SE Tour Review: Airsoft Plantation AP (Essex)

[Asomodai]

Site Name: Airsoft Plantation AP

Contact details: 07534636289

Website Address: https://airsoftplantation.co.uk/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/264661190255181/ (This is a private group)

Site Address: Goatsmoor Ln, Stock, Ingatestone CM11 1HE

 

My battle buddy and I popped along to Airsoft Plantation yesterday. We have heard quite a lot of this site previously. Always meant to have visit it, but personal issues kept preventing us from going. From what reviews I had seen, all seemed broadly positive. 

 

Very varied large sized woodland/scrubland site. Some CQB action. Short, Medium and Long engagement distances. Pretty much flat with very few ups and downs. Not much in the way of water features.  

 

Good:

 

Playing area variety: The site is split into multiple sections, a decent woodland site which is about 40 odd acres. Pretty natural with lots of undergrowth. CQB Sections, bridges and towers. It's not the biggest but varied enough with felled trees and some more open areas. The creme de la creme of the site is the scrub/grassland section, seemingly in short supply in the SE of the UK. The grassland has very tall grass and hedges which contain a wooden village with suburbs, the scrubland has some good fortifications which is interesting to attack over open land. 

 

Use of Vehicles: FANTASTIC. Made the day. They had a large army style personnel truck and a Double Decker Bus! Unfortunately the bus was out of action by the time my team got the use of it, but it was hilarious seeing the opposing team bumping up and down off road shooting from a double decker bus assaulting the scrubland buildings. 

 

Parking: A good amount of parking is available along a winding entrance. 

 

Marshaling: The Marshalling was excellent throughout. There were no issues all day despite the very large numbers (180 people) on the day. They were very approachable, took photos when requested and encouraged teams to push hard. 

 

Clientele: Player base were pretty good, hit taking was pretty good. I dropped my pistol without realising and was picked up straight away and handed back to me. One guy shot me after play was stopped by accident and apologised straight after. 

 

Food: Proper burger van on site by someone who appears to do it for a living. Good choice of hot food, ice pops and cold drinks. Extra points for good selection of sauces including Hot chilli! Not sure about the vegetarian selection as I ended up having meat. Make sure you get in the line before the queue builds up! 

 

Toilets: Were fairly good portacabin type with real loo. 

Rental gear: Though I don't use them, the rental gear looked pretty clean and ordered. Didn't hear any complaints about them. 

 

Attacking spawn points: Marshals themselves were the respawn points for attacking teams, I do like to see this as it keeps the game flowing.

 

Average: 

 

Safe Zone: A large area with plenty of setup space, However not everything was undercover and there was not enough space for the massive amount of numbers that showed up. - After writing the review they have upgraded the Safe zone to include a better roof so would be good to re-visit. 

 

Bad: 

 

Lack of mandatory chrono: The Marshals have a chrono available for people to use, but is entirely voluntary. To their credit they did randomly Chrono some people whilst in the field including myself. However as I have stated in other reviews It takes just one BB to blind someone and checking the FPS after is not going to help. 

 

Shop: Was quite small and the selection was a little uninspiring. 

 

Conclusion:

 

A very very good site. Once we end the SE tour we would definitely consider this as our regular. The site was the most varied we have played (Poor EAG Dorking got this accolade only last week but has been beat out straight away!) Marshaling was fantastic, player base honest (For airsoft). More improvements are being made to the site as we speak in terms of a larger woodland playing area. If they can just keep the maintenance up on the safe zone, spruce up the kill house fencing and improve the shop selection then this would be perfect. 

 

At 180 players, this is the most amount of players on one day I have played with. Usually I prefer much smaller numbers, but to be honest the site was large enough for it to not affect my playing enjoyment much. I would love to come back here when fewer people are playing. (The average I believe is 80-100 players.)

 

So far this was our favourite site to play at. A must visit for any discerning player!

 

Bullpup watch: Not great. Apart from my FAMAS, I only saw one ICS L86 LSW on the field. I did see a Aug HC and a Ares Tavor in the safe zone, but didn't see them get used. 

 

 

[Prisce]

As this is one of my regular sites I know it quite well, and I’ll agree with all of that. Well worth a trip if you have never been.

[ImTriggerHappy]

2 hours ago, Asomodai said:

My battle buddy and I popped along to Airsoft Plantation yesterday. We have heard quite a lot of this site previously. Always meant to have visit it, but personal issues kept preventing us from going. From what reviews I had seen, all seemed broadly positive. 

 

Very varied large sized woodland/scrubland site. Some CQB action. Short, Medium and Long engagement distances. Pretty much flat with very few ups and downs. Not much in the way of water features.  

 

Positives:

 

Playing area variety: The site is split into multiple sections, a decent woodland site which is about 40 odd acres. Pretty natural with lots of undergrowth. CQB Sections, bridges and towers. It's not the biggest but varied enough with felled trees and some more open areas. The creme de la creme of the site is the scrub/grassland section, seemingly in short supply in the SE of the UK. The grassland has very tall grass and hedges which contain a wooden village with suburbs, the scrubland has some good fortifications which is interesting to attack over open land. 

 

Use of Vehicles: FANTASTIC. Made the day. They had a large army style personnel truck and a Double Decker Bus! Unfortunately the bus was out of action by the time my team got the use of it, but it was hilarious seeing the opposing team bumping up and down off road shooting from a double decker bus assaulting the scrubland buildings. 

 

Parking: A good amount of parking is available along a winding entrance. 

 

Marshaling: The Marshalling was excellent throughout. There were no issues all day despite the very large numbers (180 people) on the day. They were very approachable, took photos when requested and encouraged teams to push hard. 

 

Clientele: Player base were pretty good, hit taking was pretty good. I dropped my pistol without realising and was picked up straight away and handed back to me. One guy shot me after play was stopped by accident and apologised straight after. 

 

Food: Proper burger van on site by someone who appears to do it for a living. Good choice of hot food, ice pops and cold drinks. Extra points for good selection of sauces including Hot chili! Not sure about the vegetarian selection as I ended up having meat. Make sure you get in the line before the queue builds up! 

 

Toilets: Were fairly good portacabin type with real loo. 

Rental gear: Though I don't use them, the rental gear looked pretty clean and ordered. Didn't hear any complaints about them. 

 

Attacking spawn points: Marshals themselves were the respawn points for attacking teams, I do like to see this as it keeps the game flowing.

 

Negatives:

 

Lack of mandatory chrono: The Marshals have a chrono available for people to use, but is entirely voluntary. To their credit they did randomly Chrono some people whilst in the field including myself. However as I have stated in other reviews It takes just one BB to blind someone and checking the FPS after is not going to help. 

 

Safe Zone: A large area with plenty of setup space, However not everything was undercover and there was not enough space for the massive amount of numbers that showed up. 

 

Shop: Was quite small and the selection was a little uninspiring. 

 

Conclusion:

 

A very very good site. Once we end the SE tour we would definitely consider this as our regular. The site was the most varied we have played (Poor EAG Dorking got this accolade only last week but has been beat out straight away!) Marshaling was fantastic, player base honest (For airsoft). More improvements are being made to the site as we speak in terms of a larger woodland playing area. If they can just keep the maintenance up on the safe zone, spruce up the kill house fencing and improve the shop selection then this would be perfect. 

 

At 180 players, this is the most amount of players on one day I have played with. Usually I prefer much smaller numbers, but to be honest the site was large enough for it to not affect my playing enjoyment much. I would love to come back here when fewer people are playing. (The average I believe is 80-100 players.)

 

So far this was our favourite site to play at. A must visit for any discerning player!

 

Bullpup watch: Not great. Apart from my FAMAS, I only saw one ICS L86 LSW on the field. I did see a Aug HC and a Ares Tavor in the safe zone, but didn't see them get used. 

 

Was you boys at the mall on the 12th?

[Asomodai]

30 minutes ago, ImTriggerHappy said:

Was you boys at the mall on the 12th?

No mate. 

It's too far for us to get to regularly and we only tend to play sites once and move on to the next. We will be playing at the AFUK Saturday though. 

[ImTriggerHappy]

Just now, Asomodai said:

No mate. 

It's too far for us to get regularly and we only tend to play sites once and move on to the next. We will be playing at the AFUK Saturday though. 

You have a doppleganger then

[Asomodai]

1 minute ago, ImTriggerHappy said:

You have a doppleganger then

 

Another bullpup wanker? Damn.

[Robert James]

Good review, agree with it all. 

 

I'd like to go Tech Brigade as that is literally 10 minutes away from me but I always forget about it.