Woodland Masters - Round 2 Review

[James ECI]

So once again the event had even more teams than expected. Now at 20 teams its come a long way from last year.

This was brilliant as the site was packed out. Great atmosphere - it felt like a proper woodland event.

The weather was decent and i felt the reffing standard had increased.




With the increased number of teams prizes were given out as well



There will be prize ceremony video

Post up your thoughts and let others know your experience!!!

 

[Marc0]

I knew I had made a BIG mistake as soon as I walked on to the fields.

I had agreed to ref the series before Round 1 and stand by that comment, but damn I wanted to PLAY so bad

Great teams, great players, great games, great fields, great reffing , lots of field time, lots of games, great seeding system, great facilities .... I could go on.

If you are not playing this series you are missing out !

 

[James ECI]

Prize giving video has been uploaded in the first post!

Shame on @I am Cassius @Dave S ECI and @phil-boy !! where are your comments?? I know you were there

@Marc0

 

[I used to good.Honest]

Another good turn out. Good to see new faces and play against young whippersnapper teams and not just us old farts, this one was a lot harder to win.
Standard of marshaling was excellent as per usual. I even learned something, on field in our final game I was chronoed mid game and told to keep going to ramp, I didn't even know what ramping was. Apparently it's pulling the trigger loads of times (bit technical there) so thanks jon bonich for setting up my gun to ramp at the correct whatever it is, I'm still old school and still use just the one finger to fire.
Anyway back to the woodland masters, credit has to go again to Dave Simpson and Mark "twizz " Dale for putting on another great event , it's fast becoming THE woodland event to attend. Hopefully more and more teams attend and we can maybe reach the heady heights of two or three day events and semis and finals.
More industry support to get more people interested in tourney woodsball again. That's where the bread and butter for the industry is. Most people go for a fun day out with their mates when they first start and the ones that keep coming back will then want to form their own team and will want more than just going to a big game or their local walk on. That's how most of us old farts started back in the dinosaur days. They simply aren't all going to want to start playing sup air and getting minimal game time with lots of outlay, so get them young enough and playing competitive paintball and maybe then we will have the next generation of maybe not world beaters but matching it with the big boys Europe wise and stateside. Maybe rather than looking for new ways to get more people interested and looking to get the new generation of superstars for competition paintball, we sometimes have to go backwards and look what was successful in the past.
The woodland masters is a great step and hopefully there's more sites wanting to put on woodland tournaments then the industry starts selling more gear to the new players coming in and they win and start putting on bigger and better events, it's win win all round.
But they will only do this when they see events such as the woodland masters being full and new teams coming in.
So well done to dave and twizz for keeping at it and pushing for more.
We all owe them our thanks for their time and effort in doing this.
So from the UK preds I thank all for turning up and giving us some really hard games and thanks to the marshalls for running so many games back to back on two fields all day and special thanks to twizz and dave again .
Thanks to valken for the superb valken pro paint. The best paint out there bar none. And thanks to virtue for our spires, bunkering packs and virtue goggles.

See y'all in July

 

[phil-boy]

OK then Sci-fi, My two-penneth.

First Woodland event for me as I was on holiday for the first leg.

My impression was - Excellent. The fields were good as unlike Sup-air there did not seem to be a commanding side or bunker that was key to a win. For the games we played it was as if we were on a different field every game which made it interesting all round and watching other games was a buzz as everyone played it differently.

Was good to see some of the Old School Teams and faces from the past and was good to also see some young teams having a go as well, its these teams that will make this bigger and better.

The marshaling was awesome and fair, I did not see any bad decisions or anyone spitting their dummies out and felt that everyone played fair and took their elimination with no playing on.

It was our first time out with our new RSX Shockers which did not miss a beat all day and we were using our new Valken playing kit and used the Valken paint which again was spot on - A big thank you goes out to Valken UK for this.

Also well done and thanks to Twizz and Dave for putting this on, each event seems to grow bigger and better, maybe as Steve has already said in time this could become a 2 day event !

My only quibble was the long walk to and from the fields - My feet ache to bits today.

Cheers all and hope to see you at the next event.

 

[James ECI]

Thanks @phil-boy - These events only grow if we keep talking about them, tell stories of what happened and give those that haven't had the chance to play them to know our experiences.

As i posted previously for the first event, honest feedback is what is needed to ensure that improvements are made and that the event is kept fresh.

See you in July Phil

 

[James ECI]

 

[I am Cassius]

Ok being as you asked so nicely!
Mr Beale has pretty much covered everything in his post, top day, well run and superbly organised the step up from a handful of teams to 20 has been handled perfectly, even if one team tried to spoil it by turning up at the wrong field,how unprofessional is that, nearly throwing everything out of sync!
Sorry about that!
Well done to all the teams that attended, found the standard of play a lot higher this time and that can only be a good thing as teams improve.
Thanks to all the marshals, who were coming under a bit of pressure from the sidelines it has to be said, to Twizz and Dave and also James, @sci-fi1991 who also puts a lot of time into making this happen. On a personal note well done to our red team, not such a good day for us blues but we still all thoroughly enjoyed it.
Our deposits are paid for the next round and it really can't come soon enough. Get yourselves booked in and give this a go you will love it!
Everyone else seems to be taking the opportunity of thanking their sponsors so, thanks to Ledz at Planet eclipse and anyone out there that wants to give us anything we're listening? On behalf of the Turks thank you
Regards
Cass

 

[James ECI]

Thanks Cass

 

[Gadget]

It was another great event. Really encouraging to see some new teams turn up - we've got to keep encouraging the sup air only squads to give the format a try, as we need the young blood, us oldies can't keep it going for ever.

Reffing was excellent, opponents were tough on the field but friendly in the safe zone. Great facilities, even better than Round 1 in the lower safezone - it felt spacious even with 20 teams staging.

I didn't enjoy the fields quite as much as round 1, but love having the variety. Chronoing could possibly be tightened - only had 1 player chronoed for our first game, but that's me being nitpicky. Only other tiny quibble was the timing going a bit wonky following the lunchbreak - one field getting out of sync with the other, which led to some fairly long waits to get on the field, but it just meant more time to spectate and shoot the **** with other teams, so not a bad thing

One thing I do miss from events back in the day is having a big scoreboard showing results throughout the day - it helps ramp the tension up when you start working out what kill count you need and who is going to come where, maybe something to consider for round 3?

Overall it was fantastic, blows any sup air tournament out of the water for enjoyment and gameplay time. I really hope it goes from strength to strength, as it's the only competitive format I enjoy playing now!