Mass Battle suggestion. 10 mins to run.

[conal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Glendower

We do the one where they English all march up a Hill and the Welsh shoot them from the other sides.

And... parabolic for the first range and only heavies advance past 2nd range.

And then hit them with some Welsh long spear so they get the point.

Over.

Be like fish in a barrel...

...pah you'd still miss.

"those archers are drunk!"

[Colin & Lynlee]

From the archers point of view, we would "hit" you guys more often if all hits were acknowledged. Some are obviously not felt because the armour is doing it's job, others because the wearer is having too much fun being "alive".
Nigel was talking about fire arrows, perhaps we could use dye arrows for one round and see how the real hit vs acknowledged hits runs!

Velcro dots holding on kitchen sponge with dye should work.

PS are we all aiming for Conal in the first volley???? I know he loves a challenge

[conal]

yep keen.

Don't worry about dye.

I know when to.

[Robbo]

frequently

[hawke]

Yep its the falling down dead that is the issue
Last year it made us with the bows look bad
as those hit didn't drop.
As you say its sometimes hard for those in heavy to
notice the hit,especially if they haven't trained with
combat archery.
Would the dye come off? Some would be very miffed
if it didn't.

Cheers
see you all there

[Robbo]

Just for perspective, but as an unarmoured marshal who had to walk in the middle of that (therefore supposedly unbiased and had a decent view)? There were indeed some people who didn't take their hits...but those people don't take their hits from melee weaponry either. (I suspect only a direct trebuchet shot to the chest MAY defeat their +5 armour)

Then, of course, there was the remarkable amount of arrows that just out right missed.

[Gaius Drustanus]

As a Marshal too, like robbo, you do see far too many untaken Hits in Melee but if you ground the Combat to a Halt for every one of those you see, Nothing Would Get Done.

There are Immortals there who just basically need to be DeCapitated! With attendent Bolts of Lightening. They would notice that. I've met Quite a Few.

[Gaius Drustanus]

And when you waltz across the Paddock unhelmeted as a Marshall, there is certain Frisson too, when the Lobbed arrows start to come in.

[NigelT]

I had a lot of comments from spectators that it looked quite impressive when the hail of arrows was coming in. That was with 35 archers. If all 80 people who had registered as archers had been on the field at once it would have been truly spectacular. Fortunately it's one of the fastest growing areas of re-enactment at the moment, so we're getting loads of new archers all the time - to the point where we as a whole can't supply arrows fast enough for everyone who wants them.

Conal, love the idea. The problem is finding a hill to march up at Taupo... perhaps we could build one.

I'm keen to see ideas bounced around here so we can get all sides of the story (yes, even ones I don't agree with) and perhaps we can come up with a few scenarios and refine them so that for the next big event we go into it with a repertoire of things to try and enough people know them to make it run well.

When things are very carefully coordinated I think the rules can be bent a little, provided safety is not compromised.

And I know that nobody likes me hammering on about safety, but I think it's worth mentioning that we had our first (that I know of) hospitalisation at Taupo from a combat blunt hitting someone in the eye. I won't name names, and it did not occur on the battlefield in front of the public. The problem was inadequately attached archery mesh and taking two arrows in the same eye, one after the other. The injury probably isn't going to be serious, but it's a good reminder of the hazards if you're not keeping a weary eye on safety.

The dye idea could be interesting in other ways - it could provide a surreal experience fo the public. Instead of dye we could try flour or something like that that's relatively harmless as long as you keep your eyes closed. When it kits it'll create a big dust explosion. Make it red and you've got 300 all over again Not very authentic, but a bit of fun.

Nigel