SITE | THE DEPOT

Hey everyone! Welcome back to the blog, and apologies for how quiet it's been! I've had international guests and been travelling the UK to play airsoft, but I'm back on the grind and today I have another site review for you! This time on the Depot, Glasgow.

On the 16th of August, myself, Unicorn Leah and Jet Desertfox drove to Scotland to attend The Depot in Glasgow for the first time for their Charity weekender. We arrived on Friday 16th after a hellish 7.5-hour drive from my home in the East Midlands and settled into our Airbnb in Paisley ready for 2 days of intense CQB action. The Depot is a site that I’ve heard and seen a fair bit about from both the internet and my friends beyond the wall.

Acarius Photography

The Depot is situated in the heart of Glasgow and first opened its doors in 2013. It is the largest in-play area indoor site in Scotland with 2 floors, 7 stairwells and 150,000 square feet of space. The site is fully indoors with a large car park, a safe-zone with ample seating/tables for players to set-up for the day and it’s complete with lockers, (actual) toilets and an on-site shop stocking all the game day essentials from BBs to gas, to cans of pop and snacks. As the Depot does not serve food it’s advised that players either order lunch through them or bring their own lunch or visit the shops which are a 5-minute drive). The cost of a walk-on fee for the Depot is £32.

As it was a charity weekender the games were slightly different to what would be normally run on a regular skirmish day from what I understand. The weekender was in aid of their two chosen charities The Coming Home Centre (helping local armed forces veterans), and The SAS Regimental Association - both worthy charities. For the weekend they also had Landwarrior down to showcase the latest Umarex rifles and Valken was on site to show their range of AEGs, protection and other accessories.

@piszczyk_dd4

@piszczyk_dd4

On the first day of the event, we arrived at the address for The Depot but on arrival, we noticed that it took us to a furniture warehouse - I had tried to ring the site but there is little phone signal in that area. After a few minutes, I walked up to the doors of the warehouse, knocked and walked in - as soon as I saw the airsoft company banners I knew I was in the right place so out I went to park the car and retrieve the gear. We filled in our waivers and were shown to the Marshalls set-up area (as the safe zone itself was pretty jam-packed). We got ready and made our way to the gaming area for the safety brief which was delivered by Baz, the Depot’s head marshall. The safety brief was very comprehensive covering all the basics such as eye/face/ear protection, where and what pyrotechnics could be used, emergency procedures but also going into detail about areas of the site that had hazards as there had been some severe rain the night before. The first game brief was also given just after this.

Games played over the weekend were varied and kept everyone on their toes, they included team deathmatches, attack/defend, domination and capture the flag style games with medic rules (which made the huge site far more playable). The very first game was a standard team deathmatch to balance the two teams and then we moved on to more objective-based games. One of my favourite games throughout the Saturday was a game that involved a small team (separate to the main two banded teams) defending multiple items including a stretcher, dummy, a tourniquet and an IV which were located next to the van on the ground floor of the Depot. A few of the site regulars and myself and Jet were on the defensive team and started at the toilet block near the van. Shortly after game on was called, both teams battled to get to our location. Myself, Jet and another member of the defence team secured one of the main ‘funnels’ into the area of the site the attackers were trying to get to, we held this down for a long time with some fierce firefights! Eventually, the attackers overran us and took some of the objectives to the second floor. After this, we were told to spawn in the toilet block and our mission was to retrieve them so we fought our way through the dark offices at the bottom of the site and battled up the stairs. We didn’t retrieve the objectives but had a lot of fun trying! The games for the rest of the day were also really fun. On the Saturday I didn’t know how dark the site was so didn’t use a torch or tracers but by the end of the first day, I realised I would need this for the Sunday.

The game played on the second day of the event was vastly different from the day before. It was a long, objective-based game which we played for the entire day. It was a scavenging game that used a spawn clock to spawn both teams of players in, in the same location. This game mode for me wasn’t my jam but because it was a new game it did have some kinks that needed to be ironed out. This game involved two teams battling over objectives including hostages and money, it also had special characters. In this game, a spawn clock was used. Meaning both teams respawned in the same space and had 5-minute intervals to respawn, but if you missed your slot you were then waiting for another 10 minutes. I was very vocal with the Marshalls about the spawn clock. Luckily enough in the afternoon, the spawn clock was sacked off for regular medic/respawn rules. In the afternoon session, myself, Leah and Jet joined the special characters as the white coats. Which meant we were against EVERYONE else. This part of the game was SO fun - it was so target-rich and got the adrenaline going, although we did get spawn trapped a couple of times. The afternoon session on Sunday was my favourite part of the weekend - I LOVED wearing a costume and shooting.

@piszczyk_dd4

@piszczyk_dd4

@piszczyk_dd4

There were a few improvements that I would suggest - the site isn’t signposted which means it can be difficult to find if you don’t know what you’re looking for (after the event, the staff told me this is for security reasons) I think the site could definitely do with some kind of signage that can be taken up and down, the spawn clock in my honest opinion doesn’t work on skirmish days unless the site is large (and I’m talking acres) I think this should be saved for MilSims apart from those two things I think the site and the games themselves were very well run.

The Marshalls at the Depot were all friendly, easy to chat to and nothing was too much hassle. I felt very welcomed by the team especially the Marshalls playing the special characters - they welcomed us into their team readily. The other players on-site were friendly and helpful, and I had no issues hit taking. On occasion if I felt like a player wasn’t taking their hits (due to not feeling it etc) I simply fired an extra couple of shots into them and all was well.

Overall, I had a great time at The Depot in Glasgow. The site itself is enormous and offers lots of varied gameplay from long engagements to close, dark CQB. Whether you like your CQB fast and hard-hitting, or slower and stealthier, the different areas of the site can accommodate for that. It has a lot of cool graffiti and different coloured lighting which add to the atmosphere. The games were varied and kept all the players on their toes and more importantly, the marshall team listened to players feedback on the day and tweaked the games accordingly. The facilities onsite are really good and the staff run a good game day. I am very much looking forward to my next visit.

@piszczyk_dd4

@piszczyk_dd4