Defending the Gate 2010   5 comments

This post is going to be a little hard because, for the first time in a long time, I just did not enjoy the event.  I enjoyed bits of it but, looking at the whole of the thing, I cannot say it was worth the drive. Part of it was personal: I’m really unhappy with the way I fought, my ankle hurt the entire day, and I wish I’d done a bit more prep work for it.  But also, the day was not well managed.

So I may come across as cranky, punchy, or negative.  Or, more so than usual.  If so, my bad.  It may sound critical of some specific people, but I’m trying not to be personal.  I just disagree with decisions that were made.

Last year’s DtG was the Zombie Battle, one of the more fun events I’ve ever had.  Dante set a pretty high bar and in the process apparently pissed off the autocrat to such a degree that he was not permitted to be RMiC this year.  Damn yo.

Letia, Joe, Benjamin, and Sweetums all piled into the War Wagon with me at 8 and we took off to the wilds of Northern Virginia for some fighting.  Which started with…

Mattheu’s Prize

Mattheu finally decided to let the Academie tie a gold scarf on his arm, and the prize fight was held at the start of the event (er, 12:30).  As the timeline for the whole day was incredibly short (12:30-4), we ran through it relatively quickly, though it meant I was not allowed to challenge him to three passes instead of one.  So I took out case, and as Percy was handing him a second blade I stopped him, and gave him the sidesword I’d brought onto the field, so that Mattheu was armed with case and I was armed with single.  We exchanged some shots, I circled, and then he swept my sword with his and gutted me with the sidesword in a brilliant imitation of the Wistric Wild-ass Charge.  He later bemoaned his lack of skill with case, which to me says “practice”.  Spike knows I need to.

The Plethora of Scholars

Last year I noticed there weren’t too many new blue scarves kicking around, which made me sad.  Afterall, no scholars means no new blood, no new blood means fencing gets boring, and then fencing dies.  At DtG this year there were 20 or so scholars, nearly half of all fencers there, and I didn’t know more than 5 of them.  That is EXCELLENT!  Now we just have to mold them into the killing machines they should be.

Setup

The tourney was a 5-man rapier capture the flag in the woods.  Run for 5 minutes, with holds to reset each time the flag was captured.  There was a jail that the dead went to until released to go rez.

Originally, the plan was to have the dead escorted by their killers.  In essence, killing an enemy fighter would take you off the field, too, which made any killing absolutely detrimental to the survivor.  This led to a really straightforward solution: Have the four slowest fighters on your team get killed by the four best fighters on their team, leaving the fifth, fastest fighter, to run grab the flag and bring it back while the jailers were occupied and the enemy’s fifth-rated fighter tried to stop him.  Maneuvering could even set you up so that your fastest fighter was on the other side of the line from their slowest.  The escort rule got nixed, though, so it became a great deal more straightforward.

Still, my estimate of about thirty minutes for stupid questions was spot on.  Strange twists on scenarios have that effect.

The problems started when half of Atlantia showed up to play.  There were a good 40 fencers there, with 5 man teams that meant 8 teams in the tournament.  With the 5 min + holds, each fight took at least 10 minutes, with 5 more minutes to get on and off the field.  Which meant each round took at least an hour.  The rounds started at 1:30, so the second round concluded at 3:30, just in time for court at 4.

My team fought the first fight of the first round, and the last fight of the second round.  More than an hour and a half of sitting around on our butts.  It was just pointless.

So I have a suggestion to all MiCs: If your day is planned around an assumed number of teams (I’m sure somewhere along the line somebody said “Well, there’ll probably be about 20 people, so that makes 4 teams”) then make THAT your limit, not the number of people on each team.

The Pissed Kitties

The car full of Windmasters (minus Ben, who went and fought with the Dragoons), plus Percy the “Level 59 Dark Elf Hunter” Provost and Chris Cunning, formed a unit of Windmasters, under our traditional name.  The Dragoons formed their two teams, and Fallen From Grace formed a team.  All of which sucked most of the provosts and free scholars into teams, leaving 20 other fighters.  A team of mostly free scholars formed, leaving 15 fighters, with most of the above mentioned 20 scholars.  This would come back to haunt everybody.

In our team, Letia still had her pulled hamstring, I had my twisted ankle, Percy had his bum leg joints, so did Chris, and Joe was brand new to melee.  So we decided we would not be running for the flag so much as moseying towards it.  Our first opponents were the Dragoons.  We got obliterated.  I don’t know that we could have won with better tactics, but I think we could have done better by focusing on one job or another (either kill them all OR grab the flag, not both).  In the last minute we formed a defensive line and were doing a good job of weakening them when time ran out.  Still, we had a lesson there to mull over.

Letia’s hamstring was feeling worse, so we ordered her not to move from the flag next time.

And then we sat around.  A lot.  I was borrowing Alric’s Darkwood sidesword that day, and borrowed Percy’s for the second half.  My ZWA 40 is just too whippy; I don’t trust my ability to hit my target with it.

The second round I warmed up beforehand with yoga and fighting, and was actually able to run.  I captured the flag once and was headed for a second when time ran out.  Percy’s longsword made it possible for me to actually kill people, so I could effectively hold off two people and even take them out.   Must get sword…

The Blue Scarf House of Horrors

The two or three teams that were almost entirely scholars eventually ended up fighting each other.  Most of them were novices.  And the fights were just ugly.  There was sloppy and unsafe fighting over and over.  Nobody communicated, and lines did not exist on that field.

At the end of the day, we ran two 20 on 20 fights, with four teams to each side.  Even in these, the scholars were getting in front of or behind each other instead of forming a line.  I’m happy to have so many enthusiastic fighters, but clearly we need some melee training going on somewhere.

It is not my way to sit around and gripe without doing something to improve the situation, so we’re going to have an hour of melee training at NotT, probably starting at 11 (That’s the time that the RMiC can fit it in).  And then again at Sapphire Joust.  And every event in between where we can.

And I have this conundrum…

Truth be told, I’m kind of tired of going to these events and losing, even though I’m losing alongside my good friends and students.  Vlad’s coronation, with the team of free scholars (and Armand) that rolled over everybody was awesome.  I want that again.  I want the cunning hat that comes with it.  I don’t want to kick my friends to the curb and leave them out in the cold, but, damn, I want some prizes and I can’t carry more than my own load.  Not in Atlantia.

Posted March 29, 2010 by wistric in Events

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