SE Tour Review: Bush Valley Airsoft (Kent) (Permanently Closed)

[Asomodai]

Site Name: Bush Valley Airsoft

Contact details: 07521137849

Website Address: N/A

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Arts---Entertainment/Bush-Valley-Airsoft-1497906973621629/

Site Address: Runham Woods, Maidstone ME17 1NQ

 

 

My battle buddy and I popped along to Bush Valley Airsoft on 27/10/18 as part of their grand reopening. The site closed down over a year ago and this was the first time it has opened since. Previous online reviews had been mixed, my battle buddy had been before and hadn't liked it much, but I have seen some positive reviews of the site.

 

Only the Medium sized woodland section of the site was open, the valley section was left out. Either due to the low turn-out, or because it was overgrown. The woodland section is fairly similar all the way through, new growth trees which are pretty dense and difficult to see through, lots of buildings and features. Short to medium engagement distances, no water features and uneven terrain throughout (though not much in the way of true hills). Entrance to the site is easily missed so drive slow and look for an Awning through a gate. 

 

Good:

 

Site Ownership: The site is family owned and run, making it fairly unique in the Airsoft world, they have a commitment to making the site the best it can as they have ultimate control of what goes there with no landlord peering over them. Whilst it is somewhat basic, the ambition is definitely there. 

 

Informal: If you want a laugh, informal game then this is the place for you. It's easy going, no serious players and play was done at a gentlemanly pace for the most part. If you are feeling unfit then this is a good place to go!

 

Food: Good burger place on site. Free breakfast roll and decent burgers and chips. Good prices too. 

 

Good times: Sometimes you have a great time without being able to put a finger why that was the case. On this occasion myself and my battlebuddy, although fighting colds and arthritis we both had a fantastic time. Being able to relax whilst playing, the overall friendliness of the staff, and low numbers meant that whatever we did meant that we made a noticeable difference to the progress our side made in battle. 

 

Marshalling: Generally positive. There were more marshalls per person then in any site I have been to. Some of them seemed a little rusty or inexperienced (Confusion with some battle rules and spawn points in early games), but they were very friendly and approachable and made sure you had a good time! When it became obvious one of the teams were being out-classed they stuck some more experienced people on that side. The Marshals had common sense which is unfortunately lacking at many sites. Complaints were listened to and acted upon. 

 

Clientele: Everyone was friendly, seemed like there were a fair few returning regulars which was surprising considering the long lay-off from the last skirmish. There were fist bumps, no mega serious players and everyone appreciated someone who was willing to go for a suicide run to force play along

 

Average: 

 

Chrono: A mandatory chrono was in affect, DMR limits are low at 400 FPS. 

 

Safe Zone: Though it was rather small and a little run down after not being used for sometime, it had more room then was used, cover for all the benches, bins and a roaring fire. It was right next to the car park as well. 

 

Shop: Platoon stores ran the shop, they were great people who were quite knowledgeable, the selection was somewhat limited to common platforms. Though they had a good selection of what platforms they supported. RIFS and pistols were available. They also run the shop at Cool Under Fire which was slightly larger. 

 

Bad: 

 

Parking: Parking was very limited even with just 30 odd players turning up. If they want to expand, more capacity will have to be found somewhere. 

 

Game modes: Felt that more game modes would have been appreciated, had standard infection and capture the flag, but the rest were just fighting to kill all the other team in a random spot. Needs more work and organisation. 

 

Toilets: Two portacabins close to the battlezone. Not the best. 

 

Limited sniping opportunities: If the woodlands are the only area in use, bolt action snipers will have a hard time. The amount of new growth trees means that is hard to play long distance without hitting foliage. DMR would be the better choice. There is only one true natural path through the woodlands. 

 

Conclusion: 

 

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Bush Valley. We paid an introductory price of £15 as it was the first skirmish in over a year so it was good value. There are a few niggles they need to work out with the organisation of the day and they need to reopen the "valley" part of the site. It is heartening that a family run venture like this exists in Airsoft and as such the site has BAGS of potential. If they can work hard at upgrading the parking facilities and safe zone to allow more numbers then the skies the limit. 

 

I had quite possibly the best personal performance playing airsoft here. 

 

If you are looking for an informal atmosphere with sensible people, I do recommend giving the site a try. 

 

Bullpup Watch: Terrible, only one and it was my AUG! 

 

[Robert James]

Nice review. I'll wait to see if they open up other bits before heading down.

 

In terms of next month, I'm waiting on @Dan2493 to give a date for that place in the zoo

[Asomodai]

54 minutes ago, Robert James said:

Nice review. I'll wait to see if they open up other bits before heading down.

 

In terms of next month, I'm waiting on @Dan2493 to give a date for that place in the zoo

 

Its definitely on our list that one! They need to confirm the FPS though! 

[Robert James]

16 hours ago, Asomodai said:

 

Its definitely on our list that one! They need to confirm the FPS though! 

Im talking with them over FB. I'll ask them to confirm the FPS once I get the date and I can PM you if you wish? 

[Asomodai]

24 minutes ago, Robert James said:

Im talking with them over FB. I'll ask them to confirm the FPS once I get the date and I can PM you if you wish? 

Sounds good. I'm hoping for mid November and a 450fps DMR limit 🙂

[Robert James]

14 minutes ago, Asomodai said:

Sounds good. I'm hoping for mid November and a 450fps DMR limit 🙂

2nd of December is what they have just told me

[Platoon Leader]

Thanks for mentioning Platoon Stores in your review, as you know we cover several Kent sites and on this occasion we was pretty light on product for several reasons, but that will be rectified next time.

As you know we have an extensive product range here in the main shop,  which we will happily bring along or deliver web orders to site for free. 

Hopefully we will see you here in the shop or at another site soon.

Platoon Stores, Rochester.

 

 

 

[Asomodai]

8 minutes ago, Platoon Leader said:

Thanks for mentioning Platoon Stores in your review, as you know we cover several Kent sites and on this occasion we was pretty light on product for several reasons, but that will be rectified next time.

As you know we have an extensive product range here in the main shop,  which we will happily bring along or deliver web orders to site for free. 

Hopefully we will see you here in the shop or at another site soon.

Platoon Stores, Rochester.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for replying! 

 

As I mentioned in the review, I will be re-evaluating the shops in all my reviews as my standard was abnormally high. The first few reviews I did had abnormally large shops and figured it was the norm. 

 

We did see you guys at Cool Under Fire and bought the MP5's last Sunday and gave the shop a positive review despite being the same size as the one at bush. I will be going back over the reviews soon to revaluate shops. 

 

Cheers

[Platoon Leader]

Sometimes the shop comes down to the size of the van  and how many players we are expecting 

 

Our shop at InvictaBattlefield is generally a lot bigger than CUFs, but sometimes in the summer we will double the size if we are expecting a lot of players. 

 

I remember you and the MP5s - great little guns I hope you did get some kills that afternoon.

 

 

[Asomodai]

37 minutes ago, Platoon Leader said:

Sometimes the shop comes down to the size of the van  and how many players we are expecting 

 

Our shop at InvictaBattlefield is generally a lot bigger than CUFs, but sometimes in the summer we will double the size if we are expecting a lot of players. 

 

I remember you and the MP5s - great little guns I hope you did get some kills that afternoon.

 

 

We only tested them. My mate will be running his this Sunday at Battle Paintball in East Sussex, switched over to deans. Though we were really surprised on the responsiveness and ROF on even just 8.4vNimH that it came with. 

 

Mine was the SD version, managed to find the rare adapter so I can use a CW Tracer unit instead. Just need to work out what I am going to do for a rail system, mod the handguard as it is or buy the really expensive/ugly ICS SD Handguard. 

[Platoon Leader]

6 minutes ago, Asomodai said:

We only tested them. My mate will be running his this Sunday at Battle Paintball in East Sussex, switched over to deans. Though we were really surprised on the responsiveness and ROF on even just 8.4vNimH that it came with. 

 

Mine was the SD version, managed to find the rare adapter so I can use a CW Tracer unit instead. Just need to work out what I am going to do for a rail system, mod the handguard as it is or buy the really expensive/ugly ICS SD Handguard. 

 

It should be herecy to add things to an MP5SD mate , they are beautiful without accessories.

 

Hope you have fun.

 

[Asomodai]

1 hour ago, Platoon Leader said:

 

It should be herecy to add things to an MP5SD mate , they are beautiful without accessories.

 

Hope you have fun.

 

Certainly are! At least i'll have the option to go play in the dark with the tracer. Its nice to have something lightweight for a change!

[Asomodai]

I have added some more details to this review as well as getting rid of the Positive/Negative designation and replacing it with Good, Average and Bad. 

[Tackle]

NECRO BUMP:

Thought I'd add a little bit more info to Asomodai's always excellent review, following my last visit.

So I'd previously played Bush Valley about 2 years ago, at that time my understanding was that it was a family owned site, with the gamedays jointly run by said family & a guy called Tim Brown, & to be honest it was ok, not great, just ok, bit of cheating, bit of walt-ing, Marshall's travelling in groups lol, nothing inspiring about the day, & I think I left at the end of day doubting I'd return.

Apparently shortly after my visit there was some kind of disagreement between the organiser/owners, & the site stopped hosting games for at least a year.

 

Fast forward to about 6 months ago & for whatever reason (?) Bush Valley was back on my radar, having reopened under new "management", which intrigued me slightly as apparently the guys running things were none other than SEO Airsoft (South East Operators🤔), & my only knowledge of these guys was involving a game they were behind, during which a tag round had been used against a vehicle, causing some small fire damage, as well as during the briefing, when knife kills were mentioned, players without rubber knives were given the ok to use CLOSED lock knives etc 🤪.

Needless to say when this stuff got in to the public domain it went viral, not helped by Chinese whispers etc.

 

Gameday was on a Saturday, & coincided with me needing to collect something from a village close by, so win win/two birds & all that 😁.

Arriving on site I found everything pretty much unchanged from my previous visit, player numbers were about 30ish, considerably lower than my previous visit.

Terry Little, the guy running it made sure the timings for the day were well known, & kept to them with a concise bullshit free briefing, & quickly moved everyone to the playing areas following the mandatory chrono check.

Games themselves were reasonably simple scenarios, some props were involved to make players work for a win, & I found the Marshall's to have a fairly laid back hands off approach, which worked well on the day, probably helped by the fact that everybody seemed to be taking their hits, & in general I witnessed no cheating or gamesmanship, which made a nice change after some of the sites I've played.

Terry & his guys were quick to keep things moving between games, reminding everyone to keep on top of hydration, & also ammo needs if they were planning to keep us out there longer for turnaround games, which has been another bugbear of mine, when half the players usually ending traipsing back to safezones to rearm, having not been forewarned & holding up Gameplay for everybody else, +1 for SEO, sometimes the little points can make a big difference.

I should say as well that during the safety briefing it was announced that the site is SINGLE SHOT ONLY, the only exception being support guns, for me this was a real breath of fresh air, no twats hosing the shit out of everything, admittedly there's nothing to stop players spamming triggers, but again I didn't witness anything excessive .

 

During the breaks, & at lunchtime (burger AND CHIPS included in the green fee), I took the opportunity to touch base with Terry, regarding SEO's involvement & potential for the sites future.

He explained that SEO were essentially a team of players themselves, whose usual focus was for milsim style games, & had agreed to work with the site owners to improve the site, both physically & it's airsoft community profile, & hopefully rebuild it's client base.

Point of note is that he explained the team are only taking a small "wage" from gamedays, aiming for quality over quantity, something the site owners are in agreement to, to this end Terry's team have also set aside their own time for site improvement, everything from bush cutting paths to building up features on site, with the owner agreeing to fund material costs.

 

All in all I had a good day, not much I could fault, the site was a bit overgrown in places, but they're working on that, amongst other things, best way I could describe it is a site "Reborn", it didn't get the tlc it deserved the first time around, but they're slowly trying to remedy that, they jointly have bigger plans, but with materials etc being at a premium these days, quite literally "Rome won't be built in a day"

All I can say is give the site a try, gamedays & more specialist games are listed on their Facebook pages (Aaarrgghh😡), the sites a bit rough & ready but it's a worj in progress & the guys there are keen to give a good days 'softing  👍

 

PS.in the original review it mentioned a lack of parking, they actually have an overfow car park across the road, which they use once the on-site parking is full 

 

PPSS. I had to ask Terry about the whole "real knife kill" debacle that had given them some notorious publicity, he was mortally embarrassed, explaining that it was an "off the cuff" comment, meant to placate a couple of players that felt they were at a disadvantage not having rubber knives, & while there were no incidents, he should have foreseen the resulting social media shitstorm, something he won't be repeating 😂

[clumpyedge]

5 hours ago, Tackle said:

NECRO BUMP:

Thought I'd add a little bit more info to Asomodai's always excellent review, following my last visit.

So I'd previously played Bush Valley about 2 years ago, at that time my understanding was that it was a family owned site, with the gamedays jointly run by said family & a guy called Tim Brown, & to be honest it was ok, not great, just ok, bit of cheating, bit of walt-ing, Marshall's travelling in groups lol, nothing inspiring about the day, & I think I left at the end of day doubting I'd return.

Apparently shortly after my visit there was some kind of disagreement between the organiser/owners, & the site stopped hosting games for at least a year.

 

Fast forward to about 6 months ago & for whatever reason (?) Bush Valley was back on my radar, having reopened under new "management", which intrigued me slightly as apparently the guys running things were none other than SEO Airsoft (South East Operators🤔), & my only knowledge of these guys was involving a game they were behind, during which a tag round had been used against a vehicle, causing some small fire damage, as well as during the briefing, when knife kills were mentioned, players without rubber knives were given the ok to use CLOSED lock knives etc 🤪.

Needless to say when this stuff got in to the public domain it went viral, not helped by Chinese whispers etc.

 

Gameday was on a Saturday, & coincided with me needing to collect something from a village close by, so win win/two birds & all that 😁.

Arriving on site I found everything pretty much unchanged from my previous visit, player numbers were about 30ish, considerably lower than my previous visit.

Terry Little, the guy running it made sure the timings for the day were well known, & kept to them with a concise bullshit free briefing, & quickly moved everyone to the playing areas following the mandatory chrono check.

Games themselves were reasonably simple scenarios, some props were involved to make players work for a win, & I found the Marshall's to have a fairly laid back hands off approach, which worked well on the day, probably helped by the fact that everybody seemed to be taking their hits, & in general I witnessed no cheating or gamesmanship, which made a nice change after some of the sites I've played.

Terry & his guys were quick to keep things moving between games, reminding everyone to keep on top of hydration, & also ammo needs if they were planning to keep us out there longer for turnaround games, which has been another bugbear of mine, when half the players usually ending traipsing back to safezones to rearm, having not been forewarned & holding up Gameplay for everybody else, +1 for SEO, sometimes the little points can make a big difference.

I should say as well that during the safety briefing it was announced that the site is SINGLE SHOT ONLY, the only exception being support guns, for me this was a real breath of fresh air, no twats hosing the shit out of everything, admittedly there's nothing to stop players spamming triggers, but again I didn't witness anything excessive .

 

During the breaks, & at lunchtime (burger AND CHIPS included in the green fee), I took the opportunity to touch base with Terry, regarding SEO's involvement & potential for the sites future.

He explained that SEO were essentially a team of players themselves, whose usual focus was for milsim style games, & had agreed to work with the site owners to improve the site, both physically & it's airsoft community profile, & hopefully rebuild it's client base.

Point of note is that he explained the team are only taking a small "wage" from gamedays, aiming for quality over quantity, something the site owners are in agreement to, to this end Terry's team have also set aside their own time for site improvement, everything from bush cutting paths to building up features on site, with the owner agreeing to fund material costs.

 

All in all I had a good day, not much I could fault, the site was a bit overgrown in places, but they're working on that, amongst other things, best way I could describe it is a site "Reborn", it didn't get the tlc it deserved the first time around, but they're slowly trying to remedy that, they jointly have bigger plans, but with materials etc being at a premium these days, quite literally "Rome won't be built in a day"

All I can say is give the site a try, gamedays & more specialist games are listed on their Facebook pages (Aaarrgghh😡), the sites a bit rough & ready but it's a worj in progress & the guys there are keen to give a good days 'softing  👍

 

PS.in the original review it mentioned a lack of parking, they actually have an overfow car park across the road, which they use once the on-site parking is full 

 

PPSS. I had to ask Terry about the whole "real knife kill" debacle that had given them some notorious publicity, he was mortally embarrassed, explaining that it was an "off the cuff" comment, meant to placate a couple of players that felt they were at a disadvantage not having rubber knives, & while there were no incidents, he should have foreseen the resulting social media shitstorm, something he won't be repeating 😂

 

I had intended on going to this game but ended up very very hungover instead. Glad it was a good day though!

[Albiscuit]

Interesting, might give it a try at some point next year