by Wisp » Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:56 am
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
Sol Invictus FTW!