What could get me to drive five hours after a long day of work? Only the greatest rapier melee event in Atlantia. And my crashpad, at Alric’s, happened to also include a hot tub and an introduction to the game Dominion. So equipped with a gratitudinal absinthe and all the gear necessary for practicing murder upon my friends, the War Wagon and I hied on up to Glen Burnie, Maryland.
Apparently, I Like Bearpits
The day started with a bearpit tournament (actually, two simultaneous tournaments, one Heavy Rapier, the other C&T). Having heard this, I grinned JUST a little bit. Just a bit (I have been known to have some success in such a setting). Then they told us that it would be 3-wins-and-out. My grin sagged a bit. “No,” Alric said, “You do not get to hold a bearpit for the entire tournament.” So I did three or four orbits of 3-and-out, then a couple that were only 1 or 2 wins, or none, and then a final 3 and out. I thought Aedan had held through more fights than I did, and I knew that over on the C&T field Benjamin was kicking ass (I was of the impression that whoever had the most wins, on either field, would win the whole shebang).
At the end of it I got a couple of nice surprises: C&T and HR were being treated separately, there was a prize for the victor for each field; and I had edged out Aedan and a few other fighters by one single win. Woo hoo!
At court that evening I got my prize, a large book of romantically-inclined illustrations (some of cupids, some of coupling, some of other weird stuff). Aedan asked if it had enough pictures for me, I said “Yes, and they’re pictures of boobies!” holding up an example page. Classy, n’est-ce pas? A few minutes later, Count Vlad looked over to see me reading the accompanying essay. “I read it for the articles,” I said, and Vlad was left speechless. Back to the regularly scheduled fighting review.
Warmup Melee
It started with a field battle, timed, unlimited rezzes, to get everybody warmed up and thinking melee thoughts. There were about 18 on a side, and I think our side had a little bit better strength of melee fighters (there were roughly equal counts of provosts and free scholars, but more of the fencers on our side were good in melee situations, and had fought together enough to coordinate well).
Because the lines could just stretch from edge to edge of the field, I spent most of the fighting sliding around the flank, pushing their flank defense back so that we could roll the line. It worked really well, though rezzing fighters would come back and put a brake on our rolling action by hitting our flank. C’est la vie.
A few times, coming back from rez I’d fill a hole in our line. In general this hole was also the point where the enemy had pushed deepest into our field by hammering away the fighters in front of them and forcing those on either side to fall back (so the fighting lines formed a V, with the hole at the bottom). Coming in to this gap, my strategy was to dispose of the point of the V. This would turn the V into two lines, with me standing on the flank of both, which was a great place to be. So I’d hammer one side, then the other, enough to send them falling back and let my line get re-established.
The fighting would then push forward, disintegrating the enemy but also our lines as we pursued and mopped up, and we’d be in disorder right about the time they all came back from rez point in a massed unit. Calling a rally and reform worked mostly, but enough of our fighters would be disordered still that, once they were dispatched, our line was outnumbered and over stretched and we’d get hammered back right until the pattern repeated in favor of our side. So, Atlantia needs to work the “rally” command, more.
The melee ended with a switch to Last Man Standing. I formed up on our right flank, and we slowly pushed it back. About the time I thought we had our opportunity, I died to a shot from Celric. Walking back to our lines, I saw that our left flank had crushed them and was just about to finish the job.
Wood Fights
Night on the Town has a damn awesome site, with trails and campsites back in the woods, and this means we can fight woods battles without much concern for footing, which we do!
The scenarios were a little vague at first as to victory condition. It started out as “Unlimited rez” and that was it, eventually got fleshed out to “unlimited rez for attackers, limited for defenders, and the attackers have to put 3 fighters on a particular point near the defenders’ rez.” Armand, Dante, and I, on the attacking team, grouped up into a flanking unit, with a fourth guy tagging along, and we flanked down the hill through some crappy ground to the edge of the flat, clear space that held the defenders’ rez and the victory point.
We hammered the defenders, I died and when I came back from rez I formed up on our right flank where we were thinning them out pretty severely. My arrival gave a numerical advantage, we exploited it, and I peeled off with one of the defenders to open up the rest of the line for my teammates to go through. They proceeded to mosey towards the victory point, instead of hurrying, seeming to think that I could keep my opponent infinitely distracted. Which I could, but, still, that’s a huge assumption to make.
We defended, next, and instead of defending the entire clearing which put a huge strain on the other teams’ resources, we tried defending closer back to the rez point, especially where we could fall back among some benches. But we got pulled out a little too far and eventually died, but it took them much longer to defeat us than it took us to defeat them.
Next, we ran it with no rezzes. We lost both rounds, but only by one or two fighters each time. Basically, over-reaching got too many fighters killed.
Blacksword
We tried a new experiment with the Blacksword this time, running it after the fighting when everybody was exhausted. I don’t know if it went much differently than it otherwise would have, although my ability to fight decently even when cold was not an asset. As it was, Armand punked me out in the first round. That jackass (and ongratulations to him on being made the newest Free Scholar! Truly earned!).
After that I pulled my duty as The Most Destructive Lord Bye (which I shall retain until somebody else, fighting as a bye, drops me from a tourney). And, I did it really well. I dropped Celric, Dante, and Matheu as Lord Bye. The last 3 were Connor, Aedan, and Matheu, and after Aedan beat Connor and I beat Matheu, it was technically Aedan’s win, but, since it’s traditional and all, Aedan had to fight a bye fight in the finals. Instead of using my skills, Alric put Matheu in to fight the bye fight, which Matheu left (he is NOT the Most Destructive Lord Bye afterall), and Aedan was confirmed in his victory.
But I’m still trying to figure out what the hell happened with me. When it mattered, against Armand, he punked me straight up with me just not fighting as well as he was. But when it didn’t matter any more, other than my natural inclination towards being a jackass and a spoiler, I fought far better. So I’ll be doing some experimenting with attitude: If I decide to take a disdainful view of my opponent, will I fight better? Will it be worth it? Could this be the key to the fabled… EGO HADOUKEN?!?!?!
Melee Training
I finished by running the melee training (a ‘bruder has to put his money where his mouth is, as it were), working with the visiting Easterners (Davius and his friend Stirling) and a couple of newish fighters in 3-on-3 situations. And you can probably guess what we worked: Seizing the initiative, making use of numerical advantages, and communication. Really, give me an army that can do that, and I’m happy.
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