CF Heavy

This is a page for core discussion of Heavy Combat activities at Canterbury Faire.

Tournaments

Heavy Tournaments are popular with a large subset of heavy fighters. Traditionally we have had, as a minimum:

• A Fighter Auction Tourney, this tends to generate interest.
• A Pas d'Arms at the end of the week, which usually draws a moderately large crowd.

There is the potential for another 2-3 tournaments over the 6 days of Faire, however timetabling concerns may mean this many tournaments can't effectively be timetabled.

The tradition in Southron Gaard has been for tournaments to be one-on-one, usually with a variety of fighting styles on different days.

War Fighting

War Fighting, both including, and not including, combat archery and other light fighters are popular with a large subset of heavy fighters, and especially popular with combat authorised archers. Scheduling of war fighting should avoid conflicting with Archery events if at all possible. The following limitations should be kept in mind with war fighting at Canterbury Faire:

• The layout of the Canterbury Faire site precludes free range mixed combat scenarios. To keep archery lines safe, war involving archers is very likely to be linear.
• War fighting in the forest making use of the walking tracks provides a terrain experience, but archery is probably not possible there, due to the loss of arrows.
• There are other terrain areas, notably near the BMX tracks, which we have not used in the last few years.

While it is acceptable to have some heavy combat only scenarios run, when scheduling remember that war scenarios also exist for the benefit of our baronies combat archers.

It is important to remember that not all heavy fighters are satisfied with fighting only in tournaments, or only in war scenarios. A mix of the two should be scheduled if possible.

Time of Day concerns

When scheduling heavy fighting, it is best to avoid scheduling it for the middle of the day where possible. I would strongly encourage investigation of whether we can get an early evening tournament run after dinner on a day of Faire. While we can't have a fire tourney ala Great Northern War, it would be good to offer something to watch in that space, and it may provide entertainment. Maximilian von Monsterberg (talk) 13:42, 27 January 2014 (EST)
Also note, we will almost certainly have clashes between Heavy and Rapier activities, both would prefer not to happen in the middle of the day, and both make use of our main list field. In addition, a number of the baronies traditional Heavy fighters also partake in Rapier. Scheduling is just a hard problem in general. Personally I am leaning towards a strategy where we should encourage more scheduling of activities, rather than trying to strictly not have anything clash as my preference. Maximilian von Monsterberg (talk) 13:42, 27 January 2014 (EST)

Armour Inspections

No one likes having to find their authorisation and pass full armour authorisation for every tournament/war scenario. Suggestions for marshalling:

• Site authorisation cards with initial armour inspection, and add names of authorised/inspected fighters to a list.
• Second-and-subsequent armour inspections: consider using small coloured Inspection Sticker on back of helm - see duty marshal only if any changes were made to kit.

Safety should trump convenience, and obviously it is the marshalls call.

Fighter Auction Tourney

In response to bids going very high in previous years, we moved to a motto system, and to only accepting cash on hand bids. The current limitations that we have been observing since 2008:

• Fighters are identified by a motto that they choose from a pool. Mottos are read aloud at the auction, and bids are for the motto.
  • Latinised mottos are a nice touch, and this has been the tradition.
• Bids are only accepted in a cash on hand basis.
• One fighter per bidder. Each bidder can only buy one fighter.

These changes resulted in a drop in the amount being paid per fighter when the changes were first put through, and probably still result in a lower overall take. We do this to allow more of the populace to bid, and also to even the amount of money spent on each fighter, to avoid star factor bidding.

Gods and Monsters Tournament

The Pas'd'Arms at the end of Canterbury Faire since ~2009 has been in the format of a Gods and Monsters tourney. For this tourney there are:

• A team of Monsters. Each person on this team chooses a specific method that must be followed to kill them, usually some kind of riddle. They will need as a minimum:
  • A Name, they should be able to say who or what they are.
  • A costume to identify them with their name.
  • Hints they can give about how to kill them.

This is usually run as an audience participation tournament, insofar as the audience are encouraged to shout helpful suggestions to fighters.

Possible improvements

Investigate making of armour/weapon racks, or just supply of tables, so that armour and weapons are kept up off the ground.
Investigate getting a dedicated arming tent to keep armour in.