The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

How’d it go for you?

 

(One of these days somebody else will do an event post mortem…)

The day’s fighting broke up in to three pieces:

Part 1: Woods Melee

First was an hour or so long woods melee.  There were three capture points along the center of the field.  Each side had three flags.  A capture point was only captured when a team’s flag was in it (the capture points were PVC tubes for the flag poles to go into).  The enemy could pull the flag out of the capture point, at which point it would have to go back to rez before coming back out on to the field.

Halfway through we switched ends of the field.  Possession was checked randomly (and unannounced) throughout the battle.

The “North” side was lots of little pine saplings and muddy ground between rez and the flags.  The footing was really crap.   But the rez point was closer to the flags

The “South” side was much more open and firm, with clear sight lines and lots of paths through the trees.  The rez point was further away to compensate for the better ground.

Jean-Maurice, RMiC, split up the scholars, free scholars, and white scarves relatively evenly, and did a good job of balancing the sides.

His prep work in laying out the field, and judgment in balancing the sides, paid off: The teams tied at the end of the hour.  Blue, which started off on the South side, had more heavy hitters, but they flagged after twenty minutes or so.  Yellow, starting North, had a lower average skill level, but a ton of cardio (the three Green Scarf Lads were over there) and were able to push the fight to the end.  This showed up in the scores: Blue won the first half by a point, Yellow won the second half by a point.

From my spot on the Blue team it looked like great fighting.  The trees were a little denser around the western flag, the ground much more open around the eastern flag, so there were some steady line fights mid-to-west, and lots of skirmishing on the east, with massed charges carrying the point, then being attrited or redistributed, and overwhelmed by a counter charge.  I spent most of my time either skirmishing on the eastern flag or hunting Mattheu, because Welcome to the Order, Sucker! (Oh, yeah, Mattheu’s a White Scarf now, got made right before the fighting started).

A few takeaways for me:

Make everybody sit down when giving the briefing.  Some White Scarves are given to standing around talking instead of listening to the RMiC (CERTAINLY not me) and we, er, they had no idea what was going on and had to ask again.  Making everybody sit means everybody can see and hear, and be seen and heard.

Then demonstrated DFB, even if everybody’s done it a thousand times.  There’s a guy who’s been authorized ten years who did it wrong during the battle.  He probably should’ve had his card yanked, but we can’t be sure he saw the DFB briefing and just ignored it, or didn’t see it.

Don’t charge Ruairc, even if he really has it coming.  I kinda hit him hard in the face.  Then I kinda tripped and landed hard on my shoulder, and my rotator cuff is very irritated.  One of these I regret more than the other.  I’ll be sure to tell you as soon as I figure out which.

Cardio.  I haven’t been hitting the bike as much as I’d hoped to (only once a week or so), due to health issues around the house the past month.  But, it’s 70 degrees in the morning here now.  Really no excuses.

 

Queen’s and King’s Champions Tournament

After the woods melee a tourney was held to determine the Queen’s Champion, with the runner-up to serve as King’s Champion.  I’d been debating entering it, but figured I couldn’t in good conscience serve as QC without going to Pennsic (I was more flexible on KC and Pennsic), and could not in good conscience fight any less than my best, which meant a decent risk of screwing with my conscience.  I’m 99% skipping Pennsic this year so She Who Must Be Obeyed and I can go see the Mair fechtbuch in Munich in October or so.  There’ll be other reigns, hopefully.

As a result, though, I got to marshal the tourney and narrate the finals fight for Their Highnesses (Dante vs. Giacomo).  Giacomo took it after five passes.

 

Charity Tourney

The fighting wrapped with the charity tourney.  However, I wasn’t around to participate in it because I was off defending the Iron Spike which I picked up at Defending the Gate.  Faced Gawin, Geoffrey, Raph, and Colin, and still have it.  I’m liking having the thing, because it means I get challenges from people who genuinely plan to kick my ass, and aren’t busy cursing the Luck of the List.  The result is great fights, and I was tuckered out afterward.