A bit late to post this review of the Spectre game up but I feel it should be posted, especially considering Spectre Urban maybe forced to close at a point in the future.

For those that don’t know, Spectre Wargames is a smallish site located near Hereford and Abergavenny in the Midlands. It has a woodland section and a small CQB site, both in very close proximity to each other. The site is run by a chap named Yams who is very accommodating and if you ask nicely, it is sometimes possible to stay overnight in the well equipped safe room. However this maybe a perk earnt as this isn’t the first time our group has played at this site.

The site is quite a distance from both my current location in Leeds and the overnight stay is a very helpful. The site is split into two. The woodland section and main site office is about half a mile from the urban site. This safe room is well equipped with sofa’s, portaloo and a kitchen area. Adjoining the barn is another barn with old beds and mattresses. To register for the CQB games, you must come to this section, sign the waivers and pay and then walk or drive upto the urban section. The urban section is a collection of old barns where pigs used to be kept. It’s a fairly small site and no walk on’s are allowed, you must book via the website or telephone. Games are generally restricted to single shot only and the FPS limit to the site is 300FPS due to the close nature of the games. This means close range hits don’t hurt and games don’t dissolve into people being pinned by fire all day. It also allows people to use those expensive side arms they’ve bought with less of a disadvantage.

As I mentioned, unfortunatly Spectre is under the shadow of possible closure at the minute due to a noise complaint from a neighbour. This means that all pyro’s are strictly controlled. Any bought on site are fine as they are made for Spectre and are an impressive thermobaric grenades. Blank firing grenades are also disallowed, even if they have the convertor to use .22 short blanks in. Smokes, however are allowed because they have no noise.

Practical Pistol Shooting

Arriving early on Saturday gave our group the chance to do a spot of practical pistol shooting on the course Yams had setup earlier. Practical pistol shooting is basically a course or “stage” where a shooter has to take out targets in a time limit and is rewarded for accurate shooting as well as a quick time. It’s not really related to airsoft, except in the fact airsoft pistols can quite happily be used as the weapon.

The course setup for us at Spectre consited of three stages, a walk through a barn and clear section, a stationary target shoot where the targets where place around randomly and had to be engaged numrerically wihout moving off the spot and the final stage was a hostage rescue, clearing out three terrorists from a room in as quick as possible. The targets are wooden cutouts with a metal flap in the head and chest area. Both these metal bits had to be shot for the target to be counted as clear.

For the course, I used my only pistol, a DE USP AEP. The first stage I managed to engage clear 9 out of the 14 possible targets meaning I’ve missed 5 hits. The second stage, I was given another pistol as it was assumed my AEP might struggle to pierce the cardboard boxes. That’s not something I think would happened having tried it out in the safety of my home but nevertheless I borrowed an Infinity GBB and did the section. However I performed terribley and the pistol gassed out halfway through and I was penlised even though I could not reload it or continue because it was not my pistol. What made this worse was the fact that it was the course referee’s pistol! However I manged to redeem myself in the third section, winning it by clearing the room in 3.1 seconds with two hits on each target. There was conterversy with this result though as although I hit all 6 metal parts, only 4 toppled. This was due to the low FPS of the AEP range of pistol compared to the gas ones. The referee did decide to favour me in this case and I was declared to have shot all 6 and it was just the lack of power that prevented the unargueably clean run that a higher powered pistol would have achieved.

Game Day

Game day was a full day with about 30 players in attendence. Most of the players were the regulars, with our large group of semi regulars and a team that had never played there before. Morning games passed quite quickly. A variety of different games are played, most using the entire site. There are a few games though that rely on just moving through one building. These games are usuaully very good fun, espcially if your on the defending force as in these games, defenders are outnumbered hugely (in both games we played, there was 5 defenders against the rest of the players) but when they are hit, they move back down the building by one room or 5m depending on the building they are in. It’s usually plays out like the scenes in Enemy at The Gates were the Russians charge in and get slaughtered. Espcially as there is one regular who has a large collection of moscarts and every week buys a large portion of the sites grenades. Trying to flush him of the building is a nightmare! These games I would definetly recommend a full face mask. Because the site is small, all the games are usually small quick games, maybe an hour or two at the most, but usually much less. The afternoon games were also very good. Everyone was in the swing of things and had a really good time. There were pictures taken during the afternoon and I was photographed posing in my new Russian camo and using my TM vz61 Scorpion.

Overall, Spectre is a great site and with luck, it’ll get over it’s noise troubles. As usual, the games went without any hitches, thanks to the fantastic marshalls and the players. One person did have to sit out a game though after repeated warnings about lifting up goggles whilst in the play area. Just don’t do it as a stray shot could take an eye out! It should be noted, that Spectre has one of the highest proportion of female players than I’ve seen at any other site, bar the odd occasion at MIA in Cornwall. This maybe down to the fairly good facilities in the safe room at the urban site (no portaloo’s up at this safe room!), the friendly, welcoming atmosphere or maybe some other reason. Anyhow, there were 4 or 5 female players in attendence and most of these appeared to be regulars.

I think from my results on the practical pistol side of things, I feel  should purchase a gas powered pistol. I’ve been put off by gas pistol as when I first started airsoft about 5 years ago at college, I had a gas powered NBB USP that was very unreliable and generally not very good. I then sold that and got myself an Infinity which I found to require far to much maintance (oiling the entire pistol after about 3 mags of BB’s) to really be used as a skirmish weapon, and again the mags leaked. Both purchases were second hand. It put me off pistols until the electric AEP range came out. Since then, I’ve bought a few but sold them on when needed. However, I now feel that a GBB pistol would be a worthy investment as I am considering joining a local gun club to take up target shooting with air guns. They are also setting up a practical pistol section for use with airsoft and air pistols. I am currently tossing up between a full size USP (the same as the AEP) or a P226. If I can, I will be buying Tokyo Mauri as they are a make I trust fully, having had my TM AK47 for so long. And being put off by unreliable pistols in the past, it makes sense to go for an option that I know will work. People have told me KJW is cheaper and a better option but I have heard contradictory remarks about them, whereas the only bad points against the TM pistols is the price compared to the cheaper alternatives. However, in my case, the reliabilty more than makes up for the extra cost in my eyes.

Because it was the first time I’d got to use my new camo properly, along with the new assualt vest, I’ll be adding a review to the site very soon.