West Midlands Airsoft, it’s on the Upper East edge of Stoke just off the A50 and should be described more as Jungle airsoft rather tna Woodland airsoft.
Where: West Midlands Airsoft The FOB ST10 4JT http://www.wmairsoft.co.uk/
Date played: 03/07/2022
Weather: Warm, Dry, Clear
Type: Thick Woodland
Cost: £30
Arrival & Safe Zone
The turn off the main road seems to come from nowhere but it is well sign posted so you won’t miss it. The car park was very well sized, there was a rough count of 120 players in total when we went and there was ample parking available although not a lot of spare space left afterwards. A short walk from the car park there is a table with some waivers and opposite a burger/food van which is not owned by the site doing food independantly. Decent food is always a bonus although I didn’t take advantage due to having had the traditional McDonalds
Safe zone is large, lots of covered tables and benches meant there was plenty of room. Our group (maybe 8+) all seemed to fit into the bay we had and it didn’t feel cramped. There is an on site shed selling the usual stuff, BB’s (Blaster Devils), some generic. Nuprol bits, Gas, Patches and even Baseball hats. All were fairly priced.
Sign In
There were a lot of players on site but didn’t find myself queueing at all, signing in was the usual waiver, signed, dated and handed over at the site shop. To play at FOB as an own gunner walk on it’s £30 reduced by £5 for members and that is a game fee only. No food is included so at the slightly more expensive end of the scale.
Safety Brief & Chrono
Safety brief was the usual stuff with some site specific advice as well. Nothing too out of the ordinary, the site held it’s attention well and only a couple of continues talkers throughout. It was hastened through so as not to waste too much time which was nice although was delivered about 10-15 mins later than we’d expected. Gates open at 8 and brief should be for 10 so we’d already been waiting over an hour for things to get going.
Chrono is open whilst people are kitting up. Nice not to have a huge queue open. Sadly this is done on 0.2’s with no consideration for heavier weights being converted down. There weren’t many HPA players on site (mostly our group) but there were a couple of snipers and there is always that question of whether someone will have a creeping rifle. I pulled out a booster ring from my SRS to tame it back at 318 with a 0.48 (492 equivalent).
West midlands annoyingly advertise a different DMR limit to what they profess on site. This meant I’d not bothered bringing my DMR but could have happily made use of it. Limits on website are 350-400-500 and on site they were 350-450-500.
Site & Playing Areas
The site itself is it’s biggest feature and probably it’s biggest problem, It is a thick woodland and not just a bit thick, we’re talking jungle level thick where you can either follow the paths or you’ll br crawling for half an hour to go 10 yards kind of thick. It made for some very intense corner firefights. There were a couple of structured areas, not that I saw too many as the firefights were mostly in the jungle and at the start of July it was in full leaf so overall I wouldn’t have said it was ideal for sniping. An AEG and a mindset of sod it I’m going in would keep you content all day.
Games
The mornings game (yes a whole morning game) was in theory a fantastic idea. One team one end with multiple respawns and the opposite at the opposite and then scattered through the playing area were objectives to find and retreive. This gave free and creative license to move around the entire site and try some of the pathways and cut throughs. Admittedly our team seemed to get obliterated and we often had people stroll through from behind us but when in the game, a simple game concept and it kept the group busy for the morning. Yes I did come back in the latter hald and swap from sniper to M4 but that was needed given how thick things were.
Lunch
I can’t pass too much comment here, I hadn’t expected a burger van and had stuck some snacks in my bag before leaving. The independant van (Finsters) was serving some gourmet style burgers and chips which looked fantastic and those in our group who had them said they were of a decent quality. Pricing was a touch high (£8?) but this wasn’t a cheap burger made by someone who did a computer course to get their food hygiene badge.
Games contd…
The afternoon was an attack and defend pushback which was flipped. It was held on the top half of the site to add some variance and likely a smoother game as the bottom half was more of a round thicket. We defended first and it took half of the afternoon with the attacking team actually not making all of the objectives. When this was flipped, a lot of our players went full send it and we pushed incredibly hard from the off. We managed to hit all our objectives off so won both afternoon games.
Marshalling & General Attitude of Players
The head marshall was brilliant, happy, greeting players, ensuring everyones day was going without problems and very safety conscious. There were several calls for marshall throughout the day and there was regularly an orange hoodie in sight. Unfortunately this was needed quite quickly and frequently. The marshalls did eject someone from site that day for arguing after having gone out of bounds, this was done well, the dispute raised in the game area and the warring couple went back to safe zone to resolve. Unfortuantely the offender wasn’t having it so was asked to leave on grounds of being unsafe. Fair enough.
Player attitude is my sticking point for the day we went. The cheating was horrific from the start, there were 2 identifiable players not taking hits continuously even to the point of doing it boldly in front of a marshall and then arguing they shot first. It continued and got worse and said players even full auto’d a couple of kids point blank from behind when they’d called it which didn’t go down well. One of the cheaters ended up in the crosshair of my SRS, he called that one and the crack was quite audible, as was the remark after but the fact that I was having to swap out to my P* just to get them to call hit grated heavily.
Judging a site badly because of cheaters isn’t something I’d do and players change every time the site opens, it’s a shame we had a whole bunch of gamesman rather then sportsman on the day.
Overall
It’s a great site, I would say a bit too thick in the middle of summer for me, would probably thin out a bit in the winter and offer some more sightlines which would change the feel of the site a bit. It was a bigger outing for my guys though and we were all happy to be playing together which is what this is all about really isn’t it? We had a good day, we let a few rounds loose at people we were convinced (and it was proved) weren’t playing the spirit of the game and we thumped the in the afternoon knowing what to expect.
Is it worth a trip? Yes if you’ve not played there before. Will I go back? Yes, I’d love to play it a bit thinner in the winter.
Other
Credit to Femme Fatale Airsoft and AATV for some of the images used as they were genuinely the best I could find having not taken any on site myself.