Colin Allen

Nicco di Piazza is/was James Bailey’s sidekick, with a back story that has wobbled a time or two.

Kingdom seems to get very low numbers and frequently cancels for that reason. Also, having encountered the guy that runs it in his shop, I have no intention of playing at a site that he runs. As for Anzio, it is a great site but, on the day that we were there, the game design was awful and the marshaling was poor.

Mr Bailey plays at Phoenix near Nottingham; this one is near Warrington.

That is a different site, although I would welcome another opportunity to meet Mr Bailey. Aye, that might be a possibility; has anyone on here played there?

As I was driving the lad back to university today, we were discussing how he could get some games in between now and the summer. As it is his final undergraduate year, he will not be able to come down at Easter and does not drive, so the plan is for me to go up to Stoke a few times so that we can play up there. We have played at a couple of sites relatively near Stoke (Anzio and Sixmil/Stormforce) and were not very impressed by either of them; we have looked at others but have excluded them. We now have three possibles and I am hoping that anyone who has played them recently will be able to give us their opinion; they are: Phoenix/PTC near Warrington (run by Bomb Up). Hilton Park Airsoft near Wolverhampton (run by TM Airsoft) Frontier Airsoft near Penkridge (one specific question for this one: are their games all themed ones? Their photos seem to include some very strange costumes.) Many thanks in advance for any information.

Thank you!

I think it is a bit of both, with the former being the most significant factor. I completely agree with your comments about Apocalypse, which is where I thought you were referring to; I have played there a few times, including since the change of management, and have found the management, organisation and marshalling to be poor to the extent that it ruins the experience.

Not really; I have seen good and bad sites close over the years. Where this has happened, it is been due to circumstances outside the site managers' control, such as the landlord wanting to develop the site, change its use, or put up the rent. As ruskitseller points out, it would be handy, but probably impossible, to define what we mean by a good site and a crap site; people will have different perceptions of these two terms. For example, I would describe TWA as an utterly fucking crap site run by utter fucking twats, but it seems to attract a reasonable number of regular players who presumably think it is good. For a while, I would gave described it as reasonably good, although its main attraction for me was that it opened on Saturday, which meant that I could play on rehearsal weekends. I would be intrigued to know what site @Tackle is describing, given that I suspect that we have played at many of the same sites.

Any tips about the location of the sticker?

I agree that it is almost certainly a DE; it is quite different from the Ares.

I used mine today. It was hitting 45m before starting to drop.

Oh dear! That sounds like a rather frustrating day.

A very cold and frosty morning with the temperature reading -6 degrees saw the Lad and I heading off to Airsoft Plantation. On arrival, we were greeted by one of the staff who informed us that we must be mad; we tended to agree with him. Fortunately, another 100 players were equally mad. The first game of the day involved us attacking the village to kill three high value targets. As the attackers, we had infinite 30m buddy regens, while the defenders had two lives, the first to be taken in or touching a building and the other away from a building; the HVTs had just one life in a building. We both attacked down the right hand side, the lad pushing through scrubland and woods while I went further right. After a good fight, all three HVTs were eliminated. After a quick break to mag up and have a very necessary hot drink, the game was turned around. We took up position on the left by a hut, now dubbed "The Fishing Hut" by the lad as it is next to the pond. The enemy attacked from all directions, including sweeping around and attacking from our rear. The enemy eliminated the HVTs in a time that was two minutes faster than ours. Following another hot drink, we played a new game called "Two Ways To Win". Each team had three crates, which they needed to get to a location in the enemy's base; we had to get ours into a UAZ jeep in the DEA base, while the enemy had to get theirs into a Land Rover in the village. The first team to complete that mission would win the game. However, there was another way to win, which was by setting off a bomb which was located at the enemy's base; our target was in the plane, while the enemy's target was in the Town Hall. If the two players carrying a crate were hit, they had to drop it where they were hit. This was a sprawling fight; the lad set off with part of our team which was attacking the enemy's base while I formed part of our defensive group. The lad's group got within about 15m of the plane and the UAZ but were hampered by small roving enemy patrols which prevented them reaching the targets; they they lost one of the crates. Our defence held the enemy away from both targets; they never got further than the suburbs of the village, losing all three crates, which we prevented them recovering. It was a really fun game, which ended in a draw. Lunch then followed, which was our usual meal of very cold pizza, again accompanied by hot drinks, although the day was very gradually warming up. After lunch, we played a domination game. Each side was divided into three groups. One of these was a Black Ops group; ours had to capture the UAZ, while the other team's one had to capture the plane, which is about 10m from the UAZ; this got very messy. The Lad was with this group. Another group occupied the domination point at the Bus, while my group started at the Border, which was also a domination point. The first thing we saw was our valiant Black Ops group charging past us to attack the UAZ. Inspired by this, we forget about defending the Border and set off to capture a domination point in the village. This was quickly taken and defended throughout the game. I have no idea what happened to the Bus group; the Lad thinks that they just stayed and partied on the Bus, while fighting off the enemy's Black Ops team. When the game ended, we held the Border, the Village, the Bus and the UAZ. Huzzah! A victory! Following this, the next game involved the other team getting fuel to various vehicles in the Mortar Pits; their attack was quite weak, making it easy for us to defend. I started out by the berm on the left, picking off targets near the Comms Truck, with the Lad doing the same from atop the bunker. After being hit, I moved to the other side of the Mortar Pits, before returning to the berm right at the end of the game, which we won very handily. The Lad maintained his position for the entire game, except for an excursion to the eight wheeler and back, which he thoroughly enjoyed. The enemy failed to achieve their objective. The final game involved us attacking into the village to capture eight bombs and return them to our start point at the Border. We had infinite buddy regens after a 30m fall back, while the defenders had three lives in the village. The Lad cleared out the Fishing Hut, pushed right around the right of the village and took up a prone position near the last hut. While waiting for an opportunity to shoot the two enemy in it, two other players regened on it and walked to within 3m of him; they died again when he offered them the chance to surrender rather than being shot, which they gladly accepted. After fighting through the village, I recovered one of the bombs and took it to the Border just before the game ended. It was the seventh; the eighth did not make it back in time. It was an excellent day of airsoft, with well designed games played in a great spirit; exactly what airsoft should be. Weapons used: Me: Hurricane kit/G&P SR47 Dboys AKMS Double Eagle stubby shotgun The Lad: JG G3 LCT AKMS

A terrible site; it seemed to improve for a while but then dropped off a cliff. The final straw for us was when a marshal refused to wear eyepro in the playing area when people had loaded guns and later, when he had eventually put eyepro on, totally ignored a player standing next to him with no eyepro. A terrible site run by terrible people.

Hop rubbers? Who bothers with hop rubbers?