you didn’t move to the next level within 60 sec you were out! This got really messy in the end, but was a fun game!

Although we had a great day of airsoft as usual at Stråssa, it’s no wonder they regularly host one of the biggest post-apocalyptic LARPS over there, “Blodsband Reloaded” (or BBR), with Mad Max-inspired cars and bikes, people in awesome costumes, and a mad-good storyline! I had the opportunity to be let inside on the game area as a photographer during the 2019 BBR LARP just before the Rona struck us; usually nobody gets in without being in the game as a character but they lent me some clothes so I could blend in better, and on boy, was it a BLAST!

If you’re a fan of apocalyptic role-playing/LARP you definitely should check this out by visiting www. bbreloaded.se They try to arrange one LARP per year at Stråssa and one is coming up soon; don’t be afraid to go there just because you’re not Swedish as we already had some friends from the UK and the USA visiting over here, but do be aware that although airsoft guns are a part of the event, it is not an airsoft game in itself… it’s FAR BIGGER than just a game, it’s a whole new world!

If you ever come to Sweden and want to play airsoft then I strongly recommend you to make a visit to Stråssa, and let us know if you are as we will arrange a big old Swedish welcome for you! AA