Dear A.C.E. readers we are glad to come with you with an exclusive interview with Mike von Bulow – Border War Crew leader and founder of Border War Milsim which was so far the largest international MILSIM and Airsoft event done in Europe until now.

 

A.C.E. Hello Mike, how are you? We have couple of questions we believe our readers will be interested to know, so first question is, what is your overall summary from the point of view of the organiser about the event? How do you feel about the event when you look back on it from the start of the organisation. Was it the same as to organise previous events?

Hello, I’m very well thank you, my overall feeling is very positive mainly because we had received lot of player questionnaires with the overall very possitive feedback from BW4 technically, 92% of the respondents were happy with the event which shows that we have made a successful event.

When I look back to the fist day we started working on the BW4 we didn’t expected that it would be such a large event. We opened up the registration and we sold out all tickets in 3 minutes. Most likely because BW3 was very successful event. I had a look on the registrations and I noticed that not many previous BW veterans were registered and of course I didn’t want to exclude them from the event as they were always with us. So when we opened the registration for second and third round we had more than 2300 registered players at moment before registration closed. Of course on spot was much less because not everybody who registered managed to cover the entrance fee or arrive by still on spot was close by to 1900 MILSIM and airsoft enthusiasts.

In terms of organisation BW4 was a extraordinary organising experience completely new to anything we have done before. More people means many times more time for preparations and all game organisation, more risk to undertake, more crew to hire, more ambulances more doctors, more papers from the authorities more problems to sort out oun spot, which technically ment 8,5 months of work daily for couple of people but with many self sacrifices and lot of personal dedication of the members of BW Crew we have managed to bring the event to success.

 

A.C.E. You keep quite high standards of in game materials people receive on the registration do you have idea how many materials were distributed to the players during the game? Food Vouchers in the price of the ticket are as we know standard on your games.

Mike: That’s a tricky question let me make a quick calculation, actually when I count ingame material we gave to players it was around 27 000 pieces. Not including around almost 2000 non alcoholic beers, 2000 sausages, 2000 cups of teas distributed to the players and around 18000 liters of water used by players during the event.

A.C.E. We had heard the helicopters flying during all of the event. How did you get this idea of the airmobile units? How many players actually used the airmobile option? Wasn’t it risky to make it happen?

Mike: Well the idea was quite simple, I have attended few times some event where helicopter appeared (I shot one down on Berget 7 above Russian Camp with BAVS system… J ) but what I have witnessed always was that it was only for small amount of privileged people. Who either known the organiser or prepared something aside to get into it etc… I wanted something different to offer to the players – very simple anybody was able to register to airmobile unit when the registration opened. So we had 170 brave players who undertook so far the largest airmobile operation in the history of airsoft J. We had made maximum effort for the security aspect of the airmobile operation and as I have spend quite some time before the event testing the landing zones etc, I had personally full trust to our pilots and to their machines.

 

A.C.E. I have seen quite a lot ambulance crew 2-3 on the event was it necessary?

Mike. Safety of players is first think always to us, because when some one gets injured that is when the fun part ends. But we were prepared as much as we could, we had on spot non stop medical crew of 16 medics and doctors + many real medics from side of the players, with professional experiences from emergency, ambulance and also military deployment. Also we had local firefighting brigade supporting us during all of event and also security personnel on spot.

 

A.C.E. We had a discussion with few players and we are curious what is your plan for your anniversary 5th Border War will there be one? You had tanks on Border War 1, plenty of vehicles on Border War 2, excellent LARP village on Border War 3 and so far biggest airsoft and MILSIM event and world record in Helicopter player insertion on Border War 4. Tell us something from behind the scenes of BW5.

Come on we had just finished BW4 and you want another event J. I don’t want to reveal much yet as we are still working on all player suggestions to make event event better from the feedback of BW4. But as we speak about, I give you some insight behind the scenes. So will there be a BW5 yes it will, will there be helicopters yes we plan them, will the event be bigger than BW4 yes we think so.

One of the goals is to significantly improve the LARP element and to boost it to up to a new level and to have a high quality LARP platform – we intent to build a large slum city. Plan is to have it full of constructions and towers and gloomy back yards and narrow streets etc. (so that is one feature that actually our new team member who recently joined us is starting to work already). Than of course we plan to put in life one feature that will help players to know what is currently happening on the battlefield (we had just tested it in small numbers on BW4). Also what we are working on now is actually Airborne option for players with parachute licence. Plus some other things I want to keep hidden now.

 

A.C.E. Slum city and Airborne that sounds like another challenge for organiser. Will you tell us more details about the scenario and what you plan?

Mike. I don’t want to go to any details of upcoming BW5 scenario yet. Plan is to make BW5 a bit special this time the prescenario development will be influenced by results of couple of small special events during the 2012 -2013 . That means that the pre scenario development in some aspects of upcoming BW5 – OP Warhammer will be effected by results of few small prescenarios. Scenario development and pre game situations and results will be announced on our game news portal news.borderwar.cz and of course on our home page www.borderwar.cz

 

A.C.E. Ok, that sounds as there will be more events?

Mike: Yes there will be few smaller events that will take place not only in Czech republic but also in other countries that will try to influence some of the pre game scenario development of BW5. All is in development currently stay tuned for BW: Black Ops.

 

A.C.E. How many people you have in your crew because that sounds as lot of work and afford you put into it.

Mike: The core BW Crew team is an international 10 people team of professionals. We had 55 people crew during the BW4 event, and I would like to have more during next one I would not be shy to say 100 people crew and support , we are currently working on some new features how to improve game marshalling and overall costume disciplines for which we need larger crew.

 

A.C.E. Thank you very much for your answers. Would you like to say something to our readers?

Well fist of all I would like to thank all MILSIMers and airsoft enthusiasts who are visiting our events for last few years, we highly appreciate your trust in us, and loyalty and I promise we will again continue to make the event for you as an event better than before. Also I would like to thank our sponsors mainly S-Thunder, Gun Fire (Poland), LahveSOS, also our 16 people ambulance crew from MEDEVAC.CZ for being with us and helping the players 24/7 during the event. Also local firefighters and police department. And my very special thanks goes to you A.C.E. for your overall support before and during the event.

We are looking forward to see you on our events in the future or in the meantime somewhere in game.

A.C.E. Thanks Mike for your answers.

 

LINK TO EVENT WEBSITE: http://borderwar.cz