SE Tour Review: Reforger (Hertfordshire)

[Asomodai]

Site Name: Reforger Airsoft

Contact details: 07470 875891

Website Address: https://www.reforgerairsoft.com/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/reforgerairsoft/

Site Address: Great Westwood Equestrian Park, Old House Lane, Langleybury, Herts, WD4 8RS

 

NOTE: Full transparency, I had been to Reforger before on the Gunman August Bank Holiday weekender. But decided to reserve judgement for a proper skirmish day (The organisation of the weekender leaved much to be desired). 

 

Reforger has been a place I have been meaning to review for a couple of years now, It is quite difficult to get to via public transport but its doable. District Line from Dagenham, transfer to Hammersmith, Euston to Watford Junction and an Uber to the site. just over 2 hour journey time. 

 

Reforger is certainly one of the older sites in existence, part of that odd triumvirate of Airsoft sites outside of Watford which are within a couple of miles of eachother (Red 1 The School, Oblivion and Reforger).  The site was taken over a couple of years ago by the same people who ran the much missed Wasteland in West Drayton. 

 

There is a big old mix of reviews out there, but many are from years ago which might not apply now. 

 

This is a large sized site based within woodland and an old equestrian site. There is plenty of elevation in the form of valleys and dug in tracks, no water features but a few puddles. There are some basic structures a killhouse and smallish village. The vegetation variety was quite wide, low and high cover, grasslands etc. The site can be quite open in certain game modes. Milsims are well served here. Short, Medium and Long engagement distances are in play. My rough count showed around 50-60 people turning up on a cold day (19/01/2020). 

 

Good:

Playing Area: Much like Tech Brigade and Skirmish Billericay, this is a very pure woodland site, with so much elevation and places to hide, in the summer this place is "camoflage" and a snipers paradise. In the winter the odds are evened up a little bit. There is a cut down section of woodland which is fairly unique if not particularly useful for airsoft. Two distinct forests, one with tall and high trees and the other with low down to the ground cover. The open areas have barrels and downed aircraft to hide behind. What buildings are there are of fairly poor quality, though were in use quite often. I would like to see more sniper towers, but the quality of the woodland is really fantastic which makes the building issue forgivable. I would stick my neck out and say this is the best pure woodland playing area in the SE that I have reviewed so far. 

 

Chrono: A mandatory chrono was in play. Guns were marked as to whether they were allowed in or not, though I dont remember anyone checking for the marks when going onto the field. 360 FPS for AEGs, 450 for DMR and 500 for BASR. 

 

Safety/Mission Briefs: Very good. Slightly longer safety brief then most, but really covered everything and people listened. There were no issues with breaking rules during the day that I saw. Mission briefs were simple but effective. It worked for the site. Very little confusion. 

 

Marshaling/staff: The Marshaling was pretty active during the day. CQB areas were watched constantly and non hit takers that were reported were checked out. Very solid and not much more to say then that! The staff back at the safe zone were really friendly. 

 

Turn-around time: Really good. Its a fair distance to walk from the safe zone to the main play area so bring your ammo for the Morning and Afternoon sessions. Once each game is over its back to the central objective and a new mission brief was given. Couldn't be much faster then that. I do like this style of turnaround more these days.  

 

Average: 

 

Hit taking: The large majority of the day the hit taking was pretty good and players were very gracious in defeat. Though two incidents stick in my mind. I remember hitting someone square with a sniper rifle in the arm through a building window. He was clearly hit, yet shrugged it off and continued playing. There was another instance of assaulting a building three of us rounded on one guy, all three of us hit him from different angles and he just ignored it and took all three of us out. Luckily the marshal took him aside and told him he was clearly out.

 

Clientele: In the safe zone everyone was friendly and helped out the new players. Out on the field it was a bit more of a mixed bag, with some moaning, some team work and lots of chat about gear. Seems to attract the more experienced players then most sites. 

 

Food: Food was typical warmed through burgers, £4.50 for a double cheese burger was a tad expensive. There was a selection of food beyond burgers which was nice. There was FREE bottled water available from the marshals truck though which is very very welcome. 

 

Bad: 

 

Value: £30 not including food is very expensive for a Woodland site even of this pedigree. I would like to see maybe a raffle ticket included with the price or bringing it down by £5 to bring it more inline with other sites. 

 

Shop: Gas, bbs and eye pro. Not much else. 

 

Parking: Parking is quite limited, the majority of cars had to be blocked in by other cars which caused a bit of an issue for early leavers getting out of the site. A mix of Gravel and mud track. 

 

Safe Zone(s): The Safe zone was very small, consisting of a couple of open ended rigid tents which were wet inside and open to the elements at either end, the seating and tables were fine if small. If you didn't show up early you were setting up out of the boot of your cars. If there were more people then I imagine setting up out on the grass would have been typical. 

 

Conclusion: 

 

The big selling points of the site is that it is fairly close to London, its a fantastic woodland playing area which you can get lost in and a decent bunch of experienced people running the show. This site really does attract a lot of long range snipers and DMR users. The site lines are long, but there are opportunities to hide. If the site was closer to me and/or cheaper, it would definitely be one of my go to sites if I gave up the reviews. Though from a personal perspective, the travel time, cost and then the cost of the site is too much for me to stomach often (£50). 

 

I would like to see a little less play around the CQB village and more use of the Woodland areas, maybe a multi capture point mission with combat on more then one front. The woodland is its true selling point. 

 

Depending on the landowners permission, expanding the Safe Zone and Parking facilities when wet are really needed (When I played in the summer the field was open to parking). 

 

All in all, I had a great day of long range Airsofting despite typical equipment failures. The woodland quality is really top notch. I would really suggest that people more local could easily make this is a regular site. As it stands I would definitely comeback (In the Spring and Summer) for when I feel the need for range and sneaking about. 

 

Bullpup Watch: 2 L85's, a Famas and my SVU. 

 

NB: I didn't go to the toilet so I couldn't comment on those! If someone can chime in, that would be great!

[clumpyedge]

Toilet is in a small cabin type thing at the start of the drive down to the safezone, never used it but at least it has a roof!

[Asomodai]

On 29/01/2020 at 14:30, clumpyedge said:

Toilet is in a small cabin type thing at the start of the drive down to the safezone, never used it but at least it has a roof!

 

Thanks for that. I had guessed it wasnt particularly great. 

[clumpyedge]

Just to add I know that Luke is working on expanding the parking for the winter but the summer months are park on the field like you did on your visit for the milsim? game. The games aren't usually just around the CQB village but I think they play it based on the player base, the last few times I've been the games have been open multi objective games. Rule of thumb these days for me is that I take my own food so whatever the site has doesn't really phase me and it keeps the cost of a day down to bare minimum, I know that not always possible for some people but heading out the night before to your local Tesco metro or something really does keep the cost of playing down. I personally don't mind paying the £30 for this site as so far I haven't had a bad day there so from that I kind of know what I'm getting for my money and everyone that I have suggested play there absolutely love it. Be good to see the whole site in the summer again as I think you mentioned its very good for sneaking around because of the amount of vegetation.

 

Photo from the last time I played there.... just because

 

 

[Samurai]

IMO it's a great site, but the games are short, breaks are long and many and only a smaller part of the site plays at one time.

It's a nice site with great people but nothing validates the higher than average price.

[clumpyedge]

On 04/02/2020 at 22:49, Samurai said:

IMO it's a great site, but the games are short, breaks are long and many and only a smaller part of the site plays at one time.

It's a nice site with great people but nothing validates the higher than price.

 

When did you last go mate? last few times I've been weve been out all morning with nothing more than 10 mins between games and then at a push we had (not including the walk back to the safezone) 45 mins for lunch.