The Armour Archive

examples: Bridge, castle, open, wall, gate, static, res,etc...

and put what kingdom you are from please.

I don't think I've ever had fun in a Castle Battle. Lots of standing around and lots of holds.

I also hate Bridges (again for the standing around waiting to do something), but I have had a lot of fun in them.

byram, Atlantia

I'm not a huge fan of multiple open fields in a row, or battles where the only two roles are spearman and eventual corpse.

I'm not fond of bridge battles.

East

Midrealm. I dont like single or double elimination tournements.

Nissan Maxima wrote:Midrealm. I dont like single or double elimination tournements.

What if it was a double elimination tournament, but the fighter had to be sponsored by a dog, and the dog had to run a race against their opponent's dog for points every round, like one round was a sprint, the next was an obstacle course, etc. Every round the points were added up to see who would advance, and the prize was some bacon to be split by the dog and the fighter, and served by exotic dancers?

Would you like that one?

DA

After all... there *IS* documentation of Samurai in dog shows...



Just saying...

Max Von Halstern

I hate battles that are run of "best 2 of 3" with a given weapons form only being allowed in the 3rd go around...as more than half the time, the first two are won by the same side, and the 3rd is irrelevant at best, and sparsely attended at worse.

Add in the "40 minutes of reforming for 5 minutes of fighting" and it adds up to unfun.

Woods battles.
Every time I go in the woods, I get poked in the eye.

East.

Gorm wrote:I hate battles that are run of "best 2 of 3" with a given weapons form only being allowed in the 3rd go around...as more than half the time, the first two are won by the same side, and the 3rd is irrelevant at best, and sparsely attended at worse.

Add in the "40 minutes of reforming for 5 minutes of fighting" and it adds up to unfun.

You guys change weapons that are allowed in 1 series of battles? We split up CA non CA by series if we fight it 2 out of 3 and the battles allows CA CA is in all 2 or 3 if needed.

Balin

Resurrection battles. They feel like just another practice.

Middle Kingdom

MJBlazek wrote:Woods battles.
Every time I go in the woods, I get poked in the eye.

East.

By branches? That is the suc I have a scar near my eye from a dirty tree

My least favorite battles are castle battles because the nature of the battle is calm and patience waiting for the other side to make an error.

I like the crash boom bang of battle, but I also like winning and with castle battles the less crash boom bang you do, the more likely it is that your side will be victorious.

Atenveldt

Breach, Caslte, or Bridges with no time limit. In real life I would wait for you to starve, not a realist thing here. Without time limits these battles end up with me staring at the guy staring at me while I stare at him.

DarkApprentice wrote:

Nissan Maxima wrote:Midrealm. I dont like single or double elimination tournements.

What if it was a double elimination tournament, but the fighter had to be sponsored by a dog, and the dog had to run a race against their opponent's dog for points every round, like one round was a sprint, the next was an obstacle course, etc. Every round the points were added up to see who would advance, and the prize was some bacon to be split by the dog and the fighter, and served by exotic dancers?

Would you like that one?

DA

Yes

I do not like (a) battles where I wait more than I fight and (b) non-resurrection battles (because I die early, then wait).

IF I ever get to attend another SCA event I'll probably go mainly for the pick up fights, with the battles being an additional plus. But I'll know I'll be waiting and waiting to fight. With a good pick up fight area picked out (day shade, cool drinks, etc...) it could be grand and I could even get pick-up grand melees going.

-Aaron

Balin50 wrote:You guys change weapons that are allowed in 1 series of battles? We split up CA non CA by series if we fight it 2 out of 3 and the battles allows CA CA is in all 2 or 3 if needed.

Balin

It's a frequent Pennsicism, which means it infects other "PEnnsic Prep" events, which are fairly frequent during Melee Season in the Eastern Kingdoms (as opposed to the East Kingdom)

Castles are the worst. Generally I don't like limited frontage fights, and asymmetrical are hard to pull off "right". But battles are battles, so they are all good.

I'd be happiest if every battle were just straight-up capture the flag, with different kinds of terrain and obstacles. I'm from Caid.

Bridge battles with resurrections.

Middle

Any sort of choke point battle.

Bridge
Ravine
Hallway
Cave
whatever

Anything that essentially forces the two sides into a spear duel with everyone else sitting around with their thumbs up their asses sucks ass.

Castles are a close second. Similar reason. BORING.

I personally like open field battles. I like units. I like being able to run and flank.

I have fought some cool boat battles. I'm a weird Mongol.

Ogedei Bahadur
An Tir.

Balin50 wrote:

MJBlazek wrote:Woods battles.
Every time I go in the woods, I get poked in the eye.

East.

By branches? That is the suc I have a scar near my eye from a dirty tree

Yup, every time. Even if I wear my full face visor somehow a branch makes it through the eyeslot.
I have thought abotu goggles... but I could just not go in the woods!

Field battles...

Somehow because of the nature of our armies, it is not only the norm that plans go astray at the first contact with the enemy, but all the foibles of missing discipline, poor coordination and timing are exposed in their nakedness. I guess I like well organized armies that can operate as armies and not as bunches of household or barony warbands.
Sometimes the chaos is enough to make Sun Tzu or Napoleon cry.


Only last year (Pennsic 39) I saw excellent field deployment where I was. The little unit I was attached to (Sir Grimr's) had a definite, discrete mission, and we fulfilled it and accomplished it, thought we all got killed. (missed this years field battle due to a leg injury at the battle of Hastings on Wed.)

On the other hand, I have seen our kings and princes win and lose bridge battles do to foresight or errors, but rarely due to chaos.

I am a big fan of battles where in addition to the skill and prowess of the individual fighters, there is a chance for commanders to show not only what a fighter can do, but what a well led and managed army can do.

Glaukos the Athenian wrote:Field battles...

Somehow because of the nature of our armies, it is not only the norm that plans go astray at the first contact with the enemy, but all the foibles of missing discipline, poor coordination and timing are exposed in their nakedness. I guess I like well organized armies that can operate as armies and not as bunches of household or barony warbands.
Sometimes the chaos is enough to make Sun Tzu or Napoleon cry.

We lack all but the most rudimentary Command and Control techniques (runners or worse... often Commanders moving to each other to communicate directly) -- and these techniques, unlike much of the rest of our game, have not really developed much at all across the decades.

As a result, our command and control techniques are somewhat functional for fixed-objective longer-term battles where the commanders can move to directly communicate with each other and then implement maneuver control over the timeframes necessary for such techniques to operate... but we have no means to coordinate movement and strategy after lay-on beyond the initial planning for mobile engagements (i.e., field battles).

Were we to implement (and by that I mean actually develop and train with) some of the more traditional historic C2 technologies (e.g., drums/bugles, semaphore, or even hand singles or the like), then I believe you would find a significantly different situation more akin to the way our C2 has developed and been implemented in the static engagements.

Just my observations, of course. Look forward to those of others.

Max Von Halstern

Wow, very varied responses!

I dislike single death battles. People can become more stubborn when their only life is on the line. Rez battles tend to lower that stress. Everyone can have fun and experiment with tactics with the only penalty being a walk back to Rez point.

I also don't like battles where individual hay bales are used as random terrain features. They can be a surprise trip hazard especially if your helm has limited lower visibility. In predictible runs and geometric shapes its not an issue. We had a guy out for the rest of Pennsic last year after an encounter with lone haybale that basically trebucheted him into the ground head first.

Atlantia

I can't stand bridge battles, or "fun" scenarios that require a page of rules to understand (war or tourney).

I like rez battles, open field battles, capture the flag type battles, and some castle battles. I like skirmishing, and I love the opportunity to go up against 2 or more fighters alone. (Makes for good glory opportunities)

If you can't explain the rules to a five year old after they've downed a six pack of Mountain Dew while watching Sponge Bob Square Pants, it's too complicated IMO. The rules should be able to be written out on a 3x5 card, in large print, and understandable to those who English is not their first language.

-Aaron

GWW's boat battles.

I dislike rugby scrums. These are times choke-point battles where the objective is for the biggest most violent members of the attacking side to push, pull, climb over or otherwise maim their already dead friends while trying to get to the front to attrit the enemy and then go Rez. These are also the ones where the defenders smash into the choke point and try to hold position through main force of bodies by closing the range to where the attackers can not affectivly attrit them. Any time a person is lifted off their feet by pressure from both side we have replaced the came of SCA combat with a Rugby scrum. This applies mostly to timed castle battles where the side with the lowest time wins but it can also apply to bridge battles if the time constraints are set too short. Bridges with the time set too long are boring. This is worst on timed limited front battles with resurections as there is no fear of death and people just push to achieve a victory condition instead of fighting.

YMMV,
Sean

Looong bridge battles. The "stand around and wait for 25 minutes then fight hard for 5 minutes" kind. Why not just fight shorter battles? Cut out the waiting. instead of 3 30 minute bridge battles, how about 5 10 minute battles? get more fighting in with less standing around.

Spear battles.



Middle.

Aaron wrote:If you can't explain the rules to a five year old after they've downed a six pack of Mountain Dew while watching Sponge Bob Square Pants, it's too complicated IMO. The rules should be able to be written out on a 3x5 card, in large print, and understandable to those who English is not their first language.

-Aaron

YES!!!!!!

Personally I'm not fond of things that turn into spear-duels especially resurrection battles. I'd love to see more Straight-up CTF (capture the flag) and real terrain battles.

One of the best was a local war hen we fought over and through a stream that had turned into a 10ft wide strip of mud. the dame war we set up a castle at the top of a muddy hill. Raining, muddy, gross, and epic.

Jakel wrote:GWW's boat battles.

Oh yeah, those were stupid.

Field battles. Mostly because I have bad knees and all the running around tends to hurt more than getting run over.

East

Personally I like any battle where I get to swing a stick at a person standing on the other side from me. At Highlands war the first castle battle sucked, but after they gave the attacking force unlimited resurrections it was fun. Especially since we could leap through the windows of the castle.

Oh, I am from Caid