The Armour Archive

dukelogan wrote:picking and choosing which parts of medieval reality we wish to employ in any given situation will never acomplish anything. so little we do in the sca is anything akin to actual life in midieval europe that it we should accept that we are not actually trying to relive it. in our society we are subjects of the crown of our kingdom which is defined by zip codes. until, and unless, we petition the crown to change our "citizenship" we are (like it or not) under the rule of the king and queen of our zip code when we attend an sca event.

the point i was trying to make is that most of us (99%) feel it is our duty to serve our crown both on and off the field. for most of us this goes without a second thought, or any thought of "what can i get out of this". that, in my opinion, is what seperates a loyal subject from someone who is not.

That may be your choice, or the predominant choice in your kingdom. However, it is far from universal. Everyone wants something different from the SCA. Regional differences, social groups, kingdom tradition... all of these things have an impact on how each of us approach the game, and what we consider to be important.

I think your 99% number is far from correct. It may be true in your household, barony, or even your kingdom, but I do not believe it is correct across the entire SCA. Things work differently in different places.

-Derian.

none of this, however, required i get paid by anyone. that is my point. but hey, so long as there are folks out there with beer, bacon, cookies, what have you and are willing to hand them over i think thats cool (i mean we are talking about beer and bacon! cookies i could do without). again, i have no issue with mercs but its just not my cup of tea. as such i simply dont bother with them. if other people do then so be it. for example when i was told that angelssey was fighting with atlantia at pennsic this year i looked at my warlord/commanders and asked "and how did this come about?". the immediate response was "atlantia, of course, offered them nothing your majesty. they were aquired by others". that was fine by me, and still is. they fought well alongside us and i was happy to have them with us.

regards
logan

Thank you for the compliment .your grace... I will speak for myself an not my clan or the contract that we had this year at pennsic .. I will say we to enjoyed fighting along side atlantia this year especially since we have amny close friends within Atlantia.. But on a personal note Prince Vlad is someone I highly respect an have the pleasure of calling a friend and mentor . I would have taken up his side in the fighting at pennisc for my thanks an for his acheivment in crown ..

Kaliban

I have done the merc thing for a while but have gotten out of the habit the past few years of advertising myself. However I am currantly paided by a guard unit based in the Barony of Sacred Stone. I am not the kinda person who asks for cash so I tell the Unit Commander to "suprise me". Last time I was paid a nine foot long piece of 1.5" rattan, very stout piece too. So if you want to break it down, roughly 5 hours of fighting equated to about $7-$12 depending on where you price rattan.

dukelogan wrote:picking and choosing which parts of medieval reality we wish to employ in any given situation will never acomplish anything. so little we do in the sca is anything akin to actual life in midieval europe that it we should accept that we are not actually trying to relive it. in our society we are subjects of the crown of our kingdom which is defined by zip codes. until, and unless, we petition the crown to change our "citizenship" we are (like it or not) under the rule of the king and queen of our zip code when we attend an sca event.

Many of the basic ideas of the SCA are much more medieval then many would think, one of the main problems seems to be that over time it has lost that connection and has become far more interested in itself then what it should be. The second problem is that the SCA has become an umbrella for everything medievalish and that is an ever growing umbrella these days. In the end you can't have a group that is interested primarily in the medieval, itself and being everything to everyone.

For example you and many others talk about SCA kings in terms of absolutism but to someone like me not only is it not medieval but its morally repugnant. Most medieval kings who went in the direction of absolutism tended not to have very happy endings and our society has been fighting against it for thousands of years. If that is part of your game then that is your choice but don't be surprised when others game is to stick a hot poker up the king's ass.

Mercenaries exist in the SCA because kings want to win wars more than they want anything else, excepting only crowns.

The established fighting peers of the SCA are our recruiters, by treating people who they percieve as being without value with disdain.

I disagree with the off the field part if you mean by not supporting regular local SCA stuff; I pretty much rebooted the local SCA in my area when the original group self imploded and was disbanded... I started with "SCA style fighting" meetings in my backyard and now (Hellsgate) are now on their way to being a keep or a stronghold or whatever and are all loyal subjects of the Kingdom of Ansteorra. I've corrupted nobody... yet...

All I got for it was a bald spot in my backyard and a few good play mates come fighter practice now days. (Not a bad deal).

dukelogan wrote:the point i was trying to make is that most of us (99%) feel it is our duty to serve our crown both on and off the field. for most of us this goes without a second thought, or any thought of "what can i get out of this". that, in my opinion, is what seperates a loyal subject from someone who is not.

regards
logan

that is the sad truth my friend. but, it does cut both ways. there are just as many folks out there that dont agree with a current monarch on a given subject and this causes them to self revolt. i know of two in atlantia that fit that very bill. still, ive heard plenty of horror stories that support exactly what you are saying. while it is impossible to please everyone with every action or decision you make as king you still dont have to treat folks poorly. although its not required i, too, have seen people that disagree treated like shit.

regards
logan

Nissan Maxima wrote:Mercenaries exist in the SCA because kings want to win wars more than they want anything else, excepting only crowns.

The established fighting peers of the SCA are our recruiters, by treating people who they percieve as being without value with disdain.

One of the small detail about me which seems to seperate me from the normal merc is that I won't fight against my own Kingdom. Alot of people have gave me the sob story of "Oh well your not a real merc then"...Oh boo hoo cry me a river. Theres nothing wrong with being a Kingdom specific merc or my Kingdom's allies.

Example, I fought in the ranks with some close old friends from Midrealm at Blackstone Raids but I made sure that Atlantia was sided with the Middle first and explained the situation to my friends should Atlantia had sided elsewhere. I'm glad things worked out, I was treated to a dinner of the best damn home made fahitas I have had in years that night.

if you are talking about this past blackstone the situation was that the midrealm had 90 fighters, aethelmarc had 90 fighters, and atlantia had 60. as i had allied with the east for pennsic i felt we should line up with the midrealm for this one (having close friends in both the east and mid). then the numbers came out and clearly this would have been way too one sided.

my solution was to offer 40 atlantians to aethelmarc and take myself and my personal guard (plus a few others) to the midrealm. while we gave aethelmarc twice the number i did have some of our higher end talent with me so it seemed like a pretty fair division of force. in the end i think the overall score was pretty close (i dont know for sure since i never care who wins, i dont pay attention to war points).

blackstone was an awesome time and while it was my first it certainly wont be my last! good hard fighting, no whining, no crazy marshals, excellent field, easy site with plenty of nice immentities, and well worth the few dollars it cost. the after parties were awesome, like a bunch of block parties up and down the road. the folks from the mid and aethelmarc were, as always, very pleasant and very welcoming. the staff did an excellent job and were very welcoming. i highly recommend the event!

regards
logan

GrumpyMacBastard wrote:One of the small detail about me which seems to seperate me from the normal merc is that I won't fight against my own Kingdom. Alot of people have gave me the sob story of "Oh well your not a real merc then"...Oh boo hoo cry me a river. Theres nothing wrong with being a Kingdom specific merc or my Kingdom's allies.

Example, I fought in the ranks with some close old friends from Midrealm at Blackstone Raids but I made sure that Atlantia was sided with the Middle first and explained the situation to my friends should Atlantia had sided elsewhere. I'm glad things worked out, I was treated to a dinner of the best damn home made fahitas I have had in years that night.

If your goal is a _large number_ of archer to do volley fire, you can generally get a more run of the mill archer. All you need is a guy who can get a stick in the air, and fire to the count.

Boy, thats sort of a small target list.....


.

Hmm, I didn't know the sides were misbalanced like that, my bad. And yeah I agree the event was awesome. Some of the best melee fighting and after parties. This is my first time at the new site which is soo much better then the site they had when I last attended roughly 6 years ago. I also just realized that this is a CA based thread, whoops, I'm not a CA, but I did bum rush a few archers at Blackstone.

dukelogan wrote:if you are talking about this past blackstone the situation was that the midrealm had 90 fighters, aethelmarc had 90 fighters, and atlantia had 60. as i had allied with the east for pennsic i felt we should line up with the midrealm for this one (having close friends in both the east and mid). then the numbers came out and clearly this would have been way too one sided.

my solution was to offer 40 atlantians to aethelmarc and take myself and my personal guard (plus a few others) to the midrealm. while we gave aethelmarc twice the number i did have some of our higher end talent with me so it seemed like a pretty fair division of force. in the end i think the overall score was pretty close (i dont know for sure since i never care who wins, i dont pay attention to war points).

blackstone was an awesome time and while it was my first it certainly wont be my last! good hard fighting, no whining, no crazy marshals, excellent field, easy site with plenty of nice immentities, and well worth the few dollars it cost. the after parties were awesome, like a bunch of block parties up and down the road. the folks from the mid and aethelmarc were, as always, very pleasant and very welcoming. the staff did an excellent job and were very welcoming. i highly recommend the event!

regards
logan

GrumpyMacBastard wrote:One of the small detail about me which seems to seperate me from the normal merc is that I won't fight against my own Kingdom. Alot of people have gave me the sob story of "Oh well your not a real merc then"...Oh boo hoo cry me a river. Theres nothing wrong with being a Kingdom specific merc or my Kingdom's allies.

Example, I fought in the ranks with some close old friends from Midrealm at Blackstone Raids but I made sure that Atlantia was sided with the Middle first and explained the situation to my friends should Atlantia had sided elsewhere. I'm glad things worked out, I was treated to a dinner of the best damn home made fahitas I have had in years that night.