CAMO CQB Skirmish Arena (Essex)

[PureSilver]

Format shamelessly stolen from @Asomodai.

EXTREMELY LENGTHY REVIEW.

 

Site Name: CAMO CQB Skirmish Arena

Contact Details: [email protected]

Website Address: https://camoairsoftevents.com/indoor-airsoft-arena/

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

Site Address: 39 Shannon Way, Canvey Island, SS8 0PD

 

Hello all! I can't find a review of CAMO's indoor CQB site on AFUK, which is understandable as it's a relatively new site (only open since 03/04/22). @blobface and I played the Sunday game on 27/11/22.

 

The Site:

 

The CQB Skirmish Arena is really only a part of the CAMO retail complex, and shares space with the shop showroom, technicians' workshop, electronic shooting range, and a slightly weird booth seating area evidently intended for players and shoppers to eat crisps and chat shit. As usual providing a size comparison to other CQB sites isn't easy, but I roughly estimate it at about a fifth of the size of The Mall. The whole complex is arranged over a single floor in an industrial estate on Canvey Island.

 

The provisional (not final) layout of the CAMO retail complex. Yes it does look like Daedalus designed a vape.

 

The site is semi-auto only, with an energy limit of 350FPS (1.14J), and a maximum BB weight of 0.32g (277FPS equivalent). No pyrotechnical devices of any sort - including BFGs - or green lasers are permitted. The site is in perfect condition (as you would expect, being at present less than six months old) and I would expect it to stay that way. I recommend bringing a torch, as the lighting in the play area can be adjusted at random in both brightness and colour.

 

Good:

 

Safe Zone: The safe zone is by a country mile the best I've ever used in a decade and a half of airsoft. It's clean, well lit, gargantuan for the maximum number of players (20), and fully kitted out with worktops. There's no seating, but the aforementioned weird booths are only yards away. Given that the entire complex is on one floor and the safe zone is at one end of it you're never more than 60 seconds' walk from it. Adjacent is a nifty shooting range with AttackSense electronic targets, an ideal way to spend your downtime - or at least it would be if the gaps between the games were more than a few minutes at most.

 

The shooting range.

 

Facilities: Absolutely first class. The complex itself is barely a year old, and was built entirely from scratch, seemingly almost exclusively out of OSB. The shop and booth seating area are large, spotlessly clean, and have multiple power sockets (including USB), large, clean flushing toilets (both male and female).

 

Site Layout: The arena is an American-style killhouse, played at extremely close quarters in a maze of very small spaces arranged to make the most of the limited square footage. If you don't like CQB you're going to hate the site, but you're also not going to go in the first place. If you like CQB this is a very professional-feeling place. Despite the limited square footage the arena itself feels quite large, but unfortunately due to some not-very-creative game modes you're not likely to see much of the opposing side's half, as things have a tendency to stalemate around the middle of the arena, with the small teams still managing to each cover most angles of attack. 20 players (the maximum permitted) is a good limit, but I think it would play better with 16-18 and/or some different game modes. Engagement distances are extremely short: shots of 10-15m at the absolute maximum and more like 1-5m on average. There is a lot of peeking doorways to see if someone is squatting low down; remember to check your corners! The respawn points are at opposite ends of the arena, so you'll never be more than 30 seconds from being back in play.

 

Marshalling: The marshals were friendly and very professional, although with so many obstructed sight lines it was presumably pretty difficult for them to see much. One standout thing is the use of kill counters - little boxes counting up (deaths) or down (respawns remaining to each team) in each spawn point. These were particularly good in an initial TDM mode to help assess the balance of the teams; this is a good idea brilliantly executed and I'd like to see more sites use the same system.

 

Safety: A very brief brief with no unfunny jokes, and stringent chronographing of all guns noted against a sheet of players. The ban on pyro is not just a fire safety requirement, it's an absolute must - the spaces are too confined and too close together for people to be lobbing grenades at each other. The BB weight limit is more than adequate given the short distances.

 

Turnaround Time: Very rapid, aided by the fact that the safe zone is readily accessible, but also necessitated by the very short game day (3hrs).

 

Average:

 

Value: £20.00 (£40.00 including rental equipment) for three hours' play would feel a bit steep for an abandoned building, but is pretty reasonable for a brand new purpose built arena with such a limited number of players. For reference, short games at Invicta's Black Site - which is comparable in terms of distance from London and must be at least double the size - are £25.00 for five hours. I would happily have paid another £5.00-10.00 for another 1-1.5hrs of play; three hours felt a bit short.

 

Game Options: The site has evening games (18:00-21:00) on Fridays and day games (10:00-13:00) on Sundays. I'm surprised that CAMO don't run a longer game (or a second one) on Sundays; it seems crazy to only pull in £800 a week from a site that must have cost tens of thousands of pounds to construct.

 

Location: Canvey Island is right out in the Thames delta. While still very convenient for Londoners (at about 45min on the train from Fenchurch Street, followed by a 5min bus ride) if you're not from somewhere in the South East it's going to be a bit of a trek, just like most other airsoft sites. There's plenty of on-site secure parking.

 

Game Modes: Limited to just three (TDM, find-and-retrieve objects, and infection with limited respawns) that I can recall, these were a bit underwhelming and definitely the thing easiest and most impactful to improve. Although the modes were simple and easy to play, aside from infection none allowed players to hunt each other through the entire arena, as flanking opportunities are restricted by the narrowness of the building itself. I would like to have roving objectives that enabled the sides to see more of the opponents' half of the arena during a game. Another feature I felt was under-used was the arena's smart lighting system - plunging the whole place into darkness would have been more interesting if it had lasted more than 30-60 seconds of every 10 minutes. There's great potential for gas-and-spring days, or "night" games in total darkness, and with only 20 players it could also be financially viable to just rent the entire site for private games.

 

Playerbase: The playerbase trends heavily towards young speedsofters, which is to be expected given the generally fast-paced play. Players were generally well-behaved, especially when it came to trying to limit overshooting, but I felt there were a few slightly questionable hits not taken, particularly given the extremely close range where it was hard to dismiss the tracer BBs visibly bouncing off opponents.

 

Site Shop: This is a tricky one. The fact that CAMO's actual online sales and retail operation are on-site means you have access to a massive range of guns, some accessories, and a professional workshop right next to the play area. The entire complex takes card payments. The arena counter has some of what you'll need on the day: BBs, propellant, snacks and soft drinks. There's no hot food, although with only 3 hours' play you may not work up much of an appetite. What lets the side down somewhat is the relative paucity of things players might need on the day, like PPE, LBE, batteries, or silicone oil. For example, if you're a CQB site operating partially in the dark, it's a bit weird to have only one weight (0.20g, too) of tracer BB to sell.

 

Bad:

 

UKARA Registration: CAMO are not presently able to offer a UKARA-registered site membership, although they hope to be able to do so in 2023. This is a bit of an omission for a site that is operated by a fairly major airsoft retailer and it will be good to see it addressed.

 

Conclusion:

 

The CQB Arena is a good morning's play, in a style and setting that's relatively novel for this part of the UK at least. The complex itself is simply a cut above any other site I've ever visited. The arena itself is quite interesting and it would take many game days to learn it all, CAMO run it very professionally, and the players seem to make the most of both. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in some CQB, and we'll certainly be back.

 

Bullpup Watch: My AUG and a P90.

 

Other Site Reviews

Invicta Battlefield Black Site (Kent)

Echelon Airsoft (Kent)

Edited February 13, 2023 by PureSilver

[Cannonfodder]

Once again a great review. I've been thinking of paying them a visit as the in laws live about 5 minutes away