BrightCandle
Members
- Apr 15, 2014
- 1,013
- 422
Date played: 01/03/2015
Weather: Cold (below green gas functioning wel!) and windy (25mph gusts)
Type: Woodland (ish)
Cost: £20 +£5 for lunch
The area itself
Absolute airsoft has a site right next to Deltaforce paintball. From their description it sounds like a high developed site:
"One of our new sites set in approx 100 acres of woodland and has the following features:
Church, Vietcong Village, Berlin Wall, Ammo Dump, Double Decker Bus & a 2 Story Castle
All make for varied gameplay and cater for all styles of weapons."
What I saw was something they called the prison which is a bit of plastic coated wood in the middle of the woods with a couple of small rooms and one of the paintball fields full of oil drums at the end of the day for 15 minutes. No castle, no double decker bus, no berlin wall, in fact mostly we played to capture a trench in the same place in the game area across a range of area I would estimate about 100metres by maybe 60metres. The entire wood was covered in brambles, even the walk ways had them imposing and you will get thorns sticking in you through your BDUs. The ground level brush is quite thick so just kneeling or laying down will give you really good cover a lot of the time. Most of the area is very hard to pass or impassable, between the fallen down trees and the thick brambles its hard to really move quickly. You can't really run here and it slows the game down a lot. Due to the limited area of combat and the fact at head height visibility is easily the entire field combat gets bogged down really quickly.
This wasn't what I was expecting given the description of the site, these special elements they have listed belong to the paintball site and they seem to be in individual fields separated from everything else, so despite the total size of the area its not all in play at once. Since paintball was running we only played in the woods except for that one game. This site is a mess, its poorly maintained and underdeveloped. Its much smaller than they would suggest due to the deal with the local paint ball site. You will play different games but all in the same place and then supposedly at 1430 they get access to the paintball sites (which are smaller but developed). Only that didn't happen until 1600 so we got one short game on one field that was shorter than the range of our guns.
Marshalling
I have a number of issues with the Marshalling for this site.
1) We spent about half of our total time in the safe zone, it was ridiculous. Rather than the long 5 minutes most sites do it was 15+ minutes here. It was so much longer than anyone needed people had time to smoke twice and still sit around.
2) The safety briefing was pretty poor.
3) The rules for games were poorly described most of the time. The first game was "capture the flag". Not a lot else was said other than respawn details. But the game lasted about 45 seconds as one team was really close to the flags and we barely got into engagement range by the time they had them at their base! We swapped and then it become clear there were 3 flags in the middle of the game zone not the 1 that we all assumed, but to be fair it was only clear the flag must be in the middle and not the enemy base when we had no flag in the base. It was not the usual capture the flag and there was no explanation. This went on all day and multiple games had unclear objectives and problems with the rules and you just learnt to roll with it.
4) Dealing with cheats and problem characters was non-existent and the site has some terminators who are regulars.
5) The marshals tell terrible off jokes, I have seen them shoot players in the briefing, disrupting the mission brief, for fun.
6) At one point a Marshall was complaining that people were taking too long stepping off towards the game area and said "its your time your wasting". Oh the irony having wasted the entirety of our day in the safe zone (see 1) all day and here we were taking 30 seconds to avoid the big puddle and getting that thrown at us was just beyond ridiculous.
7) At the end of the day one of the marshals threw a pyro just behind us, within 5metres or so away from us, in the safe zone. Obviously no one had eye protection on at this point.
8) The point where you can start firing is basically in the safe zone, a ricochet from a tree could easily make it back into the safe zone given the distances, I don't consider that good enough and it made me nervous all day.
9) I saw multiple guys with magazines in before leaving the safe zone, told a few off myself but the Marshals didn't seem to notice or pay any attention to these incidents and they kept happening.
Safety
The site is very thick brambled, has a lot of fallen down trees you have to cross, some of which are at the sort of height that is an issue. You will trip a lot, fall a bit and generally find you walk everywhere untangling your feet. Combine that with the fact they don't chronograph guns as far as I can tell (they have one they just didn't use it) and almost no rules from the safety briefing and it leaves a worry in me that says people are going to get hurt here. I made it out alive but I have small cuts all over my legs from the brambles and I stayed mostly on the paths because of how impassable much of the terrain was. The lack of safety in the safe zone is a real concern as well.
Games
The games are really short. Some lasted just 45 seconds, none went above 20 minutes. Then it was back to the safe zone to reload (15+ minutes) and back out again. I played so many different games in the same area it was just boring. More than half the time was actually sat in the safe zone and that is the real game here.
Facilities
The safe zone was OK, park benches under some tarp. Not much use against the wind but should keep some of the rain off. Lunch was reasonable value, a 9" pizza which wasn't all that impressive but for the price was good. It had toilets which is a plus, they didn't have running water however so yeah that wasn't great.
Overall impression is this site is pretty bad, the worst I have played at so far. Its kind of Bunker 51 in the woods but it goes on for longer, is just as bogged down in terms of gameplay with too many people in a small space but with the drawback of being outside in the elements so the wind will blow your BBs everywhere and you have the brambles to be dealing with. I wouldn't ever go back and I am surprised the regulars do, its pretty awful in my opinion and has none of the benefits of woodland (the fire and movement possibilities due to the space you have).
Weather: Cold (below green gas functioning wel!) and windy (25mph gusts)
Type: Woodland (ish)
Cost: £20 +£5 for lunch
The area itself
Absolute airsoft has a site right next to Deltaforce paintball. From their description it sounds like a high developed site:
"One of our new sites set in approx 100 acres of woodland and has the following features:
Church, Vietcong Village, Berlin Wall, Ammo Dump, Double Decker Bus & a 2 Story Castle
All make for varied gameplay and cater for all styles of weapons."
What I saw was something they called the prison which is a bit of plastic coated wood in the middle of the woods with a couple of small rooms and one of the paintball fields full of oil drums at the end of the day for 15 minutes. No castle, no double decker bus, no berlin wall, in fact mostly we played to capture a trench in the same place in the game area across a range of area I would estimate about 100metres by maybe 60metres. The entire wood was covered in brambles, even the walk ways had them imposing and you will get thorns sticking in you through your BDUs. The ground level brush is quite thick so just kneeling or laying down will give you really good cover a lot of the time. Most of the area is very hard to pass or impassable, between the fallen down trees and the thick brambles its hard to really move quickly. You can't really run here and it slows the game down a lot. Due to the limited area of combat and the fact at head height visibility is easily the entire field combat gets bogged down really quickly.
This wasn't what I was expecting given the description of the site, these special elements they have listed belong to the paintball site and they seem to be in individual fields separated from everything else, so despite the total size of the area its not all in play at once. Since paintball was running we only played in the woods except for that one game. This site is a mess, its poorly maintained and underdeveloped. Its much smaller than they would suggest due to the deal with the local paint ball site. You will play different games but all in the same place and then supposedly at 1430 they get access to the paintball sites (which are smaller but developed). Only that didn't happen until 1600 so we got one short game on one field that was shorter than the range of our guns.
Marshalling
I have a number of issues with the Marshalling for this site.
1) We spent about half of our total time in the safe zone, it was ridiculous. Rather than the long 5 minutes most sites do it was 15+ minutes here. It was so much longer than anyone needed people had time to smoke twice and still sit around.
2) The safety briefing was pretty poor.
3) The rules for games were poorly described most of the time. The first game was "capture the flag". Not a lot else was said other than respawn details. But the game lasted about 45 seconds as one team was really close to the flags and we barely got into engagement range by the time they had them at their base! We swapped and then it become clear there were 3 flags in the middle of the game zone not the 1 that we all assumed, but to be fair it was only clear the flag must be in the middle and not the enemy base when we had no flag in the base. It was not the usual capture the flag and there was no explanation. This went on all day and multiple games had unclear objectives and problems with the rules and you just learnt to roll with it.
4) Dealing with cheats and problem characters was non-existent and the site has some terminators who are regulars.
5) The marshals tell terrible off jokes, I have seen them shoot players in the briefing, disrupting the mission brief, for fun.
6) At one point a Marshall was complaining that people were taking too long stepping off towards the game area and said "its your time your wasting". Oh the irony having wasted the entirety of our day in the safe zone (see 1) all day and here we were taking 30 seconds to avoid the big puddle and getting that thrown at us was just beyond ridiculous.
7) At the end of the day one of the marshals threw a pyro just behind us, within 5metres or so away from us, in the safe zone. Obviously no one had eye protection on at this point.
8) The point where you can start firing is basically in the safe zone, a ricochet from a tree could easily make it back into the safe zone given the distances, I don't consider that good enough and it made me nervous all day.
9) I saw multiple guys with magazines in before leaving the safe zone, told a few off myself but the Marshals didn't seem to notice or pay any attention to these incidents and they kept happening.
Safety
The site is very thick brambled, has a lot of fallen down trees you have to cross, some of which are at the sort of height that is an issue. You will trip a lot, fall a bit and generally find you walk everywhere untangling your feet. Combine that with the fact they don't chronograph guns as far as I can tell (they have one they just didn't use it) and almost no rules from the safety briefing and it leaves a worry in me that says people are going to get hurt here. I made it out alive but I have small cuts all over my legs from the brambles and I stayed mostly on the paths because of how impassable much of the terrain was. The lack of safety in the safe zone is a real concern as well.
Games
The games are really short. Some lasted just 45 seconds, none went above 20 minutes. Then it was back to the safe zone to reload (15+ minutes) and back out again. I played so many different games in the same area it was just boring. More than half the time was actually sat in the safe zone and that is the real game here.
Facilities
The safe zone was OK, park benches under some tarp. Not much use against the wind but should keep some of the rain off. Lunch was reasonable value, a 9" pizza which wasn't all that impressive but for the price was good. It had toilets which is a plus, they didn't have running water however so yeah that wasn't great.
Overall impression is this site is pretty bad, the worst I have played at so far. Its kind of Bunker 51 in the woods but it goes on for longer, is just as bogged down in terms of gameplay with too many people in a small space but with the drawback of being outside in the elements so the wind will blow your BBs everywhere and you have the brambles to be dealing with. I wouldn't ever go back and I am surprised the regulars do, its pretty awful in my opinion and has none of the benefits of woodland (the fire and movement possibilities due to the space you have).
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what was the price for this shambles of a game day ??
