Op-tac the Kingdom 27th June

[Jacob Wright]

Myself and some of the team recently attended Op-Tacs ‘The Kingdom’ rural site in Cheadle. I thought I’d write up a review as I’ve never really heard of it before, and only came to know of the site via their Instagram page.

 

The Kingdom is one of two sites used by Op-Tac, and is advertised as the Midlands “largest Airsoft venue” with 200 acres of skirmishable woodland, interspersed with tracks, paths, (lots of) hills and plenty of trees. The site is an old Quarry, actually known as ‘Huntley Wood’ and used an activity centre and venue for other outdoor events. On-site camping is advertised but be warned, this is only for their full weekend events. I’ll touch on this at the end.

 

Green fees are £35 for non-members, with a £10 deposit payable in advance. An extra £5 will get you lunch and there is a very limited on-site shop, more on this later. Chrono limits are fairly standard, 350fps for AEG/HPA/GBB, 450fps for a DMR and 500fps for a bolt action rifle. You are asked to chrono with a 0.2g BB, and a point to note is that this is a biodegradable BB only site. There weren’t any toilets as theirs have gone missing, but Rob (Head Marshal) explained they will be back in place for the next game day.

 

On our arrival there was a marshal at the gate who directed us to the car park. We were on site at 0800, along with about 10-15 other cars. There is currently no safe zone in use so everybody is asked to set up from their cars which was not an issue as it was a nice day. Registration took a little while due to having to walk to the opposite end of the car park to get a signal on their card machine. All 4 of us took up the £5 lunch option which was a chicken and stuffing roll and a drink. 

 

There is no escaping the fact that we waited about 2 hours for the safety brief, with chrono opened about 45 minutes before that. It was a long time of standing about just waiting, and eventually we were called to gather for the safety brief. This was another half an hour, probably one of the more in depth briefings I’ve had at a skirmish as it included reading out parts of the risk assessment and control measures. This isn’t a dig at them for doing so, at the end of the day it does make people aware of the risks involved.

 

Once the briefing finished a scenario was explained and we were split into our two teams. Bands vs Non-bands, one half as a NATO SF unit and the other as a Russian SF unit. Initially we ‘Russians’ would be defending a hostage and falling back through two village areas and then to the hilltop fort. Fairly straightforward, defenders could be re-gened by a medic after their first hit and would then have to go to a fixed regen point after the following two. They would then have to wait in the next fall back area. Attackers had unlimited lives.

 

As newbies to the site we followed the advice of some regular players and set ourselves up on a ridge line inside the trees. As the attackers advanced we were able to hold them off quite easily, as although they would pick a few of us off they never managed to completely push through our position. In the end the Marshals made the decision to ‘JDAM’ all of us defenders and make us move to the next fallback positions so that the attackers could finally advance!

 

The ‘villages’ consisted of fairly standard airsoft barricades made of wooden crates, pallets and scrim netting. The hilltop fort was made up of 2 Hesco bunkers and a large number of mounds which offered good fire positions. Either side of the fort were steep drops down to valleys completely filled with trees and very loose ground. As defenders we became aware of a sniper team who had almost completely flanked around us, so we dispatched them by rolling grenades down the slopes; very effective.

 

Once the hill was captured we broke for lunch. We didn’t feel that the roll and bottle of water were quite worth the £5, but there were enough for everybody to have two each so this softened it a little bit. I also took this opportunity to check out the on-site shop. It did seem a bit pricey with a bag of 3300 0.28 BB’s being £19.99 and TAG AFG-6 grenades at £12.95 each so I was glad we’d brought our own. 

 

After lunch it was a simple reversal of the game before. We attacked and pretty swiftly rolled through the enemy positions. They held us up at points but we were able to keep up the momentum well and people operated well as a team. Throughout the entire day I can think of only one time when I heard somebody complain about hit-taking, with lots of calls of ‘good shot’ or ‘well played’.

 

Our little team decided to carry out an extreme flank of the hilltop fort, which meant we advanced on it through thick trees, ferns and up some of the steepest hills I’ve come across in Airsoft. As we moved on the fort two of us had to physically crawl up a slope to engage the defenders with pistols and grenades, which was absolute great fun and I only wish I’d been able to record it.

 

When this game was over it was about 3, most people were absolutely knackered and decided to call it a day, but about 15 of us remained to play a quick ‘infection’ type game which lasted about 20 minutes but was good fun.

 

All in all, as a team we agreed that we had a really enjoyable day. Sportsmanship was second to none, with only one incident of grumbling which we heard. There was a lot of full-auto fire but its a big open rural site with lots of natural cover so wasn’t an issue. We would really like to visit again for one of their Milsim weekenders and see how the gameplay differs when more of the site is used as we only saw a fraction of it. The area we used was big enough for the amount of players present, with plenty of different sections to fight through so the entire team didn’t get stuck in one place. 

 

On the camping, we had attempted to contact Op-Tac by Instagram, email and then phone to see if we could stay on the Saturday night to avoid a 2 and a half hour drive on the Sunday morning. We didn’t hear anything from them but as it was advertised we decided to bite the bullet and turn up on the Saturday night anyway. We were met with a locked gate, and following an series of phone calls ended up staying at a local campsite (Hales Hall) which at £20 a car and having really good facilities we couldn’t complain about. After speaking with Rob the next day he explained that camping is only available at their weekend events, and their website will be amended as necessary.

 

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this site to anyone, just be warned that the hills are steep and I was shattered the next day! Fighting light is key!