The Armour Archive

Is a fighter who ignores arrows treated in the same manner as a fighter who ignores blows from a sword?

I only ask this, because if you follow the train of thought of some who post here... their opinions of archers, etc... the logical conclusion would be no. They would be treated differently.

I only ask for the point of conversation, not out of any plans to shun arrows.

I am sure it depends on who you ask.

IMO you are being a big baby if you don't play by the rules even if you don't like them, especially considering how few combat archery battles there are.

I'm with James on this one.

I've been in a couple of battles where I have watched BELTED fighters take an arrow shot right to the head, look around to make sure no one saw it, and continue fighting.

I've seen BELTED fighters get hit with a crossbow bolt dead center in the chest and ignore the blow and just keep in the battle.

That being said I've seen belted fighters be honourable as well, but most of the time when I see people not taking CA shots it's a belted fighter...

Miss or ignore? It is rather easy in a melee to not realize that you have been hit by an arrow. You can get bumped by your neighbor, or think you were struck lightly by a sword, etc. People that get hit by arrows often weren't paying attention to the guy 20 yds away, and so wouldn't necessarily notice his arrow.

IMO you are being a big baby if you don't play by the rules even if you don't like them, especially considering how few combat archery battles there are.

And that in and of itself is the crux. ITS THE RULES folks. I hear the same people who are wearing plastic and football cleats crying about CA because its "Not accurate! It didnt work that way in the middle ages!" we arent recreating the middle ages in our fighting.. we are playing a modern martial art. It is now, in some cases, a modern martial art including missile weapons. Deal with it, or get the hell off the field and sit those few battles out.

Maeryk

I've never deliberately blown off a good arrow strike (although for all I know, I may have been unaware of one). But I can understand the temptation: you're all fired up for a battle, you're in a line of men facing the enemy, ready to take on swordsmen, spearmen, whatever. But then, before you can engage in any actual fighting, from out of nowhere an arrow hits you in the chest. Maybe you can't even see the guy who shot it. It doesn't have anything like the psychological impact of an opponent right in front of you whacking you on the head with his sword, but according to the rules you're just as dead. What to do? If you're me, or most of us, the only answer is to say "Rats!" and head off to the sidelines or resurrection point. But for some, the excitement and desire to fight overwhelm their scruples and they make believe it didn't happen. I think this might happen with guys who would never shrug off a good blow from the guy facing them -- when you're shot by an arrow, it seems more impersonal.

That said, there are also many instances in which an arrow really wasn't good, and I don't want marshalls stepping in and making that decision for the fighter. One of the great things about our game is that it works on the honor system and relies on personal judgement.

It is an imperfect and developing art this CA.

I took a balista bolt at Blackstone Raids to the arm that damn near put me on my keester. Big bruse and numbed the arm for ~2 min. Good for them, teach me to be miopic. What I hate is if the bolt had come sidewase and hafted me, I would have been expected to take it.

Many issues plague this CA. It can be a very colorful part of our game if we can find the ballance between stout shot and safety. Currently it is a deamon and at times an albatross.

To address the topic:
An ignored blow is an ignored blow, be it rattan or otherwise.

cheating is cheating.

By its very nature, however, CA is very easy to miss. You aren't engaged with the person, the shots aren't very hard, etc.

It has not been brought up to the same blow calibration, engegament, and safety standards as the rest of Heavy fighting, therefore it is easier to make mistakes. Also, differing rules in different kingdoms- plate as proof, faceplates only, etc, make it much more difficult to make sure that what you perceive at a war as dishonorable behavior is completely legal where that person is from.

Alaric

Sebastian,

FWIW, siege is not actually combat archery or even missile weapons (according to SCA standards). I mention that, since if it had been an arrow or crossbow bolt that came in sidewards, that would not be a good shot. I don't have any control over Siege rules, but I thought they still had to hit blunt/head first.

If they don't, I recommend that we all email Master Quinn (the DSM for Siege) and ask him to change it. That just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't like all of the rules that we have, but I can usually understand why they were made or why they exist. Hitting sideways and still counting as good, baffles me a bit.

Tessa

I will concede the fact that you could get hit and not know it, my armor is metal I may never know if you hit me outside my vision field.

If you knowingly blow off a hit then you are a baby

I got to admit it pisses me off a little to get taken out by an arrow in battle. Mainly because I grew up in the "plate as proof" days in the West. If you wanted to slug around in more armour than most you got some benefits out of the day. Same thing with the helm. I have .5" eyeslots. Unless you hit me right on the slot an arrow is not going to do much. But according to our dated rules we all have open face helms.

I really think we need to go to armour as worn standards, but I can't think of any decent way to do it without resembling some D&D dice rolling geekfest for every battle.

Oh well, I'll take the shot and leave a good looking corpse.

Yah, I think James put it best. Every time I see people complaining about stuff like CA I just shake my head and wonder when I get my turn to have shit go my way all the time. I mean, these guys seem to think they're entitled to it, why not me??
Heck when it's my turn to get my way all the time CA will be in EVERY battle, everyone will take shots and I'll be tall and handsome!
Well... tall.

rainald: "I really think we need to go to armour as worn standards..."

Would this approach also presume that the arrow striking the target is contemporary with the armor struck? If so, then except for unarmored targets, all armor (including quilted jacks) was pretty much "proof".

With regards,

Alfred
former West

tessathehuntress,
Thanks!

It was at Pennsic 31 on a bridge that we took a balista bolt. It deflected off of a spear and came in tumblingend over end. The haft struck my helm and kept going. The Marshal called 3 of us struck. I believe the fighter with the spear also left the field.

Just one of those things.

[\quote D. Sebastian] Thanks!

It was at Pennsic 31 on a bridge that we took a balista bolt. It deflected off of a spear and came in tumblingend over end. The haft struck my helm and kept going. The Marshal called 3 of us struck. I believe the fighter with the spear also left the field.

Just one of those things.[/quote]

I don't know what the rules for combat at that Pennsic but according to Society rules, the pike should have been declared broken and maybe, if it was intentionally blocked, the fighter dead. However the rest of you should not have been "killed" by the marshal. If something like this happens again get the marshal's name and report the incident to the Marshal's Court. It sounds like this was an inexperianced marshal (at least with seige machines) and he/she needed to be educated.

Lord Eric Bjornsson
Deputy Earl Marshal for Wars, West Kingdom[quote][/quote]

To answer the question - You don't take the shot, you are dishonouring yourself.

I come from a (Lochac) household of some 15 odd archers. I know for a fact that they see almost every one of their arrows land. They can plainly tell who took the arrow and who didn't. They won't make a fuss about it in public, but they will certainly name the fighter back at camp.

CA plays a very important role in our battles in Lochac and the rules are markedly different to the rest of the Society (3/4" bird blunts, 30lb bows and mesh over grills). I for one love fighting with archers, as it adds that extra element of danger to battle. Yes I do prefer to be taken out off the field by a well landed sword blow, but like pikes, arrows are a valid way to die too. I fight greatsword in war, so I have to be even more aware of what is happening.

Anyway, nothing beats having that many archers on your side, especially the sharpshooters in my household.

I can see it all now...

Crossbowman: "My Lord norserman, I'm a 16th century crossbowman... My crossbow would have sufficient power to penetrate your 6th century chain!"

Sorry, couldn't resist.

carlyle wrote:rainald: "I really think we need to go to armour as worn standards..."

Would this approach also presume that the arrow striking the target is contemporary with the armor struck? If so, then except for unarmored targets, all armor (including quilted jacks) was pretty much "proof".

With regards,

Alfred
former West

But do they realize that a shot can LOOK good and not BE good? That's always been my probelm with archers. I've seen shots that LOOKED good, but simply were NOT good (caught nothing but fabric or a buckle or strap is a normal example) and seen archers jumping up and down crying like 6 year olds that the shot wasn't taken.

Gunnar Redsson wrote:To answer the question - You don't take the shot, you are dishonouring yourself.

I come from a (Lochac) household of some 15 odd archers. I know for a fact that they see almost every one of their arrows land. They can plainly tell who took the arrow and who didn't. They won't make a fuss about it in public, but they will certainly name the fighter back at camp.

Yep, when I instruct Archers I tell them to do the same thing I do when I strike with a sword.

1. If the first one does not work, shoot another.
2. If the second one does not work, shoot another.
3. If the third one does not work, shoot someone else.
4. Talk with the people you "Think" sluffed your shots, just as a Heavy will talk with someone that they "Think" sluffed shots. (after the battle, and in a nice questioning way, not a whiny complaint)
5. Always, Always remember that a Rhino will be talked about, but so will a complainer....

Giles of Redheugh wrote:Yep, when I instruct Archers I tell them to do the same thing I do when I strike with a sword.

1. If the first one does not work, shoot another.
2. If the second one does not work, shoot another.
3. If the third one does not work, shoot someone else.
4. Talk with the people you "Think" sluffed your shots, just as a Heavy will talk with someone that they "Think" sluffed shots. (after the battle, and in a nice questioning way, not a whiny complaint)
5. Always, Always remember that a Rhino will be talked about, but so will a complainer....

Decent advice.... while I don't CA my Knight shortened the same idea to "if they didn't take it it was crap". and that's all I've ever needed.

Granted it's been a looooong time since I was hit with an arrow... but back then it really was an issue where, if you didn't SEE the arrow hit you, you never knew it happened.

To answer the question tho... cheating is cheating. Rationalizing it for whatever reason will only make the cheater feel better.

These guys tend to shoot people in the head, so yeah, they only tend to complain about people who don't take that kind of shot. Again, never in public.

I am sure that I haven't taken arrow shots in the crush of battle. Anyone who has had maille hanging from a helm knows how noisy that is running at full tilt. So if you don't actually see it, or feel it, it can be a very hard call.

My rule of thumb is, if I don't take an arrow shot, I need to be happy to explain to the archer that shot me why.

Cheating is cheating, but also whining is whining. Unfortunately archers don't have the option to just swing harder next time. There are plenty of people I know I have to hit harder than I should. It sucks but at least I have that option. Archers don't.

The same people that you have to hit with a truck are the ones that will whine about anything in our game that seems objective: touch-kill face thrusts, arrows, seige engines, automatic loss for stepping out of bounds, etc. All things that seem to make it harder to simply choose not to die. All things that are regularly oposed by people who routinely choose not to die whenever they think it won't cost them.

Gaston

Well said, honest, and true.

While waiting in line in a bridge battle, an arrow skipped off my shoulder. It continued on and hit the man behind me in the face. He took the shot. I did not, because it barely touched me, as my shoulder hardly changed its course.
A marshal ran over and told me I was dead. I tried to explain that it was not a good hit, and even if it would have been, how did the arrow kill the both of us. If I was dead, would it have not stuck in me?
Ultimatly, rather than argue, I took it as a kill.


I have also been hit in the hand while catching my breath at a res point. The archer yelled across to me that I was dead. Rather than argue about the hand being not a legal target, or that the hit in the hand could not have killed me, I simply reached out and touched the res point, which was about 2 feet away, and continued to take my break. I hope he was pleased with his contribution to the battle.

In a question of Arrows vs. Honor vs. Rationality, I found the answer to these issues in my own mind, but others obviously disagree with my opinion.


Hedinn

Despite my issues with CA, if an arrow hits me in such a way that the rules indicate that it has an effect on me (killed, lost limb, etc.), I will of course follow the rules. Anyone who refuses to follow the rules for CA should be (and in my experience is) subject to the same sanctions that apply to violations of other rules of the lists. Cheating is cheating.

If you don't like the rules, your best choice is to vocally object to them, be an advocate for change, bring it up in appropriate forums for constructive criticism, offer alternatives. Or do what Tessa and others have done and get involved in either the CA or heavy weapons marshallate where you can be directly involved at a local, kingdom or society level.

By the way, some people take criticism as whining. It isn't whining if you bring up legitimate issues regarding the current rule set in an attempt to change them or express to others why you feel they should be changed/are unchivalrous/dangerous/ahistorical/etc. It is only whining if you say things like "I don't like it and if you don't change it I won't play with you anymore" etc.

For those of us that have had to deal with some rather ridiculous comments on either side of the CA argument over the years (for some of us it is literally decades now) it is important to remember than many people are new to combat and don't have the background to realize that when some of us are at the point of summarizing are arguments into "CA is an abomination and should be banned." or "CA sucks. Fix it or ban it" that we say this because of a lot of reasons and are tired of having to post pages of what is wrong with it. I personally am trying not to do this anymore, as there seems to be a real opportunity to fix much of what is perceived by many to be wrong with CA and Tessa and others are making a strong effort to fix many of the blatantly wrong aspects of it (the current proposed changes Tessa posted do improve it to a great degree in some ways, baby steps in others). So I am trying to get others, including the chivalry, to read her proposals and offer support where appropriate and constructive criticism as needed. Frankly I have been in the ban CA camp for years, but I can live with it if they reform it, though I may still disagree with the overall practice.

I don't think I am a whiner for taking this stance, nor do I think I was a whiner when supporting a total CA ban when it seemed that the CA community in the past had no interest or willingness as a group to take responsibility for their actions or to reform CA. I do not think Tessa and those CA proponents like her that offer valid evidence in favor of their positions who argue in favor of CA are whiners. I hope the CA community will realize that many in the chivalry are trying to reach accommodation with them when it really would not be that hard to get rid of CA if the fighters actually got motivated enough to do it at a kingdom level and maybe even at a Society level (the possible exceptions being Lochac, maybe the West & An Tir).

There are a lot of whiners on both sides of the argument, but I don't think the bulk of them post on the archive. When I see comments like "The chivalry is against CA because it makes them less effective." I do get offended, because most of the chivalry that I have spoken to have never expressed that opinion and when it is discussed we don't support it. When we post in personna and call archers "Cowards that should have their thumbs cut off." or archers post similar comments in personna like "Let us see take Sir So & So's horse out from beneath him so we can see the fat bastard try to run", I don't care and anyone that does needs to get a thicker skin. That is humour people or appropriate persona class bashing. If the archers don't like it, they should portray nobles instead of archers which was half the point of the everyone is a noble concept, so we would not have class strife in the SCA. If the knights don't like it, oh well, its not like we are going to give archers any awards appropriate to the nobility or knight them, so if they make comments appropriate to their class who cares (and if we do knight them or elevate them by giving them a peerage award, that is our own mistake).

My only comment on the cheating issued, is that when struck from behind or in the side by an arrow you never saw coming, especially by a light bow or where the arrow just plain lands light, one often does not realize an arrow hit them. It is easy to think you were bumped or pushed by someone on your own side whom you were not engaged with. These bumps can be very hard and can come from a body part, shield, etc. so as to be indistinguishable from an arrow fired at you from behind. This is the one area where CA folks sometimes think a fighter is cheating when he had no idea he was even hit. Trying to enforce sanctions in this sort of instance is not only inadvisable but also unfair and unwarranted.

Richard Blackmoore
East Kingdom

Tessa has written some very good guidelines (and she does want input, I gave her mine on another forum).
While not a fan of CA(especially the small shafted arrows), I will take a "good hit". If I feel it, I take it. But please, if you are shooting arrows from 20 yards away, don't jump up and down saying "I hit you" and throwing a tantrum if I don't take a shot (like it was skippy, or deflected off my (insert weapon here).
It is my honor to take good shots, just as from other weapons.
Should I call an arrow that just catches my tabard good, when someone with another weapon would shake that off?
IMO, the biggest part of the problem is the lack of consistency between Kingdom's rules.
HG Palymar, KEM of the Middle, has asked members of the Chiv who are so inspired to help foster better relation between CA'ers and non-CAers (from the May KEM letter in the Pale our Kingdom newsletter).

THANKS Tessa!

Hrólfr

tessathehuntress wrote:Sebastian,

FWIW, siege is not actually combat archery or even missile weapons (according to SCA standards). I mention that, since if it had been an arrow or crossbow bolt that came in sidewards, that would not be a good shot. I don't have any control over Siege rules, but I thought they still had to hit blunt/head first.

If they don't, I recommend that we all email Master Quinn (the DSM for Siege) and ask him to change it. That just doesn't make sense to me.

From talking with two different siege marshals: if a siege weapon projectile (ballista bolt, tennis ball pyramid) touches you before it touches the ground, you are dead. Period. That's an atomic weapon.

There is a bit of balance to this. Siege weapons now *must* be designed with cranks and the like. Gone are the days of a giant bow where one person grabs the bowstring with both hands, pulls it back, and lets go when their loader has set the bolt. Back then, it was possible for one engine to have three bolts in the air at a time. In that case, I could see it being reasonable for a ballista bolt to need to hit point first. However, if you're going to manually decrease the firing rate, it's only reasonable to allow those weapons some more potency.

The topic of siege weapon effects was posted on the SCA Chivalry Yahoo Groups. I specifically mentioned the Gulf Wars incident where a ballista bolt passing over a fighter's head clipped the top of the glaive and he was called dead. I thought and do think this is a stupid rule.

I did receive some answers on this though that make sense. I feel I can pass on the gist of the answers, since they are clarifications that all fighters should be aware of, not a priviliged chivalry conversation.

1) People generally seem to agree this is a stupid rule and one individual said he would make a note so this is addressed at Gulf Wars in the future. A ballista bolt passing overhead should not kill an individual that is not purposely blocking it, just because it happened to accidentally clip the top of his weapon.

2) This rule where siege weapon's clipping the top of weapons will probably still apply though for siege weapon ammunition considered 'massive', such as a boulder. There is actually a good reason for this unfortunately. Apparently some rules lawyering idiots were gaming the system, by using their weapons to block or deflect siege weapon ammo including boulders that a real weapon could not have blocked.

Worse, they set up defenses designed to thwart the siege weapons under our rules that were unrealistic had the boulder been real; such as a 'wall' of pikes or polearms put in front of important people/groups vulnerable to siege weapon attack. The boulder would strike the pikes and the targets and the pike holders would claim the boulder was block or deflected and therefore caused no harm to anyone, which is obviously ridiculous. So the new rule was needed to stop people from abusing the intent of the existing rules system, namely recreation of siege weapon effects in a reasonable way.

I personally would rather see such abuse of the rules defenses disallowed or other actions taken against the rules lawyers who do such things, but that is often not worth the hassle and whoever came up with the new rule to deal with them probably thought (and I can't argue with it) that it was a simpler solution that would eliminate the problem without the marshallate having to play detective, judge and jury every time a boulder is fired into a crowd. Even though it creates its own unrealistic effects such as a boulder clipping the top of your glaive when you were not doing anything wrong, killing you. The sins of the fathers....

Then again, this is another reason why I wish our combat didn't have siege weapons, just too much hassle for what it adds to the game. My opinion only.

Richard