Paintball Action Games - I've only played here twice., but my experience was that it had good fields, good refs, and good crowd. Expensive, though. They don't let you bring your own paint and they charge $60 for a case of Diablo Nightmare.
Absolute Paintball (Red Mill Field) - hybrid woodsball/speedball. The owner, refs, and usual crowd are good. Smaller than PAG but cheaper and has consistent groups that play every week. You can bring your own paint.
Directions to the Field:
It's right in the middle of Porter Road, between 896 and rt. 72.
Review:
Well to start off, I've only played here once. I'll change my review to reflect additional outings as I go there again. Sentences in Italics reflect a revision after having gone there a second time.
CO2/Air: They only fill Co2 at this time.
Hours of Operation: 9am-7pm on Saturdays. 1pm-6pm on Sundays. Cost: I don't know what they charge for paint, as I brought my own. Rentals are $10 for generic spyder clones. Field Cost is $6 per person w/ unlimited CO2 refills. They just started the field this season, so all the equipment is new.
Field - At the moment, they have one very large field for woodsball. They could probably easily slice it into two fields for woodsball. It's roughly square in shape, making it fun and feasible to flank an enemy on all sides. There are pallets, fences, barrels, and bunkers made of sticks and logs through some parts of the field to supplement the tree cover. The center of the field is taken up by two fallen tree trunks, making a great bunker in the middle of the field. The boundaries of the field are marked by yellow police line. The field is new, and there are some parts of the field on the edges where there are thorns. Maybe time or the owner will remove those, because it's very uncomfortable without thick clothes. There's little modification done to the field and it will likely appeal to hardcore woodsball players.
Refs - By coincide of the date (dec. 17, close to christmas and cold), they did not have any refs at the time I went. However, the owner, Don, told me they usually have a few refs on a normal weekend and 10-20 players and that the refs are avid players themselves. They only had one ref the next time I went, but he was unbiased and knew what he was doing.
Facilities - Nothing fancy here. They have a clean porta potty (surprising considering the stereotype) for restrooms. They also have a shop were you can buy a decent variety of refreshments (candy, drinks, chips, etc.) for their usual prices.
Summary - Mansion House Farm is a good place to play woodsball in an environment that is not ultra-competitive. The prices are cheap, and they told us we could play closing time if we didn't need rentals, CO2, etc., but we still left early. The owner, Don, is a nice guy to know, but I haven't met the refs. The only problem I spotted in terms of safety was that at the time I went, they did not have a chrono. I wasn't overly concerned because I knew the people I was playing with, and we had left our guns the same since we last played, when it was 30 degrees warmer. The velocity likely dropped if anything. However, this is a potential safety concern, and I plan to mention it to the owner the next time I go.
Also, this field appeals to woodsball and recreational players. If you'd like to go to it, I recommend you to expect your gun and clothes to take a beating.
Overall, I enjoyed it, and I plan on returning. The second time I went there, they got themselves a Chrono!
Rating - I really enjoyed the time there. The field is new, and it still needs some time to grow and improve. I rate mainly based on the quality of the experience rather than small criteria. My only complaint was the lack of a chrono. For this I'll give it a 7. They got themselves a chrono. For taking care of that, I'm raising the overall rating to 9.
Last edited on Sunday, January 21st, 2007 at 7:36 am PST
quote:Originally posted by _Specter
No, they don't. I had asked the owner the same question and he said he'd try to get some air tanks in the future, but they don't have any right now.
