[Ansteorra-archery] New Combat Archery Rule affecting Egg Baldar Blunts

[jspinks at ix.netcom.com]

Although I believe you are doing your best under adverse conditions, I think, Milord, that you may have missed the point.  Baldars are generally bought for one of two reasons- an archers lack of time over money to make blunts or (lets be honest) an archers disgust at fighters ignoring hits and an intent to get something that hits harder.  I have had a number of interesting discussions this day at Emerald Keep with both fighters and archers.  Several fighters admitted that crossbow bolts were the main culprits that needed the apds and were surprised to learn of the difficulty  of shooting an arrow with an apd.  They were also rather unhappy to learn that as a result it has caused a number of archers to switch to crossbow due to the ability of a crossbow to accurately fire an apd bolt. When it was mentioned that the baldar eggs were outlawed there was NO recognition of helm penetration problems, only that they hit and left a bruise and they were happy that they were gone.  With that view I believe it will be tough convincing the archery community that this issue is about helm penetration.

As to the archers views- it was mostly that they either quit playing combat archery with the addition of apds or they will not start until the rules settle down.  For those that have only been in combat archery 2-3 years such as myself and others- it does indeed seem that there are incessant changes- fiberglass from wood, apds, no baldars, switch to crossbow (because of aforementioned inaccuracies) etc etc.

Like it not I am basically out the money for the blunts as well as the time I do not have to add blunts to my 50 crossbow bolts.  I am accurate with a bow.  I expect to be equally so with a crossbow.  I predict, though, the next change will be to reduce the power of crossbows and I will then be looking to change my crossbow power from the maximum.  At that point I will probably join others on the sidelines rather than continue bear the cost of further change.
Jacques
-------Original Message-------
From: Eadric Anstapa <eadric at scabrewer.com>
Sent: 04/19/03 08:01 PM
To: ansteorra-archery at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra-archery] New Combat Archery Rule affecting Egg Baldar Blunts

>
> ----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerita" <hpockets at verizon.net>
>
> Nonetheless, my lord Eadric.  These incessant changes to our equipment
are
> truly making it impossible to afford to keep up.
>

Lets be fair.  Incessant?  The last equipment change for archers required
by
the society that I am aware of was announced two years ago and that was
the
APDs.  I don't think that qualifies as incessant.  In that two years there
have been changes in other combat areas.

And as far as impossible to afford, I don't think that APDs where any
great
expense when you consider a very good APD costs you about 15 cents per
arrow.  Yes, there are people who bought Baldar Blunts who can now not use
them and that is for now an expenditure that they can not recover.
However,
those were absolutely the most expensive blunts they could have bought.  A
good homemade blunt that would still today be legal would have costed
about
a third of what the Baldar blunt did.

> T'would seem that it wouldn't Always need to be the archers making the
changes.
> Not to open the same can of worms yet again, but it's an obvious
situation.

Your are correct.  The archers shouldn't always need to make changes and
they are not.  There have been other people who have had to make changes
and
there will be more.  in this case there have been incidents and it was
judged that the fault lies with the Baldar Blunts so that is where action
was taken.

That being said let me say that I am probably less excited about this than
most other people because I don't use Baldar Blunts.  I can easily afford
them but I evaluated them and determined that there were many more reasons
not to use them that were there were to recommend them.

To me the obvious situation is that is could have been much worse than it
is.  I firmly believe we have an SEM that is on our side and I would not
have said that a year ago.  It could have been much worse than it is.
Trust
me on this one.  I spent from 11AM until about 7PM on Friday working and
doing my best to make sure that it was not any more than just the Baldar's
affected.

Always in Service,


Lord Eadric Anstapa
Kingdom Archery Marshal, Ansteorra
eadric at scabrewer.com


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