Se Tour Review: Red 1 Oblivion (Herts)

[Asomodai]

Site Name: Red 1 Oblivion

Contact details: 01727846069

Website Address:  http://www.red1airsoft.co.uk/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/red1jay/

Site Address: Berrybushes Farm Road, Kings Langley, WD4 8RN

 

@Albiscuit and I decided to go check out Red 1 Oblivion (02/08/2020). This site is relatively new, I only heard about it's existence late last year. It appears to be used once a month on a weekend where Red 1 The School isnt in play. I couldn't find any real substantive reviews of the place considering it's so new and host games somewhat irregularly. So we were going in blind with no expectations.

 

If you are an Airsofter in the Watford area, you are incredibly lucky to have three sites within a 15 minute walk of each-other. The triumvirate of Reforger, The School and Oblivion. Unfortunately much like the other two Watford sites, it can be very difficult to get their early enough on public transport from London and you will likely have to take a taxi from Watford station to stand a chance. Luckily @Albiscuit was on hand to negate that for me!

 

Oblivion is a small woodland site set on the edge of the M25 and farmers fields. There is a signpost on Langleybury Lane that will take you on a farmers track and round the edge of the field to a non descript clearing to park your car. 

 

 

The site itself is undulating throughout with very few flat areas, some parts valley (With an unused pit) and some parts hill, but always enclosed with trees. It does remind me somewhat of Dragons Lair in many respects with regards to it's many pallet style buildings. The building types are constructed mostly of the same material used at the Woodland section of The School. So fairly high quality with a black finish. There were plenty of vegetation types at all levels, high cover trees, trees/bushes with leaves to the ground as well as sections of fern. Stinging Nettles and normal nettles are plentiful outside of the cleared sections so be careful of those unprotected legs! 

 

There are two natural pathways leading throughout the majority of the site, branching off. The site is rather narrow, to the point where in many places you can easily see both the motorway and the woodland edge opposite standing in one place. Overall it appears to be the same size as Red 1 Chislehurst give or take a few meters. 

 

Short and Medium engagement distances were in play. There was too many obstructions for truly long range engagement. 

 

Good:

 

Man made buildings: You can tell ALOT of effort has been put into the man made buildings in terms of sheer quantity. There are two sections of interest, the village which has spaced out buildings which is good for a game of less lethal CQB and a very large two part killhouse in the centre of the site built on the only flat part of the site. Not a CQB player myself, but I can tell it was fun for the people who liked getting shot hard! The only thing negative is that there are no buildings with additional floors or substantive sniper towers. 

 

Hit Taking: For 99% of the time the hit taking was excellent. Throughout the day people called their hits in relatively good humour, even the somewhat frustrated ones! 

 

Marshalling: Outstanding. You could almost always find a marshal to talk to. Whether one wearing the iconic Red 1 Sweatshirt or a player marshal. They made sure you were in bounds and followed up on any complaints of hit taking (One of the 1% of non hit takers got a DMR shot straight into his helmet face on. Made a noise, bb bounced off and he kept on going) One word to the marshal and he radioed the closest marshal to speak and watch the player. 

 

Turn Around time: Turn around time for games was pretty rapid. People were encouraged to bring more BB's out with you beforehand so you don't have to back to the safe zone between rounds. 

 

Average:

 

Parking: A track right outside the safe zone with plenty of space for the numbers that turned up. I can see the parking and track leading up to the site getting quite muddy in the winter though. 

 

Game modes: A mixture of mostly simple fallback games and objective based play. It worked reasonably well.

 

Chrono: Was mandatory though nothing was tagged. Standard limits on the Facebook page were 350FPS for AEG, 450FPS for DMR and 500FPS for bolties. They chrono going by BB weight of whatever you have in the mag. 

 

Clientele: A mix, first time rentals, casuals and more serious players. Some approachable and friendly, some quite aloof and stayed away. 

 

Playing Area: Red 1 seem to be experts in getting as much as you can out of a small site and packing it out with man made cover. It is very compact, but with the undulating terrain and amount of cover available both man made and natural it doesn't feel as small as it is. Being right on top of the M25 there is constant road noise, which is a little distracting at times. (Don't wear hearing enhancements!) Despite the cover, I found it hard going staying hidden whilst moving due to the narrowness of the site. There is a nice pit area right outside the safe zone which was not in play. I feel this would be amazing little section to use if they could move the safe zone back away from it. 

 

Value for money: £25 is pretty good for the experience you get and cheaper then Reforger around the corner.

 

Shop: There was an onsite Surplus supply tent on site. It had some interesting American surplus gear, tactical equipment etc. The Sign in tent had some spare mags and consumables on hand. It was fine for a days airsofting. Would have liked to see some RIFS on display for the impulse buyers. 

 

Safe Zone: It was of a reasonable size for the numbers, the setup areas had tarps over the tables for rain cover. Due to the uneven terrain the tables were pretty wonky. No chairs to sit on. There was a range as well. I little work needs to be done in this area I think. 

 

Food: Standard burger, chocolate, crisps and pop. The burger was freshly cooked and only £5 for two with onions. A nice burger. I didn't ask about a vegetarian option and I couldn't see anything else on offer. Best message them ahead of time if you plan on eating there. Free Tea and Coffee throughout the day.

 

Bad:

 

Safety Brief: Short, I felt that some things were a little glossed over and felt it was catered toward experienced players, despite there being very young rental players on the day. I remember there wasn't anything about Grenade kill radius, needed to be prompted about whether gun hits counted. 

 

Late notice/Irregularity: One of the reasons I hadn't visited before now is that the games are announced with very little notice ahead of time on their Facebook page. In this case a Week before the skirmish. If a more regular schedule can be used with the Event pages created that would greatly reduce the confusion. 

 

Uneven teams: It became pretty obvious after the first couple of rounds that the skill level of the players were mismatched. One team had pretty much all the rentals, players in casual clothing and a player marshall. Where the other team had groups of people who knew each other and were in "Multiglam". As a consequence I believe the multiglammers won every round convincingly with the casuals losing heart and drive easily. The teams should have been changed about.

 

Toilets: A trench for 1's and a single portaloo for 2's. The portaloo was clean, though with little water. Need to have a second one for ladies or as use as backup to bring it up to an average rating. 

 

Conclusion: 

 

So comes to the end of the review. I hold my hands up. I had a very poor personal performance at Oblivion. Nothing quite worked out for me! My RIF's weren't quite up to scratch and I was setup for long range and sneaking where the site didn't really lend itself to that style of play. I was quite grumpy up until the last round where I finally got to grips with my issues. 

 

I admit didn't think much of the site initially, but come the end of the day looking back at it, the was pretty good in most aspects! The Playing area is varied for such a small site. The uneven terrain is good for a workout, but due to it's compact size, not exhausting. The organisation of it is very good, hit taking was fine for the most part. The criticisms I have made of the site above are easily rectified and would cost little to no money. 

 

So would I recommend the site? It has a lot of competition from it's sister site Red 1 The School though they are never played on the same weekend. I prefer the layout of the woodland part of the School more then Oblivions, however there is so much more going on at Oblivion in terms of everything else. Oblivion rewards players that are assault based, fit, Communicative, aggressive and push hard. I wouldn't recommend this for sneaky long range players as the road noise is a hindrance for tracking, and the site is too narrow to sneak despite all the cover available.

Alternatively put. If you need to pick between the three Watford sites.

 

Like outdoor CQB? Go to Oblivion.

Like long range? Go to Reforger.

Like a variation throughout the day? The School. 

 

So a good site, which has had some decent investment but with some caveats. Worth a visit. 

 

Bullpup Watch: Shocking. Just one, which was my SVU

 

 

 

[Albiscuit]

As I typically do I agree with all of the above, especially about @Asomodai being grumpy and not playing well   

 

I REALLY enjoyed the day, it gave me the cqb/urban fix I love. I have not run around as much at a game in a long time. I loved running around the village going from house to house and flanking the enemy, popping out of doors and doubling back.

One of the other team even sought me out to tell me everywhere he attacked and looked in the village the only person he remembered was me as I seemed to be everywhere  

 

A couple of small improvements and it would be an awesome site. As said above the quality of the structures is better than 90% of sites I have been too (for man made they were great) with a couple of exceptions. 

They were too short. We were told in the brief to treat the building as them having roofs, so no shooting over or into, or posting grenades over the top which is kind of fair enough. But the village was in a dip so the attacking team could see our heads and knew which buildings we were in before we tried to shoot them.

Also the widows seemed to have been built for 8 year olds. They were really low down.

 

The Red1 rule of pallets counting as a hard structure is in play which personally I do not like, they had built pallet forts and you are only allowed to shoot through doors and windows not the large gaps but this makes it impossible to know if a hit was a direct legitimate shot though a door or a ricochet or a stray BB through a gap. seeing as most other structures were wrapped in a tarp it should not be too hard to fix up the pallets and actually made them hard cover.

 

The kill house was fantastic though. I managed to get in behind the defenders and took out 5 before the knew I was in there and taking my grenade paid off as I actually managed a kill with it  

 

Sides were not evenly matched but our team managed to hold our own against the experienced squad they knew the site and liked to play aggressively. It was nice to play against a group like that actually as it made it more interesting.

 

Hit taking was probably worse than @Asomodai realised, there were plenty of moans and groans and we were only allowed semi only (not a problem for me as its how I play) due to non hit taking according to the marshal. A few times I knew I hit them as I saw it once or twice or I was shooting the doorway as soon as they popped out, as I had set an ambush with them not knowing I was waiting but not enough to ruin the day.

I even got called out by one of their players who claimed he shot me 5 times as I was running to catch one of their players (the same guy who made the comment above about me in the village haha). Now I know I didn't feel a thing, he was fairly close and I had my back to him and was wearing a t-shirt so pretty confident I would have felt at least ONE of the shots. I was so pumped up I argued with him and carried on (a marshal was close but didn't see but agreed I would have felt it and said play on too) normally I wouldn't argue and would tell them they were wrong but I take it anyway but not this time.

 

 

Despite these little things they didnt ruin the day and I had a lot more fun than I normally do at a 'woodland' site and came away really surprised. It was only 50 mins drive from me too and an easy drive so I could see myself going there again.

 

It was also the first time I used my TM GBB MP7 for more than 1 game and boy did I love it. It and I kicked arse and I was running around with a huge grin because of it, shame my hi-cappa is not functioning properly due to issues with the slide. It would have been useful in the village and killhouse.

[Asomodai]

1 hour ago, Albiscuit said:

 

 

Hit taking was probably worse than @Asomodai realised, there were plenty of moans and groans and we were only allowed semi only (not a problem for me as its how I play) due to non hit taking according to the marshal. A few times I knew I hit them as I saw it once or twice or I was shooting the doorway as soon as they popped out, as I had set an ambush with them not knowing I was waiting but not enough to ruin the day.

 

 

 

Probably because I barely hit anything all day!

[Albiscuit]

I wish I could say the same but the enemy were like bb magnets for me, maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much.