SE Tour Review: Apocalypse Paintball and Airsoft (Cambridgeshire)

[Asomodai]

Site Name: Apocalypse Paintball and Airsoft

Contact details: 01763 244855

Website Address: Apocalypse Paintball

Facebook Page: Apocalypse Airsoft & Paintball | Facebook

Site Address: Old N Rd, Royston SG8 5JS

 

Desperate for a Bank Holiday Monday game and Driver Wood being a little too far for @Albiscuit we decided to go give Apocalypse Paintball and Airsoft a visit. This used to be run by RIFT Airsoft and was better known as "The Village". Not much has been written about the site since Apocalypse took back control to run the airsoft side themselves, so we were going in pretty much blind. 

 

Apocalypse Airsoft is a very small Woodland site located south of Cambridge. It is rectangular shape with a small tail where the Safe Zone and Playing Area entrance is. There is a Tower/Church Area, Village, Fort and Tyre section. All can be seen from the centre of the site. There are many buildings, only the Fort and Tower have an extra story. Only the tower has a roof. There are lots of very tall trees and lots of extra low foliage along with barricades to help create cover. The site is very flat with no real elevation. Short/Medium/Long engagement distances are in play. 

 

There were around 30+ players on the day. This site requires* the use of Bio BB's. No bangs are allowed as the site next to a Psychiatric hospital. Smoke only. 

 

Good:

 

Chrono: A mandatory chrono was in affect and result was noted against your registered name though no guns were marked.  AEG FPS limits are a 350FPS. DMR is 450 and Bolt actions are 500. Green Gas blowback pistols are not chronoed in the Winter. 

 

Safe Zone: Is a fairly small safe zone which can cater for about 50-60 players. Picnic benches that were all under cover. The Shop and confectionary stands were all inside. It was a pretty nice safe zone. Protected from the elements. Toilets were just by the entrance. 

 

Parking: A gravel track running up to the safe zone. So no long walks. 

 

Average: 

 

Clientele: The Vast majority of the clientele were experienced Airsofters. Very few rentals. Everyone appeared to be over 18 and well into their 30's. The people we spoke to were quite friendly but kept to themselves within the safe zone. People did talk to each other during the gameplay though. 

 

Game modes: We only played two game modes before going home. The first one was a small push back and flag waving game onto the Tower from the Village. Second was a more elaborate and interesting game trying to get ammo crates and box to a fort. 

 

Toilets: Two Portaloo's, they were in OK condition. 

 

Value: £25 for a skirmish, food not included. Bang average. 

 

Bad: 

 

Playing area: On paper, the playing area appears to be very well equipped and should play quite well, but on the day it just didn't work out. The site is just too open.

 

There are plenty of low barricades, but not enough medium height vegetation. You can see from one end of the site to the other almost anywhere you stand. As a result it's very hard to push up on objectives without good team work and luck. The site is full auto almost all of the time and is detrimental to the playing area environment. It feels very much like just another paintball site that does Airsoft. The fort and village area is covered by stinging plants and I came away with lots of welts trying to crawl up to the objective without getting shot. It was almost perverse! There were trenches on parts of the site, but they were so shallow and surrounded by stinging plants that they were difficult to flank people in. 

 

Safety Brief: Very short, didn't cover MED for snipers (Which resulted in a bad incident where someone left early). Delivered very flat. Catered towards experienced players rather then the rentals that may have needed more instruction. 

 

Marshalling: Either Lackadaisical or non existent. One Head Marshal and two player Marshals. The Head Marshal seemed to not care that much. The player Marshals were no where to be seen; The one our side seemed determined to carry out the objective, but often went off and did his own solo thing without rallying the side together. He was never around to report things to. Complaints of non hit taking were at best not followed up or at worse laughed off.

 

Food: Almost non existent. Sweets, Crisps and Drink. No hot foot available on site. The website mentions you can pre order food beforehand but I saw no real mechanism for this. 

 

Shop: Bio BB's and gas were for sale and precious little else. 

 

Bio only BB: I have no issue with sites being Bio only, both myself and @Albiscuit bought our BB's from the shop before playing and they were of reasonable quality. However there were ZERO spot checks as to whether people were actually using Bio BB's. The player next to use was openly using non bio bb's as can be seen from his bottle. No point in having a very staunch and visible rule if you don't plan on checking up on it and enforcing it. 

 

Turn Around Time: We didn't get many games in at all. Safety Brief was supposed to happen at 9:30AM, but didn't until gone 10. We were given a 5 minute warning to reload and get back out but waited over 20 minutes before anything happened. 

 

Hit Taking: Flipping awful. Shooting long range and see bb's pinging off of people? Good luck, because softer hits seem to be completely ignored by almost everyone. Try shooting at people running full pelt and see the BB's pinging off? Guaranteed they wont take it. Shooting someone point blank and expect them to take it? Nah, they will just bring their rifle around and shoot you in response and claim it was 50/50. 

 

The day has some of the most blatant non hit taking I have seen in Airsoft. It got so bad that we left early (I have only ever done this once before at an Airsoft Skirmish and it was @Albiscuit first time leaving early ever). Many other people were complaining about hit taking which got progressively worse as the day went on and we were certainly not the only people to leave early due to it. It was just pointless trying to carry on. 

 

The Marshal's either weren't around to complain to, or did nothing when we did. One kid was getting so frustrated he told me he was going to put in a 420 FPS spring in his Full Auto enabled rifle for the next game. Mentioned it to a Marshal who just laughed it off. 

 

Conclusion: 

 

This was the worst Airsoft Skirmish I have been to since Tactical Airsoft in Croydon 4-5 years ago. Which had almost identical issues. Hit taking is optional. Full Auto required to get anywhere and non existent Marshalling. Considering how experienced the clientele seemed to be I was surprised how bad it was (I played Ultimate Wargames in Kent two days previous to this visit where 90% of players were under the age of 18 and took almost all their hits and are an absolute credit to the hobby!). 

 

It's a real shame how it turned out. The Playing area looks good on paper but the layout just doesn't seem to work. It could be improved upon by increasing the quantity and quality of the barriers. The Stinging nettles could be cut back. The trenches need to be re-dug to be deeper. Full auto should be banned to help have a better chance at pushing up.

 

The marshals need to be more pro-active in stamping out hit taking.

 

So yeah... Not great! There are far better sites that you can go to. 

 

Bullpup Watch: L85 and a Tavor.

 

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Asomodai

[Jacob Wright]

I know the site are active-ish on here, possibly they might welcome the feedback?

[Asomodai]

15 minutes ago, Jacob Wright said:

I know the site are active-ish on here, possibly they might welcome the feedback?

 

Sites are always welcome to comment and have done so before.

[Albiscuit]

It might have been the day but it was all a bit lacklustre and felt a bit half arsed from a marshalling point of view. 
One marshal and a couple of player marshals is never going to be enough, even for small bank holiday Monday numbers. 
looking back I think it probably wasn’t a typical reflection of the site and a Sunday skirmish may run better.

 

BUT

we can only comment on what we experienced on the day we decided to visit and frankly it wasn’t worth the journey and I won’t be going back unfortunately.

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

This was the next site that I was going to visit by coincidence.  I'll hold off until you get a response at least.  

[noctu]

Going to pop along there this Sunday as it's only down the road and I've not had a chance to get out in bloody ages, I'll see if it's improved any.

 

Interestingly their Facebook claims it's a 500/2.32j limit for bolties and DMRs alike, so I'll be the guy with the cracked gearbox at the end of the day...

[Cannonfodder]

They've changed who's running the airsoft games a couple of months ago so it'll be interesting to see what's changed apart from the membership price. It was £30 but has now gone up to £40

[noctu]

Unfortunately I had to bugger off (very) early so can't speak for the whole day.

 

Quite a lot of kids and rentals playing today.

 

Briefing wasn't bad, did cover MED for bolties/DMRs (30m, both at the same joule limit as mentioned before). Full auto limited to two second bursts. Maybe three, it changed midway through. Not five, five is right out.

 

The briefing did cover hit taking, as apparently two weeks ago it was absolutely abysmal...

 

Not much change to report in the site itself, everything felt a bit too open and the arrangement of some objectives relative to structures favoured one side over the other.

 

Hit taking still felt a bit meh.

[Cannonfodder]

12 minutes ago, noctu said:

Not five, five is right out.

Strange, I don't remember seeing any caves guarded by killer rabbits 

[noctu]

Just now, Cannonfodder said:

Strange, I don't remember seeing any caves guarded by killer rabbits 

It was down near the hospital (and honestly, having people hanging out for a smoke so close to the play area was a bit weird).