The First Victim
Was the schedule. Friday evening at site Roz said “Oh by the way, their Majesties will be making Raphael a Provost tomorrow and want to have his prize before the Woods Battle.” My initial reaction was along the lines of “CRAP!” But, on the other hand, for my friend Raphael to be honored this way, I’d burn the whole plan for the day and have everybody fight pickups. Luckily that wasn’t needed, but things didn’t go quite to that plan. After the procession their Majesties were to hold brief meetings of the peerages. They did so, and I was told those had resolved and they would be over immediately after. So while fighters had been inspected and authorized, we waited on the whim of their Majesties (which I found myself repeating many times to others). I then heard from Master Nikulai that they would be over between 1 and 1:30. I checked the watch. It was 12:30, an hour behind schedule. Well damn, but I had planned the schedule pretty thoroughly and knew I’d need half an hour for talking, and then two half hour blocks for fighting. The whims of their majesties could be accommodated.
Cult of Personality
There were, pretty much, 70 fighters and another 10 marshals and MiTs. One of the flaws of past years has been a difficulty in wrangling the fighters. I would have none of that this year. 80 damn cats, but I’d find a way. A lot of it came down to my ego. I am a cocky self-centered SOB and you will pay attention to me if I have the Big Stick of Being in Charge. Hopefully I will wield said big stick with due consideration and in the proper manner, but the fact remains it is in my hand, not yours. Disagreement with my decisions, methods, and attitude is perfectly acceptable, as is putting in your name now for RMiC at WotW VI.
In past years I’d seen the phenomenon of “Five minute warning!” “Oh, I’ve got time for lunch!” So I decided on limited warnings, and figured if I was ready to talk everybody should gather ’round. I treated rounding up the fencers much the same way I treat commanding a line on the battle field (see: R. Lee Ermey).
I grabbed the fighters and gave the thirty minutes of talking, expecting that if their Majesties were there at 1 we’d fight the woods after the Prize. They had not arrived, so we went into the woods to fight, and I expected the prize would be held at the halfway mark.
The Woods in Execution
In my walkthrough I had tried really hard to avoid a distinct terrain advantage to one side or another. One side, call it the West, had more clutter, so I favored the flags to that side. I ended up favoring one too much, to the point that the “South” flag was never contested. The center flag, “BDO” Start Point, and Northern flag were in a line, and at the start of fighting the two sides reached all three points pretty much simultaneously.
About that BDO: I had planned a sort of Ark of the Covenant with poles to carry it by. I was going to replace the golden eagles with stuffed kittyhawks and have an Ark of the Kittyhawk. I ended up using Gaston’s old sword box, with my marshal’s kit inside. It was long enough it was difficult for anybody other than a big guy to carry it by themselves, and I added to the rule set that it had to be carried by two people at all times, and handled gently. It survived the fighting far better than it survived me carrying it by myself.
The East End had clearer paths and sight lines and this proved a minor advantage. Sacred Stone started on the East End, and had an advantage both in rezzes and rez point captures in the first half which vanished in the second half after the sides switched and both sides had almost identical numbers of rezzes, commander rezzes, and rez point captures.
The fighting was remarkably clean and no safety issues occurred. My paperwork for my report is going to be dead easy.
The Prize
After 20 minutes in the woods I checked outside and found Their Majesties waiting there for five minutes, quickly discussed with them that we would be fighting for another 10 minutes, and once that resolved the rapier fighters attended Their Majesties.
The ceremony and prize added another hour to the schedule, and then we dove back in and ran the other half.
By the end of the woods it was 3:00. The Rapier Champions bout, and the induction of new scholars into the Academie, took another 30 minutes. Looking at 3:30 I realized we really didn’t have time to run the original plan for the ruins, so that got changed, too. Which meant…
The Ruins in Execution
…nothing for the ruins went according to plan. The map was discarded during setup when I realized we were short one or two necessary pieces. The replacement map was discarded on Friday when I realized we were short necessary manpower, time, and interest. Because of the condensed schedule, the scenario was discarded, and replaced with a straight last-man-standing, with sides switching. During all the setup issues with the ruins I had to remind myself to be flexible. Repeatedly. I had to do it again on Saturday, but by then my brain was kind of crispy and I wasn’t thinking through so well. The marshals, and Lord Connor, helped greatly on that.
One side had a clear terrain advantage here, and thinking back I wish I’d been able to run it as a “shorter time wins” scenario, but the heavies had my stopwatch. Instead, when both sides ended up with equal points, we had the commanders fight it out to determine the winner, which combined with the result of the Champions and the Woods, yielded Stierbach as the overall winner.
Things Forgotten
I forgot to eat lunch. Even though I never felt hungry I know I would’ve been operating at higher efficacy if I’d remembered to eat the snack bars I packed. A functional definition of irony: I reminded all the fighters to eat lunch in the e-mails I sent out. Also in those e-mails and unfortunately neglected, my hat and sunscreen.
I forgot the Vuvuzela I was going to use as for signaling. Used a coach’s whistle instead, which was hellacious on my ears.
My boots need insoles. My feet have felt like hamburger for the past three days.
Pick Your Volunteers
I learned this one from autocratting. Much of what made the day go smoothly is that, instead of taking whichever volunteer walked through the door, I sought out reliable help that I knew I could trust, and therefore didn’t have to worry about. Which made my job in the woods fairly passive, so I could actually watch what was going on.
Strategic Observations
The primary difference between the two sides, and the determinant of their success, came down to their makeup. For once, we had very similarly sized sides, 35 to 30. But whereas Sacred Stone consisted of formed baronial units of intermediate skill (Thor’s Mountain, Hawkwood, Nottinghill Coill, and Windmasters fielded units), the Stierbach force was less formed by units and more by ad hoc teams (Black Diamond and Stierbach itself were the only significantly sized baronial units in the group). Overall, Stierbach fielded more provosts and free scholars, but the old trope about teamwork actually proved right this time.
However, the unit structure of the Sacred Stone force was not without its drawbacks. I saw one unit of 6 to 8 fighters holding a flag with no opposition, and basically watching as Sacred Stone’s center got munched by a hard press. Somewhere in there somebody forgot to give the units permission to split up and reinforce each other.
Dante described his strategy to me at one point in the fighting. I don’t think I can do it justice, but it struck me at the time as both a good plan and not effective in the reality of the situation. I wish I could remember his words, because I’m not going to attempt to paraphrase them.
Other People’s Thoughts
Baron Girard’s thoughts as a newcomer to rapier melee
Gawin’s thoughts on tactics
And Atlantian Rapier Net is just chock full of people opining.
Appendices:
Appendix A – Announcement E-mails
Appendix B – Point Totals
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