Battle House Laser Tag - Waukesha — Local services in City of Pewaukee

Had an excellent experience with my friends for a bachelor party. We got weapon "upgrades", which were certainly not game changers, but had some nice variety and we felt were worth the cost. The field marshals did a great job explaining the rules to the teams, and enforced the rules very well. Our team was losing most of our rounds, so a staff member joined part way to even the odds. We still lost, but he did a great job helping us with tactics and teamwork. The missions themselves are great, with great props. Bomb disposal with a electronic key coded bomb, take and hold objectives, and some hide-and-seek style missions. It was a blast.

A few disclaimers: Your party may get split up, which happened to my group and all other groups there. It's part of trying to keep teams fair, which I think worked just fine. It was more than a little fun to shoot some of my buddies. The game does not track "kills" or leaderboards, which may come as a disappointment to some. However, the key part of the game are the mission objectives, which don't care how many kills you get. It's all about the mission! I've been to places that do track stats, and while it's fun in a "Call of Duty" style, it does also lead to people who come to pad their stats by spawn camping and dominating new players so they can climb the leaderboard. On the subject of experienced players, our session had a few experienced players in it. They get split up to make even teams, but they may do things that are a little bit off-putting to new players. Spawn camping is broadly prohibited(and enforced), but the experienced players may do a sort if "head bob" maneuver to make themselves harder to hit. It didn't affect our game too much, but I know some people on my team found it pretty frustrating.

All in all, great experience. My friends loved it, the guns worked great, the missions were top tier, and the staff was professional and organized. Would...

This is a fun place to go for myself and my kids. I have boys ages 9 (2 of them) and 16 who I took here early March 2019. As a parent this place is so much better thant the older style laser tag that was played in smoke filled rooms. You just pay for your session (ours was an hour and forty-five minutes) and play. No constant requests of 'one more time' from the kids like at the other places (except the requests of another session after ours was up). At battle house everyone is divided into two teams and you are given missions to complete. They included capture the flag, but other fun ones where you are trying to capture objects scattered around the arena or rescuing a full sized mannequin. We played about 4 different games, but some games we played twice with teams switching sides. The number of games varies depending on how long it takes teams to complete them. The staff has a variety of laser weapons to choose from including pistols that are easy for my younger guys to handle, although eventually one of them now likes the shotgun best... To each their own. Regarding the staff, they are very helpful and seem to go out of their way to make sure everyone (with special attention to the smallest ones playing) is having a good time . For now battle house is offering free upgrades to any weapon they have available which is fantastic for exploring the choices. This they said will discontinue at some point, maybe when they finish building out a new two story city for us to play in. We can't wait for that, but will certainly return in the meantime since...

We are weekly regulars at the lake Barrington location and decided to try Waukesha as we have not experienced the different map. The main lobby is very impressive and the way the teams are given the safety brief arranged on the lights prior to entering the armory is much less chaotic than how it is done inside the armory at lake Barrington. They also sell shirts easily accessible on the sales floor versus having to find a staff member at the lake Barrington location. The bar is also easily findable and accessible for the adults. We paid for a 2 hr session, complete with upgrades but only made it through one hour before requesting a refund for the 2nd hour. The map here is single level, not a bad thing. This saves tour your knees from having to climb anything. The issue was with the ref for the night of 3/1 during at least our 6:30 game acted disinterested in following the rules. My friend told him the other team was blind firing around the corners and his response was "well you guys are doing it too." He didn't mention it during the de-brief after the match and it was a continual problem. The way he explained the games also didn't coincide with the professionalism we have seen at lake Barrington. I know its hard to ref kids that are hyped on adrenaline but there was almost zero effort on the refs part to enforce rules.

All in all im glad we experienced the Waukesha location, but we will stick to lake Barrington where the refs seem much more focused on providing a tighter laser...