- Fairbanks Competes at Gamepod - December 5, 2017
By: Hunter Wurster
Fairbanks “Killing Angels: Northern Tribe’ traveled down to San Francisco, California.
Their mission: combat within Gamepod, the world’s largest private-indoor simulated war zone.
“The first game of the night I must have racked up a total of fifty plus kills,’ said Ray Wonders, a 24-year-old truck driver when he isn’t engaged in battle.
Gamepod weekend events commence Friday night, with a total of four games. Two teams compete to complete an objective within forty-five minutes. The Fairbanks team went down on Veterans day weekend. The night’s first “gamemode’ was a team deathmatch, said TJ, a referee. “ Both teams run and shoot at each other the whole time with no real objective,’ as he put it, offering a “good warm up.’
Airsoft is the world’s largest growing extreme sport where players use real steel replica guns that shoot plastic bbs.
“Killing Angels: Northern Tribe’ is lead by Andrew Hill, 27, who has been playing the sport for 12 years. Returning to Gamepod with The Tribe for the second year in a row. Although the team is eight players strong only four flew down for the weekend event, Ty Winterson, age 19, Ray Wonders, age 24, and Dirk Taylor, age 35.
Winterson, who is airguard when not playing airsoft, was the only other member with previous Gamepod experience. “ Gamepod has gone through a lot of changes since last time I’ve been here,’ he said.
The biggest change being the entire field in surrounded by intermodal containers stacked to the ceiling. Gamepod has recently built upon their facility adding a new loading zone for players to get their gear ready, as well as building a new section to play in.
Gamepod hosts the airsoft events to the public Friday nights, and Saturday and Sundays mornings, anyone interested in Gamepod can come and can participate in the events for thirty-five dollars a day, and for anyone new to the airsoft community Gamepod offers rental equipment for thirty-five dollars a day.
Gamepod’s 120,000-square foot single floor warehouse, while Gamepod, was designed to assist military and law enforcement training. It opens to the public on the weekends.
Gamepod hosting airsoft events every weekend, with an average of fifty to sixty players every weekend. Airsoft is a competitive team sport in which players goal is to eliminate each other by shooting each other with small plastic pellets from replica real steel guns. Rows of tables lined wall to wall for the players to lay out their gear and interact with others around them. The owners of Gamepod as well as the referees walk around to interact with the players in between games, making the whole experience very inviting to new players and traveling teams.
Players new and old to Gamepod share experiences and talk about the sport with each other, “ Airsoft is great to make new friends, said Taylor, a truck driver by day. “I told a guy I liked his patch on his vest and now we ran together in the games. “
The second game that weekend was “Capture the V.I.P,’ a gamemode in which has both teams trying to capture a neutral player, known as the V.I.P.,and keeping them prisoner in your team’s control until the end of the game. Those V.I.Ps can be slippery though, “ I thought I had the V.I.P secure, until the point he threw a barrel in between us to escape,’ Taylor recalled during the game.
The third game sent The Killing Angels on a mission.To locate cases hidden around the facility and return them to their team’s base. Once the cases are secured, the referee ordered them to relocate the cases into different buildings to hold from the enemy team. “ This was one one of the funnest games of the night for me,’ said Winterton, “ It was challenging to push up the combat zone, but our team worked amazing together.’
The last competition of the night left the Alaskan team feeling like stars. The owners of Gamepod had a flag capture game mode where each team fought to control three flags spaced out around the facility. However the referees had a special twist for the Fairbanks team, handing off a mock bomb and giving buildings the Alaskans had to push to and “detonate’ the bomb. “
“A once in a lifetime experience!’ Taylor said The Tribe’s first successful detonation.
Gamepod’s owners and staff were a huge contributing factor to the high energy and good times shared between the players. Huge fans of the Alaskan team that flew down to visit them ended the day with trading patches from each others gear, Gamepod referees giving the Alaskan team Gamepod patches, and the Alaskan’s giving the Gamepod staff Alaskan patches.
“I want this to become a yearly thing,’ said Hill, “ It is a different environment from airsoft at home, and I’m happy the others can experience this too.’
When asked what Andrew Hill wants to see if he goes back next year with the team responded, “ I’d like to have everyone from the team come down, and have the whole “Killing Angels: North Tribe play together.’
