Paintball… You read that right. I went paintballing and on a “punter” day to boot. I was offered a chance to help out with a local group so jumped at the chance, having played a bit of paintball in the past and having a failry vibrant “combat sports” present life. I thought an understated slide in on the edge of a group would be a good attempt to sample the other side of life as we know it.
Where: Wild Park Derbyshire DE6 3BN https://www.wildparkderbyshire.com/
Date played: 01/04/23
Weather: Moderate
Type: Woodland
Cost: £30
Arrival & Safe Zone
Arriving at Wild Park, you turn off the main A52 ashbourne road and onto a smaller country road, you then fork off to th left of a farmhouse. The last time I was here you parked in at tthe top and walked down however now you drive all the way down to the safe area. Saves the legs at the end of the day. There was enough parking for us so pulled up, parked up and boots on! The safe area is a huge cabin, indoor, dry area with seating. Why can’t airsoft sites have this? Also worth noting, the safe zone was netted against one of the game zones providing a safe viewing area. Great idea.
Sign In
Sign in was initially a check off in the car park for our group and then once inside a swing by one of the desks in the hut to pick up rental overalls (not me, I was wearing my airsoft multicams) Once signed in, you headed outside to wait for safety brief. Weather was dry but it had been raining so was quite pleasant sat on the edge of the woods.
I’d paid £30 which was my game fee and that included 300 paintballs, 100 in the marker on arrival then a topup of 50 at the end of every subsequent game.
Safety Brief & Chrono
Safety brief was slightly different to what I am used to so all ears whilst it was ongoing, number 1 was keep your eye pro on which almost goes without saying. It was geared at the stag parties etc and groups of newcomers though so was done thoroughly but with enough wry humour to keep it bouncing. The group I was with took it onboard really well so I let that be the judge of how good the brief was. Chrono isn’t a thing as we were all on rentals but were told the paintball guns were shooting at 320fps.
Site & Playing Areas
The site is about as I remember however this time I did take opportunity to have a good look around. It’s a typical woodland but it’s not flat, the first gaming area is a huge square area with a couple of streams and slight valleys, made for fantastic movement but Airsoft would have been far too open. There is a vast valley/drop off on the left hand side of the site which Wild Park have used to create a 2 tier hut, an amazing feature which I wish we had more of in Airsoft. It made for some brilliant attakc and defend play and then to the back on the 2 flat fields, wrapped hay bales and concrete pipes made up a more competition paintball / speedqb style arena, I don’t want to be big headed but I let loose when we got out there.
Games
Games were a capture the flag, grab opponents flag, defend a bomb delivery, plant bomb and then a final capture the flag and deliver to enemy base. The games moved at a nice pace, the low amount of ammo meant there was only very minimal respawn opportunity and running out of ammo was a very big thing which would take you out of the game. All had points associated and a runnign score was kept throughout the day.
Lunch
Wasn’t a thing for our group as we played the afternoon session. There was hot food about (hot dogs) but we mostly pegged for chocolate and lucozade.
Marshalling & General Attitude of Players
The marshalls were great, they were on hand when needed and weren’t needed much if at all. The safety brief was good and there really isn’t a lot more I can bring to this other than I felt they were absolutely brilliant. Not in the way but not so you felt claustrophobic.
Overall
It was great to go back to Wild Park, the site is quite nice, I would like to give the Airsoft armoury a run around there if the opportunity ever came up. Having been skimmed a few times, I appreciate Airsoft for it’s distance and accuracy and for me not being covered in bruises after every game as well. I’m very comfortable with what I do and won’t be jumping back into the world of paintball but it was good fun to get back out there with a marker.