The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

Hmmmm, that just sounds less impressive than the Thunderdome mantra.  Though, really, the Atlantian 5-man tourney isn’t the Thunderdome, it’s a little less hardcore than that, what with the whole “Kill our friends, not hurt them”.  “2 friends enter, 2 friends leave, just one of them leaves a little sooner than the other” doesn’t have that ring of awesomeness either.  Oh well.  Yes, if you haven’t guessed, this entry will have some discussion of

The Atlantian 5-Man Tourney

Two years back I was a teensy bit whiney because, dammit, I wanted to have a team that wasn’t just whoever from the Barony showed up, but was actually a bit more selective than that.  And, as luck would have it, 5 Marxbruders were there (actually, 7, so Jean-Maurice and Wymarc had to dig up their own teams): Alric, Aldemere, Thomas, Letia, and me.  So we had our team: Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo, and Dot, which the MoLs changed to Groucho-the-Junior-Provost*, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo, and Dot, which the marshals changed to “GROUCHO!!!”  A plan should survive first contact with the enemy, but awesomeness never survives first contact with bureaucracy.

After the Stupid Question Session (really, people, you just… gah!) we were divvied out to our pools and the first round was announced.  Our first fight?  The Dragoons (Dante, Armand, Mattheu, Aedan, and Benjamin).  At Lay On I engaged Mattheu on our right and attempted to occupy Aedan’s attention (landed a shot on his off-hand, that made me real proud).  I then engaged Mattheu closely (too closely, sorry about that dude) took him as Aedan passed us and engaged Letia (who double-killed with him).  I didn’t see much of what happened on the other side of the field, but we ended up with a three-on-one with Benjamin and finished him, then stared at eachother dumbfounded thinking “No, that didn’t really happen”.  We spent the next little while alternately being cocky and then trying to figure out how many of us clearly must have rhino-hided some shot that killed us.  But, yeah, we were pretty happy.

Against other teams we fared pretty well, but made a couple of mistakes and ended up with a 5-2 or 4-2 record.  Not enough to go to the play-offs, but not bad for our first outing, and we have a whole big list of things to work on (like “spend time training together”)

Meanwhile, over on another pool, his Excellency, Ruarik, Gawin, Jaume, and Jason (now to be known as “Tassin”), forming the team “We’ll only stick the tip in”, plowed through their pool, beating the Black Tigers (who won the tourney) on the way, and ended up going to the quarters, which they won, and ended it in the semis.  Not bad, eh?

They did it again in the Household Tourney, going 1 and 1 with the Black Tigers there (the Marxbruders took their fight with the Dragoons in the Household Tourney, so it wasn’t entirely chance).

Between the 5-Man and the Household tourney, Aedan was bored and started challenging people to a knife fight.  Without eye protection.  But at least we were sober this time, and he’s a provost, which excuses it, right?  He, Aldemere, Arghylle, Cat, Alric, Sinclair, and I took turns trying to poke eachother’s eyes out (“Wymarcking”) but were unsuccessful.

The absolute best time to lead with your face

Damn sobriety.  Also, it was pointed out that only Atlantians were doing this (or any kind of fighting between the tournaments).  So, really, are we the only ones who like fighting?

*Alric, Free Scholar of Atlantia, was described in an article in the Pennsic Independent as a “Junior Provost”.