Airsoft is an excellent hobby that you and your friends can play in many locales. Many people play at large and elaborate events, but most people start out playing in their backyards. What are some excellent tips on how to play airsoft in the backyard?
Here are 5 tips on how to play airsoft in your backyard:
- Inform neighbors before playing
- Ensure player and environment safety
- Play games with simple rules
- Add cover and obstructions
- Keep it casual
In this article, I’ll be covering what you need to know to have fun playing airsoft in your backyard safely. To get the most out of your airsoft experience, you must take some common-sense precautions. In addition, there are some tips that’ll help everyone have a better time.
1. Inform Neighbors Before Playing
This seems obvious, but it needs to be said: if you have neighbors, tell them you’ll have gunshot-like noises emanating from your property for a few hours. It’s only courteous. Besides, you won’t have to worry about them calling the cops on you thinking a gang war is occurring in your yard.
This also goes along with the simple tenet that you should never play airsoft in public areas or anywhere people regularly traverse. This includes (but is not limited to):
- Front yards
- Near sidewalks
- Just about anywhere with frequent passersby
2. Ensure Player and Environment Safety
Before anything else, you should verify player and environment safety.
Every player should have a pair of goggles, at minimum, and a vest will help if anyone is using a high-velocity gun.
Your play area should have hard, well-defined borders, such as fences. This will help ensure that no stray pellets strike neighbors or passersby.
You can also use a forested area behind your home, if available. It’s much easier to just play in the deep woods and not have to worry about accidents.
If you don’t have a suitable area to play airsoft, try asking around. Perhaps a friend or neighbor will let you play in their backyard or know of some woods where you can legally play. With airsoft, the more, the merrier.
All players must be on the same page about safety. Some common gun safety tips to abide by include the following:
- Always assume a gun is loaded
- Never point a gun unless you are ready to fire
- Always consider what is in front and behind a target
- Always wear eye goggles
If a player can’t abide by these common-sense rules, then they may make more blatantly unsafe decisions throughout a game. Either enforce your rules or eject such players from your games – it’s not worth someone getting hurt.
Keeping each other accountable when you have a breach in safety is essential. Otherwise, violations could get swept under the rug.
3. Play Games With Simple Rules
With a smaller area especially, simple rules will help get everyone on the page quicker and into action. Complicated rules in a confined area can confuse people and lead to lots of clarifying questions, or worse, accidental infractions.
You should have a clear idea of what your games will look like. Ask yourself questions like:
- Will you utilize the respawn system?
- Should games be objective, skirmish, or time-based?
- What’s the goal?
Ideally, your players should be able to show up and easily jump right into a game.
4. Add Cover and Obstructions
Adding artificial cover and obstructions can enhance the tactical possibilities of a game. Consider tailoring the obstructions to the circumstances. For instance, one game may be a skirmish with equally distributed cover, while another may feature hostage-takers with heavy fortifications.
You can get as creative with this as you want. Smaller yards can be turned into maze-type arenas, while you can make larger fields into large-scale skirmishes.
Some items you can use to create battlefields include:
- Pallets
- Metal trash cans
- Sheds
- Used tires
- Bricks
- Barrels
- Sandbags
- Wood
You could also consider adding other areas or locations of tactical significance within the game such as:
- Prisons
- Supply areas
- Trenches
Digging trenches can be a highly labor-intensive task, but it can help make games very interesting. Imagine simulating WWI battles in a large field with several trenches on opposing sides!
This will add dimension to your games and get players excited to play your games. Using water to muddy up areas within a battlefield can be a way to dirty up the field and give players another obstacle to overcome, or you can set up deer stands in trees as sniper perches.
Important note: To make major changes to the land, you should own the property in question and obtain permission before doing anything drastic. If you’re 17 with your first airsoft gun, please don’t dig trenches in your parents’ yard.
5. Keep It Casual
The most important part of airsoft is to have fun and be a good sport. If arguments occur in the middle of a game over whether someone was hit or not, it’s not worth getting into a physical fight over. Being honest when you are/aren’t hit and giving others the benefit of the doubt when they say they aren’t hit will create a friendly atmosphere of honesty for everyone.
If you host an airsoft game, it’s worth having water and maybe even snacks for your players, especially if a game runs all day. You can see if everyone will chip in on some pizza during a lunch break before you get back into the game.
Is It Legal To Play Airsoft in Your Backyard?
It is legal to play airsoft in your backyard, but individual states, cities, or municipalities may have their laws about airsoft. In most places, though, there’s no law against playing airsoft on your property assuming you aren’t causing anyone else harm or destroying property.
Final Thoughts
Airsoft is an awesome hobby to play with friends, as long as you’re following basic safety precautions. In addition, there are tons of ways you can prepare a yard for airsoft games.