What Was the Best Site ( or Sites ) You Have Ever Played on That No Longer Exist and What Made it/Them SO Special?

[Groot]

Hi

I was chatting about the hay days of airsoft, when there seemed to be a lot more sites available to use for airsoft. 
Most have gone the ways of housing estates, which appears to be the grave for most fun locations. 

So for me. If anyone gives a fuck.

 

Crickhowell - By Stirling Airsoft. https://www.beacons-npa.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/Enclosure-7-Cwrt-y-Gollen-Draft-Development-Brief-12th-may1.pdf

This was our regular monthly site and quite frankly has never been beaten. 

Old Welsh Guard base. Lots of proper mixed use buildings with multiple entry points, varied size rooms, court yards, stair cases. Surrounded by forest and fields. 

You never ever got a point that you couldn't flank with enough effort and the buildings were just so amazing to fight through.. It brings a tear to my eye that it got shut down to be made into housing. We had access for a good few years and back then the games were run as short story-lined games. Designed with an heavy element of role play but not much more than to give you reason to fight over an objective. 
The games were always fast, hard and well run. The level of game play was always high and with better class of player than you tend to see today.
I think of all the games there, we only ever had a couple of bad eggs and a idiot Liverpudlian, who decided to blow their hand up by throwing back a lit pyro. 

 

Light Fighter Sheffield 

 

Next Site that I only ever played on once, was way tup north. At an old factory complex, run joint by Light Fighter Airsoft and Stirling Airsoft.
It was huge, varied and just incredible to play at.
Much the same reason why Crickhowell was so good. Lots of proper buildings, lots of flanking and varied terrain mean you could move tactically and could fight into an area with enough determination, without it being unacceptable because it was a kill box.

 

The Mall - Reading ( earlier days ) 

Visited this site a bunch of times. Nice and local. Lots of fun and really just worked well as an airsoft site. 
I went here probably 6-7 times over its lifespan and it is a real shame it is now gone. 
Really novel place to fight, lots of fun routes in and around the shops. Great little sneak routes, where light discipline was essential. 
Not sure what happened but it got spoiled by some cheating fuck nuggets.

So after one event myself and the rest of the team just packed up and went home, it was just shitty. 
I went back about 3-4 months later and was mostly filled with filthy casuals, who were there for the yucks and not the game play. 
Didn't bother again after that. 

So yeah, that filled 15 mins of my quiet afternoon, while I let a vendor talk to my partners about something really not that interesting to most of you

 

What are your favourite now gone locations and do any of you share the same memories of these sites?

Cheers
 

Groot
 

[Shamal]

Combat South wickham.

Big site with plenty of walking but also plenty of props. Dense wooded areas and also open clearings.Good mix of terrain. 

Will miss the lunches though ☹

Plus it was only twenty mins away.

Sadly missed 😢

Regards 

[alxndrhll]

Many of my fondest airsofting memories are from Urban Assault (RAF Upwood). Certainly helped by the fact is was fairly local to me but it had a superb mix of CQB and more open outdoor spaces, and this was helped by general good use of the site as a whole during games.

 

I think the latter was the ‘special sauce’ for me. There are sites that are a somewhat similar layout (Anzio Camp being an example that I’ve been to relatively recently), but I often feel the buildings are a bit overused throughout the day. Insisting they are used by having objectives in them, or points to defend rather than allowing the site as a whole to breathe a bit and allow players to use different parts of it.

 

The site definitely gradually go worse as more of it fell into disrepair, but it’s certainly the site that got me hooked. I believe it only closed it’s doors relatively recently but I hadn’t been in years.

 

Though they likely wouldn’t remember me at all, Frank (owner of Firesupport?) and Ian (I believe the ‘head marshall’ through most of my time attending, but I could be wrong) were both always willing to help when I was a young ‘un initially getting into the game. The more I think about, the more influential that site was on my continued interest in airsoft on the whole.

[John_W]

+1 On Lightfighter Sheffield. Brilliant site and quite spooky in places. The old medical centre in the dark reminded me of playing Doom 3.

[PopRocket123]

36 minutes ago, Shamal said:

Combat South wickham.

Big site with plenty of walking but also plenty of props. Dense wooded areas and also open clearings.Good mix of terrain. 

Will miss the lunches though ☹

Plus it was only twenty mins away.

Sadly missed 😢

Regards 

Combat South was my first site I played at and my favourite. Such a shame to see it go. I just wish I could have gotten a few more games there before it shut. At least they're going to be finding a new site with all the same props at some point. 

[Groot]

Combat South is my local site and one i have visited the most over the years. 

Great site, great bunch of people run it and very much missed by everyone in the South.

I tend to judge every site now by Combat South, as the standard they need to live up to. 

Russ is working hard to find a new site. CSW will be back ( sorta ) 

 

[Zodgrod]

I played at the mall once or twice a month for years, I miss that site. Evening games and private hires were very good there.

[heroshark]

I remember Light fighter . Swat fortress was good . Depot Glasgow. Stan Sheffield while optac had it.  Tac house Chesterfield. Years ago in a little village local to meet is we used an old RAF building with accomodation kitchens, function room. Was used for fire training they ended up running it as a site themselves and also did games on the airfield. Was used as an off-road track and had the control tower in use too. Also used to use another derilict RAF building out in the sticks there's quite a few this way. Camp Sparta is one currently in operation which is good. So many good sites been and gone.

[EvilMonkee]

The Mall and Urban Assault.  Urban Assault was just the perfect mix of buildings and open areas.  Only thing that let it down was the crap marshalling.  And the Mall, well if you need telling why the Mall was awesome then you aren't an airsofter

[dannyeprice23]

Shock & Awe in north wales near Abergele. It’s been deforested now. Mega shame. Some damn good days there.! 

[clumpyedge]

The Billet (Ambush Adventures run by Charlie James - nice little CQB site made up of joined up barracks (hence the name the billet) and was superbly run, even with Charlies safety briefs)

The Depot (Ambush Adventures run by Charlie James - was just an amazing site and had plenty of space so people didn't bunch up on stairwells)

The Sandpit (UCAP, was the best site down south non-MOD Stirling did a few games there with ribs for insertions across the lake)

[rj1986]

Phoenix collage with BadgerTac in Beaconsfield.

 

Huge outdoor spaces with lots of small, medium and big buildings - lots on entry points and choke points. And the guys there knew how to use the space and run a game day

[Archer]

Sopley - well before a certain retailer/forum took over.

[Guest DrAlexanderTobacco]

UCAP Sandpit.

 

It was a huge, vast ex-quarry site with a massive lake in the middle. Elevation changes of around 50m, with a FIBUA style building section on one side, cliff on the other. Areas with thick vegetation, areas with nothing at all... One of the most varied sites I've played at and I miss it deeply.

 

 

[Cannonfodder]

I found Blitz CQB in Whitechapel was always a good laugh. I only played there a handful of times though, had it been my regular site it may have got a little repetitive due to the small size of the place

[Albiscuit]

My two pence on some mentioned:

I played Upwood once and it was great fun, it closed before I could return. That was a great site.

We were planning on going to the sandpit then heard it closed, I regret never getting to play there

Blitz in whitechapel, well I had forgotten about that. Had a bittersweet experience, the site was lovely just had a few too many players and the limited space meant every game despite the objectives were pretty similar but was fun. Would have been cool to try some private games there but again it closed shortly after we found out about it.

 

The Mall would HAVE to be the most missed site for me. I started playing airsoft there and loved it from day one. Yes there were days with issues with some idiots, but you get that at most sites. I never understood the bad reputation the mall had though. I played sundays, weekdays, special weekend games, private games, closed games you name it and still didnt see why it had this aura of being this magnet for cheats, 45 min brief etc. So many unfounded reviews and rumours about the place it was unreal it became a running joke with regulars and marshals.

I have had so many cool moments and seen some crazy things there I was gutted to hear it closed and even more gutted I was unable to play a game in its final days as they all sold out really quickly.

[Guest DrAlexanderTobacco]

1 hour ago, Albiscuit said:

I played sundays, weekdays, special weekend games, private games, closed games you name it and still didnt see why it had this aura of being this magnet for cheats, 45 min brief etc.

Never had a problem with cheats but man oh man, every briefing I sat through there was massively bloated. It's a huge site and def needs a thorough safety brief but sometimes it felt like I was sitting through a marshall's stand-up routine. The same jokes every time, the same cringey, long callouts of people talking during the brief etc.

 

 

[Impulse]

When I did airsoft in Spain about 12 years ago, there was no such thing as an official site (at least not on the Costa del Sol). It was just a bunch of people who showed up to an area and played BB wars, as there were LOADS of abandoned urbanisations on the Costa del Sol, because they built them all without planning permission as holiday homes and stuff, but then had to stop when the authorities realised it was an illegal construction. Nobody was about to pay to demolish them, so they turned into our unofficial airsoft sites. There were a few "events" as such, I remember going to one up in the mountains near Monda and Ojen, but they were few and far between. Like, once a year or something.

 

That said, there was a small urbanisation we played on near Mijas, but I believe it was demolished after someone slipped and fell down the stairs, cracking their head open and had to be rushed to hospital. That was the main "site" we all went to (even if I thought the one in Estepona was way better!). Have a lot of good memories from there, it was like half woodland, half urban and it was really cool. There were some dark corridors on the lower levels, multi-level firefights and even a really dark and a cramped tunnel that nobody ever used (because it was really hard to actually move in) apart from about 5 of us which could take you behind the enemy lines.

 

Here are some low resolution photos I've dug up (hey, 1024x768 was the 1080p of 2008!)

 

[Jacket]

Airsoft Adventures at Greenham Common back in the day

 

 

Excuse the paintball video, couldn’t find anything airsoft

[Shamal]

31 minutes ago, Jacket said:

Airsoft Adventures at Greenham Common back in the day

 

 

Excuse the paintball video, couldn’t find anything airsoft

WTF!! I was just settling down to watch 'Airsoft Adventures' when bam! A bunch of yobs wiv Dulux decorating guns...Good job I had slurped last of me tea otherwise it would have been in me lap!

You are excused though young @Jacket

try not to do it again....😎🤭

Regards 

7 hours ago, DrAlexanderTobacco said:

Never had a problem with cheats but man oh man, every briefing I sat through there was massively bloated. It's a huge site and def needs a thorough safety brief but sometimes it felt like I was sitting through a marshall's stand-up routine. The same jokes every time, the same cringey, long callouts of people talking during the brief etc.

 

 

Haha. Pretty much the norm at most sites. My favourite boredom buster is to target Marshall's balls with red dot. Always gets a laugh....🤭

Regards 

[Jaylordofwaargh]

Another shout out to Combat South Woodland. Reasons are simple enough: great marshal team - banter with no shits taken or given (unless it impacted on the game), lunch - those who know, know, games & terrain - they knew what they had and how to use it. 

 

@Shamal and @Groot have you tried Ambush activities yet? I made it down early October (felt like a CS reunion day with most blues being CS regs), sure there were a few reds being outranged and crying. However overall it was a good solid day out. I keep meaning to write it up for here.....it still might happen....

[Shamal]

57 minutes ago, Jaylordofwaargh said:

 

 

@Shamal and @Groot have you tried Ambush activities yet? 

Hi@Jaylordofwaargh

No I've not been yet. Its botley near Southampton isn't it?

Deffo on cards when this damn covid war is over. Is it your local?

Regards 

[Jaylordofwaargh]

On 14/11/2020 at 18:48, Shamal said:

Is it your local?

I am London based (but yet to actually play in this neck of the woods), my brothers that got me into airsoft live down that way and it is now their local site. I plan on getting to Tactical Warare Croyden when we can play again.  I have stuck a rambling review up, but the short version is go and give it a go, i liked it.

[Groot]

On 14/11/2020 at 17:46, Jaylordofwaargh said:

Another shout out to Combat South Woodland. Reasons are simple enough: great marshal team - banter with no shits taken or given (unless it impacted on the game), lunch - those who know, know, games & terrain - they knew what they had and how to use it. 

 

@Shamal and @Groot have you tried Ambush activities yet? I made it down early October (felt like a CS reunion day with most blues being CS regs), sure there were a few reds being outranged and crying. However overall it was a good solid day out. I keep meaning to write it up for here.....it still might happen....

Thank you sir, I have added to my post lock down list.

At the moment all i have on it is the FilmSim Coldwar game at Gunman in Jan.

[Speedbird_666]

On 10/11/2020 at 15:00, Archer said:

Sopley - well before a certain retailer/forum took over.

 

Yeh - I miss that site, it was only 7min drive from my front door.

 

I only ever played it when under GZ management though - but I had many good times there.