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Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:56 am
by Wisp
This event was by far the most anticipated event of the year for me. I was disappointed with the numbers in attendence but talking with alot of the people who did make it, it seems there was a heavy feel of "wait and see" for this first event of it's kind. That mixed with labor day, and apparently, Rising Winds populace being some * *, the numbers were not nearly what I had hoped for. The number of fighters on the field did however, make for a very good series of battle games that were balanced, fun, and not so large as to be overwhelming. I really enjoyed every one of the scenarios. I had more fun in these games than I've had in a very long time.

Coming from St Louis with me was Sir Johann and H, my son Alex, and Olos (a really awesome local Dag guy whos an amazing archer). We linked up with Lobster and Fuzz, also from STL and Thorpe from Olympus. That made up our team roster for the event as Team Sol Invictus. Sir Angmarth from Bel joined us for the last five minutes of the Capture the Flag battle on Saturday, but he had to leave after lunch.

We got to the event site around 10 on Friday evening. We missed the jugging match but there was a ditch line running. We found an open cabin and got settled in before heading over to the ditchfield. We ditched off and on while getting to know some of the Bel guys and drank beer on the sidelines till around 2 when they killed the ditch lights. We went back to our cabin and drank with Arthon and Shady till the wee hours of the morning and then crashed in our coffin bunks. Arthon still owes me a 12 pack and a pack of cigs.

I woke up on the late side and found that everyone in my cabin had bailed out for breakfast leaving me to sleep (they all crashed around 4:30ish leaving me and Shady to close things out by 6AM). I called and requested they bring back some food and the * brought me beefjerky. Beefjerky and beer burps was not going to cut it for the full day of fighting planned but luckily Leif had made some bad * breakfast burritos.

The first scenario game was Capture the Flag. The way the teams were set up was by combining three or four teams together to form one larger team. All of the individual teams received points for their combined team scoring a points and the winning team got a couple of extra points. The "flags" were 30 lbs dumbells which really made for an interesting game as the field was really large with interesting terrain to fight around. The dumbells raised some eyebrows at first but ended up making the scenario really fun, at least until I kicked one as my team mate fell while snatching the flag from the opponet teams base. Other than my newly purpled toe, I don't think there was any other injuries. This game lasted for 90 minutes. I think an hour would have been better as at the end of the 90 minutes, I was smoked. We broke for lunch and the event staff had hamburgers and dogs. I ate my fill and was feeling recharged.

The second scenario game was a strategic point control scenario. There is a really nice plywood castle with two gates and a lot of pylons that you can move around into whatever formation you like. Brennon sat up the pylons in a standard formation for all the teams to work with. Inside this castle is a single pylon that was the objective. Your team had to storm through the gate and touch the pylon which started a time clock and then hold it as long and often as you could. The team (there were three different teams all fighting at the same time) that had the longest running time in control of the pylon won the game. Great game. This event lasted 1 hour. 45 minutes would have been better as I was already smoked from the 1st event.

We sat around and BSed with MHOG for about an hour after the end of the last event until time to go head to town for dinner. By the time we got back, I was physically exhausted and ended up crashing out on my cabins couch where I woke up with a horrible crick in my neck and to the sound of rain hitting the roof.

After a welcomed hot shower and another great breakfast courtesy of Leif, it was time to get back to the action.

The next scenario was the best Caravan Battle I've played. Brennon had set up a course that ran out of the castle, into the woods through a trail, coming out into the big field for another 200 meteres or more. The objective was to transport the cargo (a large wooden stump) from the start point to the end point, scoring a point for every checkpoint you passed. The checkpoints were spaced every fifty feet. There were three teams, again made up of smaller teams combined, and there was 2 to 1 odds with two teams with infinate lives and a respawn point trying to halt the third team who had limited lives and keep them from reaching the finish point by shattering them out or keeping them back until time expired. The assumption prior to the game was that the log would have to be rolled along the course to the end point. The first team that ran had some seriously stout corn fed boy that ran the log on his shoulder almost to the end of the wooded trail portion of the course. After that point it was a battle to the finish. The first team made it to the end with zero respawns left and I don't know how much time remaining.

The second team that attempted the run was halted halfway along the wooded trail portion and it became desperate fight for survival as they were pinched between the other two teams inside the woods. As the battle turned desperate, the tactic of the defending team became raw, pure aggression. The full on shield bashing led to more than one tree being knocked over as juggernaut style charges into people as the number of lives whittled down for the defenders. Their progress remained halted inside the woods and they never did make it out.

The third team (ours) made it with the log clear through the wooded portion and almost halfway through the final leg before being halted. The enemy had taken control of our cargo and guraded it closely, surrounding it with their superior numbers. It became a matter of regrouping en mass for full on charges, slamming bodies into shields and other bodies trying to punch a hole long enough to advance the log as far as possible. We were two check points shy of the finish line before we exhausted our life pool.

The final scenario was another variation on the take the castle but this time, there was an objective that had to be reached inside in sort of a ring the bell fashion. The team that held the castle while protecting the objective the longest won. It was again a two to one odds scenario with teams taking turns being the defenders against the other two combined teams. Each team was allowed to arrange the pylons in any fashion they wanted. The first two teams tried to plug the area immediately outside the gates with the pylons but this didn't work very well, as once you punched through the gate, it was largely a clear path to the objective. The first team held the castle for just under 3 minutes, the second team held it only 45 seconds. Our team got to go last and we arranged the pylons inside the castle making a virtual forrest of pylons throughout the courtyard area and with a funneld kill sack into the gates only allowing one person at a time to push in. We held the castle for just under 8 minutes.

The final result was team Hellhammer (a Bel team) winning the day with 17 pts. Team Sol Invictus took second with 15.75 pts and I have no idea how everyone else scored.

After another shower and packing up the truck, we hit feast. Wow was that a great feast. One of the top 2 feasts I've had in foam fighting. I'm still stuffed hours and hours later and it was great. Kudo's to the feast crew.

Over all, the games were great, the attitudes on the field were great, the feast was great, and everything was very well ran. I especially enjoyed getting to play with MHOG on our team in most of the battles and getting to play with strategy and tactics of each scenario with him. Where we were outgunned, our game plans more than made up for it and it was a lot of fun to watch things unfold as we hoped they would for the most part. The low attendence was disappointing but I think now that it's been proven that it can be done, maybe next Lord Of War will be better supported by the players of both Bel and Amt, and more of the Dag crowd will join in (I think there was around five Dag players there). I rate this event a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, and only dock it 1 point because of the attendence hit. Great job and thank you to Brennon and crew who made this event happen! I remain excited about the possibilities!


Will

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 3:20 am
by Big King Jimmy
For the record, the "pylons" for those that weren't there are the triangle plywood things Numinor uses as the edges of the walls, on either side of the bales of hay for city battles.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:28 pm
by bo1
i too expected greater numbers, but those follow great events, so next year should get much better numbers.

the event was great fun, i fought much harder than anticipated. night fighting was great, lots of good fighters to face off with.

weapons check was a little strange, i would like to have a more formal process in the future. dispite that, the injuries were few and far between, i dont think any where related to faulty gear.

really the only thing that would have made this event better would have been 400 people, but again that will happen as it gains notoriaty.

great job to the creators, i will be back.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 4:19 pm
by Azgarehta
Argh, a group from STL went and I didn't sign up to go. I'll have Olos or Angmarth call me next time. :P

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:37 pm
by Physic
I had an amazing time and I had to leave on Friday evening. The ditching was fantastic. It made for more of an intense experience with the fighting. Night fighting is freaking amazing. Melannen, Gambit and myself did pickups with some of the Amtgarders until 12:30 on Thursday night. When I finally went to bed on Friday night I realized I had never been that tired and sore from just two days of fighting.

The Amtgard folks that I met were really great. They all had an awesome attitude as well as some seriouse skill. What the event lacked in quantity more then made up in quality. I really wish I could have stayed longer.

I truly hope this event will continue every year. Just being there two days was not enough for me. While only being there a short time it was definitly one of my favorite events of all time.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:12 pm
by Sorcia
Even though I didn't fight (on the field :) ) I did have a spectacular time.

Thank you to Brennen, Lief, MHOG, all of the other Amtgardians, the Stonehouse staff, and the person who took care of the castle transportation fleet in Texas and Oklahoma. You were all fabulous!

A special mention to all the ancient Amtgard types that took me back to 1992. You reminded me of all the wonderful times I had in Amtgard. It really has been a long * time since I though about what it was like to be a newb since I am one of the old farts around here. I will join you in the 20 Year Plus Club in the next couple of years. ;)

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:33 pm
by Big King Jimmy

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:31 am
by Gambit Redband
I'd like to echo the praises already mentioned and especially agree with how what this event lacked in quantity of fighters was made up several times over by quality.

The battle games were definitely the highlight of this event because it got people thinking about strategies other than, "Advance, flank, backstab." I liked how Brennon allowed fighters to create new elements for the game, such as leaving it up to fighters to figure out how to arrange their castle defenses, and letting the woods be in bounds for Capture the Flag. Letting the participants create their own experience was a great idea.

I enjoyed the combined ruleset. The compromises made were simple and fair, and aside from occasional confusion, seemed to be applied rather smoothly.

Despite a few things not going according to plan, the show went on. The event coordinators really rolled with the punches and still managed to deliver an event that spawned a legion of stories that will hopefully evangelize its wonders. Weather was pretty nice, too, except for the wet Sunday.

This summer marks two years of fighting for me, and Lord of War was my seventh event. During this time I have felt like my abilities have improved little by little here and there and I began to feel like I was forming some idea of what I was doing.

This event brought so many new elements to the table that I felt like a newbie all over again. I extend my thanks to all who served as my teachers this past weekend, old faces and new faces alike. It is an extremely valuable experience to have one's ego and bad habits exposed and broken down so they may be rebuilt more humble and more effective than before.

[Last two paragraphs copied from other Lord of War thread]

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:03 am
by Michael
LoW

The good:
Great people with great attitudes leads to an awesome event.
Jugging on a super small field.
Well written scenarios
Simple cheap meals once the tavern confusion was overcome.
Bear pits and more bear pits.
Tactical challenges.
“That’s a Rogue Entrance”, even though no other Rogue ever did that kind of ****.
Telling lies. With new people all of Arthon’s old stories are usable again.
Of course the Bel tall tales were new to us so it went both ways.

The bad:
Broken axels and all that followed that

The ugly:
Getting kicked in the chest by Killian (no hard feelings but it still hurts when I cough)
How much currency the name Lief has in any foam game.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 12:22 pm
by Big King Jimmy
Michael wrote:Getting kicked in the chest by Killian (no hard feelings but it still hurts when I cough)


You know... everytime I hear about someone getting kicked in the chest it feels like it's always Killian.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 12:45 pm
by arthon
Big Jimmy wrote:
Michael wrote:Getting kicked in the chest by Killian (no hard feelings but it still hurts when I cough)


You know... everytime I hear about someone getting kicked in the chest it feels like it's always Killian.


Meh. Killian's a big physical guy. We ran into each other (literally) every time we faced off. Lot of fun to fight him.

Speaking of fun, I had a blast. It was good to see Peter and Mel again, but it was really cool to meet a whole new bunch of Bel fighters. I am still super-sore from all the intense fighting that took place, but it was worth it.

I'm glad y'all took the chance and went out to the event. Hopefully we'll have more Amt folk, more Bel folk, and more foam fighters from around the country show up.

-arthon

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:46 pm
by MagnusofDregoth
Sorry not to have been there--I am sure I would have loved it. Maybe next year?

PS All y'all should come to Okfest.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:56 pm
by Cyric
I had a lot of fun. The scenarios were great, and hopefully we can implement some of those in bel. Night fighting was a blast. It was good to have new people to fight against. looking forward to next year.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 3:30 pm
by Rakhir
I had a great time at LoW. Thanks to all of the Bel folks for coming out to cross sticks. I really enjoy the fighting style that the more Bel-flavored rules produced. It turns out that smashing up lines with suicide charges is a lot of fun. :)

Rakhir

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:38 am
by Physic
How much did it cost to rent the lights for the night fighting? They should be required for all events in the future.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:48 am
by Brennon EH
Physic wrote:How much did it cost to rent the lights for the night fighting? They should be required for all events in the future.


It was ~$500 for the rental for five days.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:46 pm
by Sorcia
I would donate to the lights for Okfest and I don't even fight. It really was nice to come out and simply watch all the people having so much fun fighting at night and we just made a sideline party out of it.

If we do this for Okfest, I would suggest that we have more tables off to the side for the party and for fighters to sit on at breaks.

Anyone else?

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:06 pm
by Lord Onyx
I do not think that area was large enough to accommodate all those that will want to night fight at fest is it? I was perfect it seemed for this event but one the size of fest I would be afraid it would just be cramped? Is there a larger area similar to that one we could use?

Oh and I post this on the Amtgard forum but great event and thanks to all who worked on it.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:13 pm
by Cyric
The lights can cover an area of 5-7 acres each. We could set them on the small field and use have plenty of coverage, but that might interfere with the bonfire and would make it pretty bright for the campers. We will play around with it and see what we can do.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:52 pm
by bangor
In the Frostlands, our events pull about 100 folks, so we use a permanently purchased set of halogen work lamps for our night ditch. It cost us about $200, and we can use them every event.

A 300+ person event would probably require what you saw at LoW.

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 9:32 pm
by Hurin
The event was fun even for the SHP employees. I enjoyed driving around Michael and Mal around trying to piece together that gate which will be there next year. Which I would love to do again. I loved the night fighting. After working at the park all day and then getting to fight for like 5 hours at night was amazing. Peter and I have already decided that they will be at octfest. The place where we had the lights is not feasible for octfest because bof camps there so, we plan on putting them on the small field (spring wars, geddon field).

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Sun Nov 28, 2010 4:20 pm
by Hash
Ya I know, necro
But just wondering if there are any plans to do this again in the works? wanted to go last year but couldn't afford it, sounds awesome

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 2:45 pm
by Loptr
Hash wrote:Ya I know, necro
But just wondering if there are any plans to do this again in the works? wanted to go last year but couldn't afford it, sounds awesome


Have heard nothing from B on this topic.
I suspect his commute to and from last year took its tool on his idea of a good time.

L

Re: Lord of War Review

PostPosted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:40 pm
by Physic
I think this is a great event that could be done every two years. It would make people get more excited for it and you would be able to put more energy into it.