Okay so today was the very first time I had attended Dragon's Lair, It's situated in the more rural areas of Essex and is in Kelvedon Hatch near the Secret Nuclear Bunker (It's actually on the same area of land).
Before attending I had heard that the site itself wasn't too good and that the players there are notorious non-hit takers. I had also heard that the staff/marshalls weren't particularly very nice and had said "feel free to fully auto someone in the face if they aren't wearing full face protection, it's their own fault." So obviously I was quite apprehensive about going, But nothing would prepare me for what actually happened (We will get onto that later).
So we arrived around half past 9 which is fairly late but we were running a little late. The entrance to the site is pretty well signposted and after a short drive down a tarmac road we arrived at the area where the cars were parked, We took our kit out of the car and walked into the safe zone. As we entered there was a small barbeque to our left and a lot of seating/areas to get kitted up, The site itself looked great.
We found ourselves a spot, dropped our gear and went to pay our walk-on fee, The staff member we spoke to was fairly nice and asked us to write our names down on the paper assigning us a number and taking the fee (£25), She then proceeded to write our number on our hand with a big black permanant marker pen (which i'm still having trouble getting off of my hand now). This was the first time that I had been to a site which didn't have wristbands and as such was a bit annoyed that I now had permanant marker on my hand.
Anyway, we kitted up and whilst we were doing that everyone was called in to the centre for the breifing, The breifing was...lacking a little in my opinion and left me with a lot of questions, If a player had never played airsoft before I think they would have struggled to grasp the concept.
We continued to kit up and not long after the breifing a marshall came out and began to rush everyone out of the safe zone and onto the playing field, I was not ready by this point and he kept telling me to hurry up (I should have been earlier, I know), This annoyed me slightly as at the end of the day, If I miss the first game, thats my own fault, what did it matter to him?
On the way onto the field I passed the shop, The shop was lightly stocked with parts and gas; however had a large choice of BBs. They also had a few two-tone weapons for sale. I arrived on the field and needed to zero in my scope for my new DMR, This took some time as I fiddled with the hop-up too. I made my way over to the starting position for the red team and game on.
The first game was a Capture the Flag game where we needed to cross a body of water to get to a small village on a hill, The village was very well decked out with lots of barricades, a few buildings and even a trench however I had barely gotten near the village before our team had captured the flag. Back to the safe zone we go, The first game lasted around 15 minutes.
The second game was the same as the first although we were now the defending team, I plotted up behind a barricade and awaited the enevitable onsaught of enemies, however this never came and I found myself picking off targets from a distance (when they would take their hits). The game slowly continued and after around 10 minutes I had run through half of my mags and had barely come within 20 metres of an enemy player. Finally I began to be fired upon and I took cover where I started to get flanked, I took a prone position and took out anyone who came past me; I got a few confirmed hits at this point and held the enemy team back for a short while on the right flank. Then after a long game I finally took my first hit, I progressed further back into the village and continued the match. After another 10 minutes I was out of BBs in my primary and switched to my pistol, I managed to flank an enemy player who wasn't paying attention to his rear, I neatly placed a BB on his left thigh only to see him flinch and carry on firing...I fired again, hitting him on the thigh; This time he looked around and continued shooting - until he spotted me, He then proceeded to take his hit, how he should have the first time. The rest of the game went on without issue and then we headed back to the safe zone.
A complaint was then made about the Blue Team and they were all called together by a marshall who told them all off, This telling off however caused myself and the team to be moved to the Blue Team as they wanted to mix it up slightly.
The third game was by far the most fun, It was an 'Attack the fort' game, and Dragon's Lair had built and impressive fort with a watchtower in the centre surrounded by wooden walls and even more barricades, We approached the fort with caution at first but eventually broke through and began to push more aggresively, at one point I found myself alone, pinned down behind a barricade managing to take out a few more enemy players. Eventually the enemy team caught wind of my position and managed to place a grenade at my feet, I moved as quick as I could and dived behind another barricade, That was too close. The game continued for another 10 minutes or so until I heroicly tried to save a team mate and ended up taking a brrage of BBs from the enemy team, This left a serious mark and I walked back to the respawn. The game didn't last much longer and then we headed back to the safe zone for lunch.
The prices for food on site are steep:
A burger (you have to order before the day starts) - £6
A pulled pork roll - £6
Some sort of beef jerky - Unknown
This is all the food they sell on site however they do offer free tea and coffee. We decided that the prices were too steep, de-kitted and drove to a nearby sainsburys. Once we had returned we were once again rushed to get ready, I didn't play the next two games as I was fiddling with my DMR as it wasn't performing right. After the fifth game my two team mates returned and said they wanted to go home as they were tired and had a disagreement with a marshall, he told me that the marshall had swore at him, told him to move and was particularly rude about it, My team mate questioned him and the marshall walked away. I thought nothing of it and continued to pack up.
Shortly after, four marshalls approached us and questioned my team mate as to why he abused a marshall; My team mate asked why he had been rude to him and then a second marshall then became abusive to my team mate, He then asked if the marshalls thought it was appropriate to become abusive to anyone who questioned them and be so rude to their customers...The reply to this was an increased level of violence towards my team mate and then another of the marshalls picked my plate carrier up and attempted to throw it at him, I stopped him in the act and took the plate carrier from him before he could damage it. At this point a marshall said; and I quote "You had better leave before I batter the f*** out of you!", A marshall then proceeded to take his jacket off and square up to him with more threats of violence. My team mate left and went to the car to avoid getting into a fight over a game. I was still hanging back and finished packing my kit away when I saw the marshall pick up my team mates eyepro, I asked to take them and give them to my team mate, he agreed and seemed a little calmer, He then began to talk to me about what had happened and I told him that I didn't want to be involved, He walked off and I returned to the car. I would also like to mention that whilst this was happening there were around 100 players who witnessed this including children that were no older than 12 who were scared to death.
We left the site quite shocked by what had just happened and could do nothing but laugh about how ridiculous the marshalls had been and how aggressive they were, The site is clearly family run and as such are quite aggressive when someone questions their rules or their decisions.
Final verdict:
Pricing - The pricing on the site is a bit steep, £25 walk-on fee for the limited variety of games and game zones. The pricing of the food on site is also steep at £6.
Staff - I don't think I need to mention how the staff are again...I would give zero stars if I could.
Food - There isn't much variety in the way of food and the burgers seem to be pre-order only, The only positive is that there is a sainsburys around the corner if you can drive, but don't expect to be back for the next game. On the plus side there is free tea and coffee.
On-site shop - The shop isn't too bad if you only need the basics such as green gas or if you need BBs just don't expect to be browsing for hours. However the site does have a section where a staff member performs repairs/upgrades. Charging facilities are provided.
Players - The players are sociable and I even met a few old friends who play here, I did have a small issue with the number of players who do not take their hits; however this is to be expected and this happens at every site, there just seems to be a bigger problem here.
Overall - The site is an okay site and has some good facilities, I just feel that the pricing is steep for what they are offering and the small gamezone compared to what other sites are charging. Obviously for me the staff were a major problem today and I was extremely disgusted with their attitude and how they handled the situatiuon, that could have easily been avoided if the original marshall had come over to speak to my team mate instead of gathering up their possey and trying for a fight. Taking this all into account I would probably rate this site 2 stars out of 5.
http://www.dragonslairairsoft.co.uk/
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