This was a review I did for our old team forum before we left and became the turtles.
Originally posted back in late Oct, and it was our first visit to the site, hope you find the review useful? And hope to meet up with a few of you guys in the future, enjoy…

On arrival, we were met by a bunch of friendly, enthusiastic airsofters who where more than happy to come over and introduce themselves, talk to us about the hobby, and generally be friendly.
We then had all our guns chrono’d-good to go!!
Hot tea and coffee was available from arrival, until departure, in the undercover meeting area/mess hall/kit area.

The site
as you may or may not know? the site itself is the now abandoned “national shire horse centre” and my first observation was how eerie it felt, it looks as though some apocalyptic event took place, there are still areas of the site that still had the familiar things I remembered as a kid visiting on school trips. (Post cards in the gift shop, the bar in the restaurant, the freefall slide-bit sad actually I had fond memories of NSHC).
The site is HUGE and is divided into two “gaming” areas-the woods and the
village.

Map of overall playing area, woods is to the bottom of screen
red inbound playing area.
Yellow briefing area.
Blue meeting area/mess hall/kit zone.

The games
as the site is run by and attended by service personal the games have a “militaristic” feel, but not to the extent of full ”mil-sim” although they are looking to set this up for future events-get your lo-caps now you will want to attend!!!

The AM
In the briefing area (yellow) we were given the usual safety instructions, which included Airsoft etiquette, boundaries, medic rules and a demonstration of using pyros safely (first time I have seen a site director take the time to do this, which i thought was very good-especially for new gamers)
we where then divided into two groups of around 20 players, and then sub-divided into squads, squad leaders where allocated and then given the mission briefings for the first game.

Seek and destroy
an enemy force had been sent into the woods and it was our mission to patrol the woods and neutralise the enemy.
The woods were very dense caution and good Comms were the order of the day and during the briefing we had clarified our Comms channels with the other squads in our team (SWAT, TIGERS and TAC, that was ours).
Game play was very tactical and pretty brutal, lots of close contacts due to the ambushing potential of the terrain- bloody brilliant!!

Hold/capture the base
we then divided into smaller teams (about 10)
the mission was for each team to get 4 members into the enemy base without your own being captured, but the twist was there was no camping in your base and you “marshalled” to keep pushing forward.
Due to our goods Comms and team work with each other, the other squads mission was accomplished with ease both fighting up the woods and down the woods.
Special mention to mrdee and his ninja skills on the second game!!

Lunch
there is an onsite shop to buy snacks and drinks, but no hot food so it’s worth taking a packed lunch or as we did a team curry (cheers d) which we warmed up on the bbq, which is free to use if you bring a burger along.
The first game in the PM was a rescue mission, we were holding the village and the other team where trying to capture a large cylinder that represented a WMD. there are barns, out buildings, a pub and loads of old sheds to hide or sneak through, and again due to the type of mission it was key that each member did there allocated task to prevent the other team achieving the objective.
we then replayed the base game from the morning but in the village complex.
After every game we were given a-debrief and feedback as to what we did well and what we could have done better, again another first for me.

Conclusion
this is a great site, scenarios are challenging and a lot more tactical that the usual “spray and play” stuff I have done in the past.
The people are friendly and at the end of the day we were approached by Geoff (the manager) and Jes to give our feedback etc. and to be invited to future events.
It’s a bit dearer than our regular sites, at 25 quid but considering the fact that it’s a half hour away it saves more than enough in petrol.
The site is massive and to get the best out of it, it will have to be played more as “local knowledge” is more than useful.
Marshalls where great, joined in some missions to throw smoke or nades if you needed help, listened to any questions, issues or problems you have and were straight on the Comms to get things sorted.
Down sides-there where the usual amount of “Teflon warriors” but hey what site doesn’t? also during one game a couple of guys “camping” on a respawn, but this was reported by me and dealt with in the next game.

Will I being going back? You ****ing bet I will!!!!!!

Link to SWWG: If you want to check it out for self.

Cheers Richy B