Team Scorpion & PTTS visit Blue Streak.....wow

[GrammarNazi75]

Hello everyone,

This is the first of (hopefully) weekly reviews of sites that we go to, whether its ten or two of us, the site's getting reviewed!

So on the 6th October we ventured to Blue Streak Airsoft in Aylesbury (70 miles down the road from Russ and I) and run by BadgerTac Airsoft (all links and contact information below)

We had arranged to meet PTTS, a group of CQB Tactical marshals and players who want to stay in contact and after a quick 15 minute reunion at Bicester services we arrived in a fleet of 5/6 cars and greeted as we parked up by 3 marshals wearing Hawaiian shirts (their signature) and instantly chirped everyone up at 8:20 in the morning. We parked up, left the kit in the car and each handed over £30 followed by signing a disclaimer where we all stacked up and wrote on each others backs. It was quick easy as you weren't waiting ages to que and they had plenty of pens. Following that 4 of our cars drove up to the site which left no room for Russ an I so we were tasked with carrying our kit up, but didn't bother us because that's just how it goes.

We set up, had a chat, got our kit ready and by about half 9.......it started. The marshals, which predominantly ex military had a set of lungs on them. I thought it was okay to start with, wake everyone up a bit. We went for the brief which was clear, kept your attention and covered each point in detail, but to the point. After the brief, we were put into teams and PTTS and Scorpion stuck together along with 2 gents we were set up next to and a few others. "Team Leaders" were appointed for each team, who I assume were regulars, and were tasked with..well...leading the team, they had good tactics and I thought, if i'm going to get moaned at for not doing what they say, then they should pay my £30, but if you went off with two of your mates for a kamikaze run instead of defending the objective none of them had any objection and were quite friendly guys.

First game (from memory) was to push either team back to their re-gen and dominate the buildings built around the site, with us being mostly CQB players its safe to say we didn't grasp the layout of the site compared to the other team, so we lost. Then after switching the game round, we found it easier to push, but still lost but not as bad. This went for 30 minutes roughly either way.

Forgive my bad memory, I can only remember some games. They tended to get longer and longer throughout the day until we hit lunch at about 13:00 which was a brilliant summer style layout, with a pasta salad, hot jacket potato, Chilli, coleslaw, garlic bread and a couple of other small bits, Terry had no hesitations when they were calling for 2nd's, 3rd's.....and 4th's.

After lunch there was two huge hour and a half games, at this point Russ must have had about 2 packs of paracetemol from the marshals shouting like we had just walked into basic training. Usually when the games are good I can remember most little details, but in this case can only remember the last half hour when it was the biggest stalemate I have ever encountered.We were set up in a long building with several rooms, a back alley, shower block etc. In the brief they said it was single shot when you are within 5m of a building, which fair enough they were 20-25m away, so we took it upon ourselves to fire back at them full auto, after 20 minutes of this, they caught on and said we had to shoot single shot (by which point we only had 10 minutes left). After several suicide runs by myself, Russ, Scotty, Beef and the gent who done the commando roll, Russ spotted a potential cheater and had said it to himself after walking off, to which "Mr Muscle" (our own nickname for him) shouted him over and said "Dead men don't talk, If you have a problem speak to a marshal" Russ went to breathe and he then said "I'm speaking, when I talk, you will listen"

When I heard that I couldn't believe what I was hearing. You're not in the military anymore and we never were so stop treating us like fresh meat privates and talk to people like a human. After the hellish 10 minutes of standing in a building until they stormed it we turned it around. We turned the game round so our team were now attacking through the 3 stages and around 10 minutes into it I heard a familiar voice shout towards the guy in front, Me and Carl. The guy in front pointed to himself and the marshal said "yeah and you behind him, what have you been told about standing on the mounds" (the mounds being banned from standing on due to health and safety reasons from rabbit holes) As soon as I heard that I went to re-gen Toby where my arm met a set of brambles as I dived we were both shot and at this point was expecting a sarcy comment from the marshal that never arrived surprisingly. After getting told off because I didn't wait 3 minutes to "bleed out" I walked off only saying to the others that i've had enough.


for about an hour and 40 minutes I sat in the safe zone with a few others from PTTS that packed it in for the same reasons. We packed our kit, Matt and Russ went to get their cars, we had our goodbyes (about 3 times) then all went on ours ways.

You may have noticed this review was based mainly on the marshals, not only because it's what I remeber most, but because marshals and the atmosphere of the site is also what makes the day and to me, the marshals were rood arrogant and ruined the day completely, not to mention someone overhearing the marshal bi***ing about Russ to another marshal...top notch professionalism.

If you do fancy it the link to the shop is here: http://www.badgertac.com/products/
The link to badger tac events is here: http://www.bluestreak-airsoft.co.uk/

Gameplay: 4/5
Players: 3/5
Marshals: 1/5 (the 1 being from the 2 nice chaps waving us into the car park at the start)
Site shop: 3/5 (didn't touch on this, but sold your standard bits, but a bit pricier than i'm used to)
Organisation: 4/5

Overall: Good game play, not really anyone with dubious play until the end, but understandable as everyones tired and reactions drop. Quite cliquey regulars, but knew 70% of people there so wasn't too bad. Marshals...enough said I think. Games were good, but think they need to start with a short 10 minute game to get us warmed up instead of diving into two half hour games without a little break first thing

Would I go back? - Probably only if PTTS had fully booked it all and we had free roam of the site, other than that...NO

[jay83]

good review mate nice and detailed.

[Baz JJ]

Thanks - yes I heard similar about the marshal.

[Loki7491]

Hi guys, as co-owner of Badger Tac and Bluestreak I thought I'd take the opportunity to address your issue with my marshals and to give you a heads up as to why things are done as they are.

 

1. As you quite rightly pointed out, all of the regular staff and marshals backgrounds are serving military, ex-military or private contractor. As such they have a sense of urgency and drive to get things done on time and in the correct fashion.

 

2. Although we got involve in airsoft for the love of the game, the site does contribute a large portion to people's mortgages and the such like so it is imperative that we maximise profits. To do that we need to maximise a regular following.

 

3. On the day you attended we had just shy of 100 people on site, each having paid a minimum of £30 plus costs to attend.

 

4. If we have to hold up games for a few stragglers then it equates to £300 (10 players) dictating the game times for the remaining £2700 (90 players). Not forgetting this is a business and not just a hobby if we have to upset the 10 in order to satisfy the 90, guess what? That is what we will do.

 

5. Our ethos is about maximum time in the field - with medics before regen and as many games as we can get into the day in order to give value for money. If players want to miss out a game for a rest, that is cool as long as we know we can start with out them otherwise we end up losing game time. With the amount of faffing about on that day, we could have easily squeezed in another game.

 

6. Your moans about the bleed out and the mounds simply prove that those involved either did not pay attention to the safety brief / site rules or simply chose to ignore them. With respect to the bleed out rule, it is there to allow the attacking force to push home the advantage of having shot you. If players ignore that, they are no better than non- hit takers. That is serious in terms of game play. On a more serious note, as you mentioned in your review, the mounds are out of bounds due to health and safety. If there is an accident on them we run the risk of getting shut down. Myself and my business partner lose the business, cannot afford to pay the mortgage or feed the kids and several site staff will lose a regular income and we all lose out on our passion / hobby - but that is okay so long as the player on the mound gained his tactical advantage or got the kill shot, huh?

 

7. We have an excellent reputation for fair play, fun and no bull crap. That is because of our "marshals decision is final" approach. We have perma banned an entire team of players who travelled several hours as they were ruining the game for all. It is also the reason we will never endorse a home team. Teams always have a far higher opinion of their abilities than they actually have and there is always moaning about a "Teflon" home team.

 

I hope this clears up why I pay my marshals to be the way they are. On a side note, I am unsure if it was you or one of your teammates and without a confession I guess I will never know... But when they talk about physically assaulting my staff with phrases like "I'd put him on his arse" then do players seriously expect the marshalling staff to warm to them? You mentioned the "professionalism" or lack of on my staff, yet your team mates conduct themselves in that manner.

 

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

 

I joined the forum purely to address this issue (which is the only negative review we have ever had) so do not know how often I will be on this forum. If you wish to discuss any points please feel free to email me at either:

 

[email protected]

 

Or

 

[email protected]