Why Airsoft?

The question has been raised of why Conor wants to switch to Airsoft guns instead of the hand-to-hand weapons originally envisioned. Ok, during discussions on what sort of combat should ensue, we talked about a damn lot of things, mostly foam swords and whatnot. Paintball came up fairly early on, but was scrapped. "It would be fun, but it's really not the same game at all," was the reason given, and I agree with that.
Now, the problem with most melee weapons is that it's very difficult to get several things all together: safety, impact, control, and clarity. Safety and control are fairly obvious. Impact and clarity tie together. You don't want to hurt anyone, but it needs to be clear when someone's hit. There needs to be a clear "whap!" and a grunt. And we need to be able to achieve that without armor. Foam swords have a few problems. If they are going to be safe enough to use in the forest way the hell away from anyone, they need to be light enough that they don't knock you silly. So a strong wooden core is out, as is rattan. Unfortunately, when you start using lighter materials, they don't have much momentum. Luc and I experimented with foam-wrapped PVC pipes. They carried very little momentum, and it mostly came down to one-handed twirling that did little but twist your wrist a bit. Such things result in about a million meaningless grazes until one person finally says "Aw, screw this," and whacks the other guy right in the eyes, which hurts like hell.
OK, all that said, I'm not blowing off hand-to-hand combat. Well, for Cowboy Edition, I guess we would be. The thing is, we've been idly pondering potential melee weapons for years, and have yet to reach a clear choice. If something comes up, we should go for it, but it ain't yet.

Now, as to Airsoft. I admit I'm biased, 'cause I hella like a good airsoft fight. And I will admit that, like paintball, it really isn't the same game. However, I think Airsoft GGE would be much more like standard GGE than Paintball GGE. Paintball would be a monster. Expensive as hell for everyone, masks, paint, CO2, so on. My understanding is that those things are usually full or semi-automatic, so any firefight would basically cover a section of the forest in paint. I don't think that would make a good GGE. A kickass afternoon, but not GGE at all.
Airsoft doesn't work like that. With the weapons we would be using, it's like this. You have a plastic pistol (or rifle if you're lucky). In it is a small clip holding 10-20 pellets, about 5-7 millimeters. For each shot, you have to pull a lever to draw a spring into place, cocking the gun, then fire. The cheapass pistols can be obtained for about $10, and the pellets are cheap as hell. And they sting. Now, if you're tender, you can put on a sweatshirt or something. All you really need if you think you're a badass is a pair of safety glasses or goggles (no gorramn arguments about wearing them. I've been shot in the glasses, and it's scary). So you won't have the air suddenly filled with projectiles. Even shooting from the hip, you're going to only be making about one shot per second, and each shot counts. In most standoffs, just a little cover will allow you a choice of pressing an attack or running like hell.
And yes, biodegradable airsoft pellets are avaliable. They're made of starch, and they still sting. People know when they are hit. It very rarely has the ambiguity that lets you say, "that wasn't really a hit" without knowing you're cheating. In the airsoft i've played, folks have been quite honest about being hit.

Now, I know this isn't quite what anyone had in mind for the GGE. I do want to figure out the hand-to-hand LotR-inspired version at some point, but I think Cowboy Edition will be gangs of fun, and ties together the last major rules-hurdle we had.