Delta Force, Paintball, Southampton > Reviews (2)

After spending hours searching for a good 21st birthday present I came up with the idea of getting some paintball tickets. So I did a search on the net and found Delta Force who run paintballing centres all over the country, and as most of the people who would be coming were from the south coast I decided on going to the Southampton centre.

With this decided all I needed to get was the tickets. I managed to get 6 VIP tickets from ebay, which cost me about £40.
These tickets had to be used by Feb 05 so I had plenty of time to use them.

I needed to ring the Delta Force booking line to book the date that I wanted to go which was over the Easter weekend. I rang them and booked my venue and chosen date (10.04.04) all I had to pay for over the phone was the first 100 paintballs for each person going which was at a cost of £8 each. The people going had said they would pay me back the £8 on the day so that was ok. The equipment such as guns, helmets and paintball hoppers were included in the price already so I didn’t have to pay any extra for them.

My confirmation was sent through the post a few days later with a map of how to get to the centre. I was lucky as last year worked in Southampton and though I never knew it was there then as there are no signposts I more or less knew whereabouts it was, as I would pass the road leading to the centre everyday.

The paintballing centre in Southampton is located just off the M271. You leave the motorway at junction 1 and follow the road signs towards the Nursling Industrial Estate. Its then about ½ a mile from the roundabout outside the B&Q superstore just off the motorway. The centre itself is located just inside a quarry. But they do put up a signpost on the day because its very easy to miss the entrance.

THE DAY

You had to be at the paintballing for 9.15am prompt

The day of paintballing had finally arrived. I was wearing old clothing and some sensible shoes for the day as it said on there website. I met up with the other people at the B&Q and took them down the lane towards the centre.

There is plenty of parking once you are inside the main gates and the first thing that you notice is an armoured vehicle and large wooden fencing. The entrance to what is known as ‘Base Camp’ is behind the wooden fence. Before you can enter ‘Base Camp’ you first need to register and pay any money that is due at the reception (which is more of a hatch in the wall). This is where we were given the 100 paintballs that had been paid for over the phone.

We were then taken through what was a converted steel storage container (Like the ones you see on the back of lorries). This is where we picked up our paintball hoppers, helmets one size fits all and overalls these came in small medium large and extra large, the guns would be given to us later.

We waited around then for about 30 minutes during which time we had put the overalls on over our clothes. The Delta Force marshal’s came round and spoke to us as they did with everyone else who was there and put coloured tape on our arms explaining that the colour you were given is your team.

My group had 6 members in it so they put 3 of us in the red team and 3 of us in the blue team, they explained that even though we were on different teams we would be playing in the same games we would just be against each other. In total there were 4 different teams Red (which I was on), Blue (the team I would be against), Green and Yellows (these two teams would be separate from us and we wouldn’t be playing against them).

As a group we decided to get a locker to hold our valuables in like car keys, money and mobile phones as we didn’t really want to lose or damage anything while we were playing, these cost £1 plus a £4 deposit.

You can buy extra ammo straight away or throughout the day. The extra ammo you can buy from the ammo hut is
Extra Paintballs – in bags of 50 (£3) or 100 (£6) and also in a box of 2500 (£125)
Smoke grenades and paint bombs
Armoured gloves
You could also buy drinks, crisps and chocolate from here as well as you lunch ticket that cost £3.50.
I bought the lunch ticket as I had missed breakfast but the rest of my group didn’t. Lunch wasn’t very much really for the price paid it was 2 rolls bacon and sausage.

On the letter they sent out it was stated that there was a BBQ but I don’t think it was the weather for it really, so rolls would have to do.

After about an hour of waiting around and drinking the free cups of tea and coffee available everybody there on the day was brought together for a safety briefing from the head Marshall who explained the rules of the game and how the day was going to be planned. He went into great depth as the safety aspect of paintballing is paramount explaining that we would only get the guns once we entered the armoury and we would only be allowed into the armoury once our teams designated Marshall was satisfied that we had our helmets on.
We were told that our helmets had to remain on at all times once we had entered the armoury the only time we would be allowed to take them off was once we re-entered ‘Base Camp’ after each game. We were also told that once we were shot excluding any shots to the head, which didn’t count, we had to put our hand up and make our way to the ‘Dead Zone’ and once there you have to stay there until the end of that game.
You were also told that you are not allowed to shoot any body with there hands up or at close range. You have to be more than 3 metres away from the person otherwise you have to shout SURRENDER and move back a few paces and shot them.

About 10 minutes after the safety briefing Green and Yellow teams were rounded up and taken through to the armoury as there 1st game was about to start my team and our opponents the blue followed straight after.

We picked up our guns and were given the opportunity to take a few practice shots at wooden targets then we took a walk to our first game zone, which was located in the forest across the field. This is where all but one of the game zones is.
As with most forested areas there are a lot of brambles which didn’t help my teams cause as we were either getting caught up in them or cutting ourselves on them.

Over the Easter weekend it was quite wet so the ground was very muddy so everybody was getting stuck in the mud and slipping around. I managed to combine both the slipping around and cutting myself on brambles in one go by slipping and making a grab for something which turned out to be a bramble bush so I cut my hand and that was in the first game, I still had another 4 game zones to play. Obviously they have a first aid kit at the site but as I was being brave I didn’t feel I needed to use it.

THE GAMES

There are in total 5 different game zones and you played 10 games 2 in each zone one as the attackers and one as the defenders.
Protect the General
Afghan Fort
Castle Fort
Vietcong Village
Speedball

After these 5 games have been played you get to choose a favourite game to play but this must be done through voting within the whole group of 2 teams.

The games lasted for a total of 5 minutes each half so it was 10 minutes each game with the exception of Speedball, which as the name would suggest is a fast game, and is over in less than 5 minutes.

There’s a scoring system with 10 points to the winning team 6 points for a draw plus the marshals can award points to a team for good play but they can also deduct points for things like dangerous play or taking pot shots at the marshal’s.

At the end of each game we had to make our way back to ‘Base Camp’ to re-group and if we needed buy extra ammo for a 5 or 10 minute break. It seemed that everytime we went back to ‘Base Camp’ I was the only one who had a multi coloured helmet after all the head shots I took. The head was the only place on the body that didn’t count as being out if you were shot. So for once in my life I suppose I was using my head.

Our day finished around 3pm.

MY WAR WOUNDS

Yes its true that when you are hit by a paintball it hurts well that’s a slight understatement, especially when it hits you one any unprotected parts of your body, it even hurts through the layers of clothes you have on. It seemed everybody took a shine to shooting me in the hands, as I didn’t wear gloves.
I would get shot in the hands when I was making my way to the ‘Dead Zone’.

When you do get home and look for all those hits you took you look for what looks like an O shaped bruise or a huge mosquito bite.
My brother took a hit on his elbow and his bruise is really bad and looks very painful. I never found any bruises maybe I wore good padded clothes, but I did ache a lot for a day or two after because of all the running and rolling around I had done.

Overall the day is brilliant but it works out expensive especially if you are a trigger-happy bunch like my lot. This could be the reason why we bought the 2500 paintballs after the first game because most of us used our 100 in the first game.
Im certainly going to go again when I can afford too but I might try one of Delta Forces other sites just too see if there game zones are the same as the pictures from the website suggest that they have zones with planes and tanks.

It was very muddy though, I think next time I play it would be nicer in the summer as its less slippery.

Just incase you was wondering my team (Red) finished 4th out of 4 teams in the points table with 26 points, we were even beaten by a bunch of school kids who were playing in the green team.

Id recommend paintballing to anyone you do however have to be over the age of 11. There was a stag party at the site while I was there and that seems to be a really novel thing to do better than just doing the obvious, mind you I do think they were off to the city centre pubs afterwards.

I had a great laugh and had more fun than I can remember having before everyone in my group enjoyed the day and no doubt will be going again sometime.

Other Delta force sites are on the website
www.deltaforcedirect.co.uk