[Ansteorra-archery] Ansteorra-archery Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9

[Eric Brown]

Okay this begs a couple good questions.

What are CA Archers favorite scenarios and
in a rough way, why?

If you could make up an scenario, JUST to be extra fun for archers, what 
would it be?

What do you guys think of Boat battles (We have not done them In my 
memory since North sea raids.)

When I first heard of boat battles I though they were the stupidest 
thing I'd even seen, I even thought about
boycotting them because I thought they were so stupid (and this was at 
Pennsic)

But after doing them I decided they were the best thing ever... and they 
seem like a natural for archery IF you can have enough folks in
the boat to allow archers to have both hands free.

What else?

Caladin-







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>    1. Re: Gothic questions. (Eadric Anstapa)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:00:22 -0500
> From: Eadric Anstapa <eadric at scabrewer.com>
> To: Archery within the Kingdom of Ansteorra
> 	<ansteorra-archery at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Subject: Re: [Ansteorra-archery] Gothic questions.
> Message-ID: <4AAC5236.4000601 at scabrewer.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Caladin,  I don't think that for a second anyone believes that the 
> format and schedules of the melee events in our kingdom is your 
> responsibility nor is it your fault if they don't work out.  It is the 
> responsibility of the branches that sponsor the events, their autocrats, 
> and marshals in charge.  But thanks for asking.
>
> I hope that Gothic War was a great event for the larger fighting 
> populace.  With the tournaments, the Centurion Meet and Beat, etc. it 
> looks as if the larger armored combat community got their fill of 
> fighting.  However, for combat archers it is a completely different matter.
>
> There are maybe 4 events a year where combat archers really get a chance 
> to do their thing.  Thats not a complaint, just a statement.  Most 
> fighter practices can't accommodate CA either because they are held on 
> school grounds, in a city, park, or someplace similar where bows an 
> crossbows are simply not allowed  or because the location doesn't allow 
> for adequate boundary and buffer zone to keep things safe.  Most sites 
> can accommodate small unit practices and drills, but not CA.  So, we 
> depend on those few Melee events to give us the combat time that we crave.
>
> Gothic war staff habitually doesn't do a good job of setting up their 
> battlefields.  Again this year there was no marked boundary on the 
> battlefield.  While a clearly marked boundary is not strictly required 
> by the rules,  the lack of it sure makes responsible archers nervous.   
> Similarly as noted again this year the bridge for the bridge battles was 
> setup this year in an area that simply could not safely accommodate CA.
>
> They started with field battles and of course SCA field battles aren't 
> good for CA because they very seldom stay static long enough for the 
> archers to be really effective and because quite often  brute squared 
> are sent to clobber the archers.  If an archers gets off 10 arrows in a 
> field battle then than has been a exceptional field battle as far as 
> most combat archers are concerned because only getting off 2 or 3 shots 
> in a field battle is more typical.  So quite honestly most archers look 
> forward to the end of the field battles and the start of something 
> different where that can me more effective.
>
> Since the only battles that took place at the event that could 
> accommodate CA were the field battles, and since the total time spent in 
> those battles that could accommodate CA was maybe 20 minutes the event 
> was a complete waste as far as combat archery was concerned.
>
> Before the first field battle even started the marshals were wanting to 
> know where Caladin was and one of them said something like  "Someone go 
> roll Caladin out of his tent so we can see what he wants us to do!".  If 
> there was a plan to have some good active melee scenarios then I sure 
> didn't see it.  It seems as if from the very beginning they were waiting 
> on you to show up and direct training exercises.  Of course you did what 
> they expected and the bulk of the time spent out on the field where we 
> could have actually had CA was spent doing training exercises rather 
> than battles, most of it done helms-off.
>
> When they moved over to  do the bridge battles  the opportunity for CA 
> that day was ended since the location chosen for the bridge battle could 
> not safely accommodate CA.  We were told that there would be plenty of 
> CA opportunity for us on Sunday afternoon so we cleaned up and prepared 
> for that.  We made sure we were at the melee field at Noon on Sunday so 
> that we would have plenty of time to inspect anything that needed to be 
> inspect and be ready and not miss a second of any CA opportunity.  The 
> melees were supposed to start at 2PM so we made sure that we were all in 
> armor and ready to go at 2.  Time slipped by, nobody else showed up, 
> then finally around 3:30  they actually sent somebody down to the 
> battlefield to tell us that the Sunday melees had been canceled because 
> the fighter had spent themselves in the tournaments and didn't have 
> energy left for melees.
>
> Perhaps the event sponsors had exactly the event they wanted.  I am told 
> they purposely threw in all the tournaments and split up the schedule 
> that way so that people would not day trip and so that they would stay 
> until Sunday afternoon for melee opportunity.  To do that and then not 
> do everything in your power to assure that those melees happen is quite 
> honestly deception.
>
> To say that it was disappointing is an understatement.  Giving up a long 
> weekend, driving 7 hours each way and spending $100 in gas to get to an 
> event that was handled like that was frankly infuriating.  When on 
> Saturday, before fighting,  we voiced some of our concerns with the way 
> that the battlefields were setup to one of the event stewards  the 
> response we got was "What do you expect?  It's Gothic."
>
> Well,  What I expect is that Gothic wont be on my event calendar for 
> years to come.  This is not the first time that I have been wildly 
> disappointed in Gothic and I far as I can tell the only way that it will 
> be the last time that I am disappointed by Gothic is if I simply skip 
> Gothic.  Instead, I'll save the time and money to prepare for and attend 
> melee events that focus on melee experience and where the sponsors are 
> concerned with making sure that it is a good experience.
>
> Sorry it took me so long to reply.  It's been a really hectic week at 
> work and quite honestly I just didn't want to spend any more time 
> thinking about Gothic and preferred instead to try and look forward to 
> good melees at 3 Queens and BAM.
>
> Thanks for your concern.
>
> -EA
>
> Eric Brown wrote:
>   
>> I agree that dedicated Melee events for fighting and dedicated war 
>> colleges for training are better.
>>
>> In fact as a personal note I greatly prefer them that way too.
>>
>> But as much as I've been bitching about training, when they woke me up 
>> that morning to tell me I was training after the scenarios,
>> I had to go with it. You can't squash initiative and expect it to 
>> grow, just because it's not happening the way you wanted it to.
>>
>> Honestly I expected about 10 min of refresher, but we were having 
>> trouble doing refuses, one of the most basic commands, so I tried to 
>> focus on that.
>> Then I wanted a actual fight to cement the knowledge, and had to make 
>> something up on the fly, when i only had time to teach 1 thing.
>> (so I snuck in a second command that was easy to teach, to make a very 
>> artificial scenario)
>>
>> But enough about what we (I) did wrong,I think I had a pretty good 
>> grasp on that up front. Does anyone else have suggestions for 
>> _improvement_?
>>
>> Cal-
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>>     
>
>
>
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> End of Ansteorra-archery Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9
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