Review: Niagara Quartermaster's Airsoft Field, Saint Anns, ON

[Kozure]

The Basic Details

Website: https://niagaraquartermaster.com/pag...ld-information
Location: RR 20, Saint Anns, ON L0R 1Y0
Admission: $15 for admission with own gear, $25 during monthly MilSim events. See below for rental packages.
Hours: 1 PM - 5 PM, walk-ons on Sundays, hours vary for MilSims.
Field Rules: https://niagaraquartermaster.com/pag...ld-information



Getting There

Niagara Quartermaster's Airsoft field is southwest of St. Catharines and quite easy to get to from Toronto by car. Several large signs on the road as you approach on Highway 20 make it easy to spot. On the day I travelled there, it took just under an hour and a half to get there from my starting point at Allen and Eglinton road, putting it just under the 90 minute travel limit I've set for fields to review.

The route is simple: QEW to the Regional Road 24/Victoria Ave exit, south to Highway 20, right (west) just under a kilometre, and you're there. It's all paved roads until the short turn off to the field, where there is a dirt road about 100m long to the field. On the weekend I went, May 28th, recent heavy rains had turned the road pretty muddy.

Parking is next to the field and staging area and has a lot of space for cars and tucks, but drivers should note that many of the stalls are on grass/field and some areas became muddy in the spring. The problem should subside (somewhat?) by mid summer.



First Impressions



My very first impression was that there was a lot more people out for the event than I had expected. It was apparent from the amount of good quality gear and the number of organized teams participating that this wasn’t just your usual walk-on skirmish day. To be fair, this was their monthly MilSim event, in this case, Operation Emerging Reign, so perhaps it wasn’t representative of a typical turn-out, but I was pretty impressed.

The staging area was relatively quiet when I first arrived but quickly filled up and became a hive of activity. I hadn’t yet encountered a reserved pavilion for a specific team, in this case the home field of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Pretty snazzy.



Like many other fields, staff and game control personnel wore red shirts with the NQ logo. Periodic announcements of time to game start and frequent requests that people get registered and chrono’d lent the event an urgency that contrasted with some laid-back approaches at other fields.

My first impression was that despite there being relatively little buzz about NQ at the Airsoft Canada forums and on Facebook compared to some other fields, this was a well-run field with a lot of players.


Admission / Rental Equipment / Pro Shop / Facilities



Admission was $25 (tax in) on the day I was playing for the MilScrim. On other days it’s apparently $15 for skirmishing.

Rental package is

-ARES M4A1 Assault Rifle
-7-Pocket Chest Rig
-5 x M4A1 140rd Magazines
-Facemask
-Battery
-Speed Loader
-1000rds of .25gr BBs Ammunition
-Your Paid Entrance Fee

This package costs $50.00 and must be paid in advance at the store, as well as requiring a safety deposit of a valuable such as ID, credit card or keys.



The pro shop was well kitted-out and offers a number of items for sale:

Airsoft Logic .25g x 4000 - $25
Airsoft Logic .30g x 3300 - $28
Crossfire Green Gas - $15
CO2 Canisters - $1 ea.
2 x Medic Bandages - $1
Kill Rag - $1
Water - $1
Sports Drink - $2
Chips - $1

The chronometer was set up just adjacent to the shop, next to the main entrance to the field past a line with clear safety signage.



Next to the chrono area, there is a long section which can serve as a range, but I didn’t see targets set up. It’s possible that I just missed them in my excitement.

There is a portable washroom on site and a large staging area with both covered and uncovered table areas.





Fenwick is about a five minute drive away and has a few restaurants and shops.

Field / Terrain



Because the event was organized as a MilScrim, there wasn’t an opportunity to take photos of the field between matches as I’ve done for other reviews. It was pretty much active from game start at ~12:15 until endex at 6. Thus, I have no photos of the field itself aside from the blue team CP. I hope future visits will allow more time to capture some of the really interesting locations.

The field is mostly woods, but there are large areas which have been built up with wooden structures. There is a drainage ditch which transverses the field as well as a pond. A number of paths, generally well marked and in many cases with directional signage, connects several named objective locations.

A map of the field can be found here:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/02...98428479861886

The names of locations are descriptive and memorable – Firebase Bravo, Scallywags, Satellite Station, and offer a variety of experiences. Five hours of play over the field allowed me the opportunity to fight in almost every location.

In lieu of photos, I’ll give a brief description of each location.

Killhouse
Saw this location from a distance, as I provided rear security for the main assault. Looked like a difficult built up structure on the shores of a pond.

Bank/Gas Station
Two main buildings with a lot of adjacent cover and outbuildings. Close enough for shooters to engage each other from inside.

Scallywags
Named after a sign for a Scallywags pirate-themed restaurant. Most extensive set of structures, lots of cover and opportunity for CQB. Fairly open terrain to the north and south and among the buildings, with forest coming right up to the edge on east and west sides.

Satellite Station
A number of smaller buildings and lots of cover, relatively open terrain.

Firebase Bravo
Bunker, low cover, a few scattered OPs.

Deep Woods
As advertised, a location deeper into the woods.

Crossroads
A landmark crossing of several trails. Great location for an ambush, as both sides conducted them here.

SAM Site
Only saw this one from a distance, looked like a mocked up SAM launcher (?)

Shipyard “Boats”
Near the SAM site, next to a pond, scattered vehicles and a boat or two.

Slums
Never got out here. Not sure what it entails. Most southerly point of the field and probably very wooded.

On the day we were playing, heavy rains in the weeks before had turned some lower-lying areas into very swampy ground, and even some paths were hard to traverse without getting a soaker. Accompanying this early prevalence of marshy, swampy ground were lots of mosquitoes. If you plan to play at this field in spring, have suitable footwear and/or be prepared to get wet and muddy. Also be certain to pack insect repellent – you will regret not doing so taking about ten paces into the forest anywhere near standing water, which is pretty much the entire western and northwestern part of the field.



Our CPs were at opposite ends of the field and were out of play (unlike some harder-core MilSims). The tall wind turbine at the south-southwest side of the field served as a very useful navigation landmark.



Overall the field is mostly woods, but a few of the locations have larger open areas around the structures that permit longer range engagement. The path network is extensive and there are a lot of ways to attack/approach any given site.

Game play

The day was set up as a “MilScrim” – a play on the usual “Military Simulation” in that it was halfway (in size and scope) between a real 12-24-36 hour MilSim and a 20 minute skirmish – 6 hours over a large(ish) field.

Event rules and scenario description are written here, so I don’t need to repeat them in full:

https://niagaraquartermaster.com/pag...emerging-reign

In summation, two sides try to either place a bomb or prevent a bomb from being placed at pre-scheduled objective locations. The bomb, once placed, must be defended against disarming (by a touch) for approximately 15-20 minutes.

Both sides split themselves into smaller 4-8 person squads, with an overall team leader calling the shots over radio. Control of the field was important, since there was often opportunity to move on and capture (or defend) the next know bomb planting location shortly before the timer for the previous bomb was complete.

There were the usual minor issues with radio comms being spotty and coordination of some teams resulting in some blue-on-blue incidents, but otherwise the game play felt exactly like it was supposed to be – somewhere between the free-for-all of a skirmish match and the simulation-heavy regimentation of a MilSim. It perfectly matched my mood and inclination for the day and I had a fantastic time.

Players seemed to call their hits that I saw, and while I did hear some bitching about one or two players not calling hits, the mood was generally good. Our team, Blue, got off to a good start and seemed to carry most of the momentum for the day, though we faltered a bit when we suffered some well-conducted interdiction ambushes near the field entrances to the Crossroads area.

I’m not sure of the final attendance numbers, but it appeared that we had upwards of 30-40 people per side, if not more, and almost every firefight involved at least 10 shooters on both sides, with several (two epic fights at Scallywags and Satellite come to mind) seeming to involve 75% of both teams.

Blue was victorious in the end, but Yellow put up a great fight, especially around Firebase Bravo and the Killhouse/Shipyards. The final push at Shipyards felt like a classic Second World War Soviet human wave attack (but in a good way!).

Full auto was permitted for LMGs, SAWs and IAR-type weapons approved by game control. In practice, full auto was used extensively by the SAWs and LMGs on both sides. A stand-out memory for the day was one player who was using a great MG-34 replica which looked like it was putting sheets of BBs downrange. Good thing he was on Blue!

Referees / Administration

This field had the most extensive and thorough safety and rules briefing I’ve seen yet at any field, indoor or outdoor. It covered safety, rules, medic procedures, the works. Game control in their red shirts were very much in evidence at almost every engagement I saw (with the exception of a few minor skirmishes occurring at peripheral sites). Often they were literally in the middle of the action – I definitely saw a few refs get hit with BBs, unfortunately.

I didn’t see any rules infractions, though enforcement of “eyepro at all times” at the CPs was a little lax by comparison to the guidelines set out by the brief. Considering it was a hot and humid day and the CPs were out of play, I didn’t mind that at all.

Game control provided rides to and from both CPs for players to retrieve gear or resupply as the game went on – a feature not usually present at full MilSims, but certainly it was appreciated by some who didn’t pack everything for the day into their kitbags.

Admission and registration was professional, and this field calculates joules instead of always using 0.20g BBs for chrono’ing, which is an important distinction for some of the snipers who were using 0.30 and 0.35 BBs. For players unfamiliar with joule calculations as opposed to a straight fps number, be sure your combination of BB weight and fps works out correctly!


Possibilities for Improvement

This field had pretty much everything I look for in an outdoor field. Maybe one or two objectives located in slightly more open terrain would be appreciated. The parking area was a little bumpy, but nothing that any car short of a lowrider couldN'T handle.

The mosquitoes were pretty fierce for Southern Ontario (nothing compared to Northern Ontario backwoods, but still) and if that sort of thing bugs you, you probably don’t want to come near this field during mozzie season, or at least avoid the marshy areas around the drainage ditch and the pond.

Overall

This is a solid, solid field. I have to say that given that I had heard very little about this field, my expectations were very low (sorry, NQ!) but I want to stress that I had a great day at a very well-run event. I’m not sure how long this field has been running but it felt like the procedures, gameplay and safety were all spot-on and well considered. I liked the terrain, the objectives and the scenarios. Refs were around but not heavy-handed, and the players seemed like a great bunch.

Reading the scenario description, it seemed pretty ambitious for a walk-on, non-registered MilScrim event, but the admins handled it well and players “got into” it fairly quickly, despite some initial confusion.

As a Toronto-based player, I’d probably want to call this a “hidden gem” of a field, but I suspect it’s well known to the Airsofter community around the Niagara peninsula, and deservedly so.


TL; DR Version

Solidly run and organized field with good mix of mostly wooded terrain, clear objectives and (in this case) an interesting scenario. Recommended unless you aren’t comfortable with mud or mosquitoes.

.
Christopher "Kozure" Ono