Ambush Airsoft and Paintball — Local services in Conestoga Township

This was my first time trying airsoft. Had a great experience with the sport, but not with the venue.

The rental AEG model retails new for $175. Rental costs $35 ($20 for gun, $15 for BBs). No visible attachments or modifications were made to the rental except for a broken front sight and duct tape on stock. AEG was extremely inaccurate, wobbly stock, was not sighted in. No options for premium rental, was not offered any alternative gun choices. Note that Xtreme Linglestown offers a walk-on rental package with more equipment at less cost ($70v$55). However, the men attending the recharge and rental counters were friendly, professional, and attentive.

The cashier for the food stand seemed demoralized, she rolled her eyes when another customer ordered 3 hamburgers. The food stand was filthy; ketchup and onions smeared over the whole condiment stand, a open-faced cooler of iced drinks was positioned 3 feet from a propane heater. I ordered an $11 pulled pork sandwich. After a few minutes, a voice yelled 'Pulled Pork!' through a plywood door. A customer advised me she had also just learned that this was how orders were called, another customer chimed in that the food stand used to give out order numbers. The pork sandwich was the size of a McDouble and had a fragment of tin foil embedded in the meat. There is no free water available on-site. There is no hand sanitizer available at the food stand. I can't find any online records that this restaurant was seen by a health inspector.

Those were my observations, now I want to talk about my experience as a newcomer.

I tried to prepare. I printed winter satellite images from google earth to memorize the map layout. This did not help; referees and players refer to locations by name. These locations are described in the website's description, and there are signs on some buildings, but there's no way to study the layout and read each building sign while in the middle of a 50v50 game. I did not see a map posted anywhere on-site.

On arrival, after sign-in, teams are split up. There were probably about 100 people at the event. After the ref had divided up the squads, there were 5 of us left. Which is to say; 5% of the attendees arrived without a buddy. There's one pavilion for 'walk-on' people, but out of the 8 people sitting there, 7 of them were on the orange team, I was on blue. This felt isolating. Not on purpose, but like a design flaw in the matchmaking.

The ref spent the first 15 minutes of the day describing the rules for everyone; these rules were partially written on the dry erase board behind him. Another incomplete list of rules is on the website; but for an event that repeats every two weeks, I just wish someone would post a map and a complete rule set on the business's website.

Eventually, teams are escorted to a zone for mission assignment. This seemed like it should be an opportunity for team-wide coordination, but I never heard it. Once the objectives were read, squads just chatted amongst themselves. Many of the squads appeared to be on their own headset comm systems, so maybe they synchronized channels with other squads. Either way, I felt like I was out of the loop in any strategy to help my team win.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to drive home here is that the only events available for new players are also the events attended by people with years-long friendships and hundreds of dollars invested in the sport. A huge amount of information is expected to be absorbed at once, and new players are expected to adapt under fire, and to fight back with a junk gun.

There's another hobby out there with a lot of similarities to Airsoft that handles new player introductions much more effectively. This other hobby has: 1) People who blow a lot of money to dress cool and fight better and 2) Friend groups who have known each other for decades.

It's the Society for Creative Anachronism. The LARPers. Every SCA chapter has a volunteer 'Chatelaine', a face for newcomers, which this venue would benefit from immensely.

I will play again, but probably...

I've only played airsoft a handful of times at large scale events. Was honestly not sure what kind of experience I'd have at a local field.

I can't speak to some of these other reviews but what I can say regarding my experience is it was a truly fantastic time.

I can't speak to the rental equipment situation either since I have my own kit but I'll say that there were people with rentals right alongside me taking enemies out no issue.

Wasn't sure what the field would be like so I called and Denny the owner called me back and provided a ton of great information. I could tell this guy was about airsoft right out of the gate.

The staff, fields, and common areas were all great.  Pro shop has good stock and even had the Titan AK style batteries I use, big plus.

Game variety was excellent, any time I didn't understand something or needed info I asked questions and everybody was more than happy to help.

Team balancing felt great with how they did it.  HPA players were first split up between teams. Anybody grouped up with them stayed together.

Next Denny assigned player groups to teams.  I was one of 3 solos on the field so we were last. I was assigned to orange.

Blue clearly had better coordination for the first two games, so much so that they called for a rebalance for Game 3 which really balanced things out well.  Remaining games were excellent.

Food prices were good and it really hit the spot. Very down to earth fun to chat with folks. Love that nearly everyone working this place is family.

I get that everybody could have a bad experience. Some people didn't call shots, etc etc but it was a truly great experience for myself and I'm 100% going back. I made it a point to tell people it was my first time at the field and every staff member and player that heard it was super warm and welcoming. They know it's a solid field and they don't want people feeling left out.

Just great all around, I love this sport and I really...

Today was my first time at Ambush for their walk on day September 12th. Let me start by saying that the staff were amazingly friendly and very supportive for our group of four. Also the people playing are pretty honest, as I lost my gun and holster while running around and someone picked it up and took it to lost and found. They had a lot of game modes that were fun in theory, but I’ll get to that later. My first complaint is that they do not enforce the “bang” universal rule. In less than 10 minutes into the first game, there was an argument between players to “banged” and one who simply shot. Unfortunately at time this lead to some point blank shots, and one that hit my knuckle enough to make it bleed. My second major complaint is that the teams were COMPLETELY unbalanced. I was on the red team, which consisted of a lot of kids. I had no problem playing with kids, because it’s a fun game, and we all start somewhere. However, when one team is mostly casual players and the other is SWAT and Seal Team 6, the game quickly stops being so fun. There was no attempt to balance either team, and most rounds were a slaughter. I sat out the last round and counted 80 people on the Yellow Team and 35 on the Red Team. We were told that this was not typical, and that today was not a typical walk on day at Ambush. We had fun, we will be back, but we hope our next experience will be a...