Town battle at Pennsic 35...Your thoughts?

[RoaK]

I guess there’d be two debates going at once in this thread. One on the scenario it’s self and the other on the wall system.

In my opinion it was over all a good scenario and a fun battle. Like anything new it could use a few tweaks and I wouldn't mind seeing it again at Pennsic.

One thing that would be cool and maybe worth the investment for the SCA is if we had some kind of moveable wall or fence system made where we could have solid walls to make the town "maze" with. That would be a blast to fight in and the blocked line of sight would just add to the fun. Perhaps even a few structures that could be hauled in and out of storage at Coppers that are like trailers to represent larger buildings like the temple could be used. I don’t know much about construction and engineering so maybe some of you folks who are can chime in with some ideas on how such a system could be built, set up, torn down and stored.

Of course a setup like this would require allot of time to put up and remove. Maybe what we could do is have that battle on Monday (which would allow lots of time for set up before that) and the Woods battles on Thursday to give the tear down crew some wiggle room. That way we don't need a big chunk of the field till Wednesday.

…And yes, I realize the money factor will kill the wall system idea… but we can still have fun talking about it.

[Syrfinn]

Overall, I think this might of been my third favorite battle of the war. First was the allied champs battle and second was the woods.

What I really liked was whenever i would be fighting in one area, and an area further down from me would be over ran, and then all of a sudden I was having to fight several fronts instead of just the one ahead of me. Made things interesting at times.

Definetly could be things done to improve the battle, but well it was its first year, of course we were going to find bugs in it. I really hope we have it next year.

[Odo]

I personally liked this battle, but some stipulations. I think if the bugs you mentioned could be worked out, with simpler rules, it would have been awesome.

Odo

[D. Sebastian]

I think the easiest way (least practicle) to do it would be to get 2 excavators and dig trenches to represent the buildings and corridors.

Do it for the last day of the battles as the field will be unuseable for troops after you fill everything back in.

[RoaK]

I think the easiest way (least practicle) to do it would be to get 2 excavators and dig trenches to represent the buildings and corridors.

Do it for the last day of the battles as the field will be unuseable for troops after you fill everything back in.

[D. Sebastian]

- heh -

[Gregoire de Lyon]

Someone in my barony had an excellent suggestion: the Princes of teh East and Midrealm this fall could levy a tax on all of Their landed barons. The tax would be a plywood building of no less than X feet by X feet. The portable structure would have to be brought to Pennsic and set up by members of each barony before the town battle. After the battle, the building would be taken down and stored either on site or somewhere back in the home kingdoms.

It would a cool thing to do: It would look good, give us rigid walls to fight with, and it would get the non-fighters more involved with the war by giving them a project to help with. Support the fighters without fighting type thing!

Thoughts?

PS - If this idea takes off, I will be sure to track down the originator to give them proper credit.

[Angusm0628]

Someone in my barony had an excellent suggestion: the Princes of teh East and Midrealm this fall could levy a tax on all of Their landed barons. The tax would be a plywood building of no less than X feet by X feet. The portable structure would have to be brought to Pennsic and set up by members of each barony before the town battle. After the battle, the building would be taken down and stored either on site or somewhere back in the home kingdoms.

Horrible idea..
Who would be responsible for this? Who would want to? Getting to and from Pennsic can be a hassle just in getting your own stuff there. In order to do this lots of folks would have to rent Uhauls. I can't see a kingdom justifying any additional financial burden on any one person or geo-political entity. You start saying "In order to do this you have to (insert building size here) and get it to and from Pennsic, You are going to get alot of resistance and folks just walking away from the official SCA kingdom stuff and just going things on their own.
It's one thing to ask someone if they are willing to do it. Another altogether to demand such to be done. Especially when we volunteer our time and efforts.

Just my thoughts on it.

[Sir Wilhelm vonOstenbruke]

I loved it. I would like to see it become a regular as long as they can work out something to better mark walls with. The single hail bail + tape was not cutting it at all.

[InsaneIrish]

Look you want a town?

Ok here is what you do. Go to the Coopers and get them to build it. The buildings (of varing size) can be used as storage for the rest of the year. Hell they can even rent the buildings out to SCA folk who don't want to trek all their stuff back. OR rent them out to the Kingdoms so the Kingdoms can leave the Kingdom stuff on site for the year.

Make the town battle in the middle of the week (that way there is less chance of people needing IN the buildings) and at the end of the war the buildings are once again utilized as storage.

You could put facads on the building outsides to more resemble medieval buildings. That way you can get an actual town to fight in AND get storage on site.

Win Win if you ask me.

[RoaK]

Someone in my barony had an excellent suggestion: the Princes of teh East and Midrealm this fall could levy a tax on all of Their landed barons. The tax would be a plywood building of no less than X feet by X feet. The portable structure would have to be brought to Pennsic and set up by members of each barony before the town battle. After the battle, the building would be taken down and stored either on site or somewhere back in the home kingdoms.

It would a cool thing to do: It would look good, give us rigid walls to fight with, and it would get the non-fighters more involved with the war by giving them a project to help with. Support the fighters without fighting type thing!

Thoughts?

PS - If this idea takes off, I will be sure to track down the originator to give them proper credit.

Good start....Plus any money spent on this could be tax deductable?

Perhaps collect donations.

[Gregoire de Lyon]

Horrible idea..
Who would be responsible for this? Who would want to?
[snip]
It's one thing to ask someone if they are willing to do it. Another altogether to demand such to be done. Especially when we volunteer our time and efforts.
.

I don't know... I mean it's not like Master Johan decided to build a castle for the SCA to use at Pennsic or anything...

Your points are well taken. That being said...

While I say that next year's war kings could "tax" their baronys to achieve a town, I mean that in the most SCA sense of the word possible. As a landed baron, I know that members of my barony would get excited about something like this. I also know that if they weren't, and I wasn't, it wouldn't happen. Excuses would be made/given and that would be the end of it.
Besides, I think that most royalty would be wise enough to consult the people they are taxing prior to making an edict, because while Royal decrees are period, so are baronial revolts...

(Not suggesting anything Your Majesty... Nothing to see here... move along. )

[losthelm]

how about sheet walls I know we have used them in the past but even thats a pain to set up teardown and store. but then again it was a hell of a lot of fun a the abby battle years ago. giving each barony an opertunity to make sheet walls with there device or the device from a paticualr patron and then having them listed would probibly go a lot farther then making it a Requirment. Just think this years town battle brought to you by the barrony of nose pickers. having a varity of groups each bring a sheet wall or two makes storage and setup a lot easyer also. The only real trubble is finding portable holes and people to put them in. Standard dementions of walls and poles would go a long way to making it work easly for the martials laying out the town.

[Wulf]

I went to Lillys this year and for one of the battles they had walls put up. They were probably not something i would want 4-5 fighters leaning on but they were fine for obstructing views and funneling people where they needed to go. The walls looked very portable and easy to set up. I am guessing that an extra storage trailer would be needed to keep them all on site if something like it was used at pennsic.

How about the powers that be talk to the autocrats and marshalls in charge of lillies and figure out wth they use.

[Gwydion Caithnes]

Good start....Plus any money spent on this could be tax deductable?

Perhaps collect donations.

It would only be tax-deductible if it went through an SCA account - and I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think the only 501(c)(3) that applies here is the SCA, Inc.'s - meaning that it would probably have to be a Milpitas account.

I'm a co-producer for the Known World Players' production of the Wakefield Cycle next Pennsic, and we're currently doing a bit of a "dance" with the Pennsic Finance Committee about the construction of the pageant wagons we want to build and use. We're being asked questions like, "Where will these be stored, where will the money for upkeep come from," etc. Not illegitimate questions, at all, and I can see the same questions coming about the town-building idea.

Sometimes our Society structure is our own worst enemy...