Rapier Activities
RAPIER SKILLS CHALLENGE AND MELEE
Saturday morning will be a timed rubber band gun shoot and rapier melee. Armor inspection will begin at 9:00 AM
The challenge will show your aim, dexterity, speed in loading, and ability to choose your targets wisely. Contestants will start on the marshal’s command, thus starting the timer, and loading their RBG, picking their first target, taking aim, and firing. Once they have successfully hit a target, they may advance to said target, collect their ammunition, reload, and choose their next target. Should they miss their chosen target, and are out of ammunition, the contestant will go and collect as many of their spent ammunition as they see fit, return to the last successful target they hit, and continue in their attempts to progress. Once a contestant reaches the final target, the timer stops.
If you are bringing your own RBG and ammo, you are allowed a maximum of three shots on your person. If you are using a loaner RBG, you will only have one shot on your person.
The two contestants with the fastest timed completion of the challenge will become team captains, and then pick their teams for the melees.
Competing in the challenge will obligate you to participate in the melee. If you want to fight in the melees for fun, but don’t care about the prize, you are not required to participate in the skills challenge. The winning team’s captain wins the prize!
The prize is a black walnut bodied rubber band gun, based on 16th century examples from Germany, Spain, and Switzerland, with a black walnut body and steel barrel, and using the trigger mechanism from Castille Armory.
Depending on time we are considering melee scenarios including capture the flag, total elimination, and possibly a castle defender scenario.
NEVER WON A TOURNEY TOURNAMENT, RAPIER
Saturday Afternoon. Armor inspection at 1 pm. The prize is a spiral carved ash-wood handle, cut to fit the usual Castille Armory rapier tang and the hanwei swept hilt rapier tang (shown here installed).
RAPIER PRIZE TOURNAMENT
Sunday afternoon, an open invitational. Armor inspections start at 3 pm and may overlap the end of the Cut & Thrust Tourney. The prize is a $150 gift card to Castillearmory.com.
Cut & Thrust Activities
ARMOUR-AS-WORN TOURNAMENT
This will start with an in-depth explanation/class/geek out session at 2:30 Saturday afternoon to go over this before armor inspections begin. This is considered part of the inspection process.
Any kit that will pass An Tir’s Cut and Thrust armor requirements will be allowed on the field, but only historically inspired protective gear made from period materials will count as resistance to blows.
The rule set for the tournament is based largely on the precedence of the Dekoven Concords, which has influenced many other competitions both in and out of the SCA. Where the rules of the Concords would encourage or require violation of An Tir’s Cut and Thrust regulations, we will be deferring to the An Tir Book of Cut and Thrust Combat.
There will be four levels of protection counted in this tournament
— Unarmored; garb, unpadded clothing, garment weight leather, modern protective equipment. No resistance to blows.
— Lightly armored; sufficiently padded clothing, sufficiently thick leather. Resistance to percussive cuts and incidental contact. No resistance to slices or thrusts
— Well armored; cuir bouilli, riveted maille, scale maille. Resistance to all cuts and incidental or “skippy” thrusts. No resistance to well placed thrusts.
— Fully armored; plate. Scale or cuir bouilli over chainmail will be counted as plate. Resistance to all blows.
Brigandine and lamellar will be counted as scale or plate depending on the construction methods used. Sufficient continuous overlap and material thickness will be the determining factors.
Fights will be held to An Tir’s Cut and Thrust standards and calibration, meaning well placed thrusts are more reliant on skill then force, and harder blows will not be used as a way to overcome an opponent’s armor.
All defensive offhands or weapons must be legal under An Tir’s Cut and Thrust requirements.
Anyone who wants to look into the subject of Armor-As-Worn before the event can visit the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/475373559496599/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT
The prize will be a SHARP rondel dagger and sheath.
CUT & THRUST SKILLS CHALLENGE AND MELEE
Inspections will be Sunday Morning at 9:00 AM.
This will be a timed puzzle demonstrating point control and problem solving, known as the Tower of Hanoi.
The contestant may begin at the marshal’s command, which will start the timer. Should the contestant make an illegal move, they must undo the move before being allowed to continue in their progress. The timer will not be stopped for these errors. Once the puzzle is completed, the timer will be stopped.If you are using your own sword, it must be legal and combat ready for cut and thrust combat in An Tir. If you need to borrow a sword you may use a baronial loaner.
The two contestants with the fastest timed completion of the challenge will become team captains, and then pick their teams for the melees.
Competing in the challenge will obligate you to participate in the melee. If you want to fight in the melees for fun, but don’t care about the prize, you are not required to participate in the skills challenge.
The winning team’s captain wins the prize!
The prize is the dussack/German basket hilt mk.1 prototype by Castille Armory. We’ll try to play the scenarios we didn’t have time for with rapier.
CUT & THRUST PRIZE TOURNAMENT
Sunday afternoon will be an open invitational, the prize for which is a $150 castillearmory.com gift card. Armor inspection starts at 1 pm.
More Details
The intended format for all tournaments is to have a set of list fields running round robins, and the top fighters of each pool will move on to an elimination event. If there are as few as five fighters in each list field, and time allows, we will run the fields as best two out of three, double round robin. If there are as many as ten fighters in each field, we will be running a single round robin with single bouts in each field. This is to allow as many fights as possible without excessively disrupting the schedule.
Spear use, if allowed, will only be during the melees. Fighters using spears must be part of An Tir’s experiment, or authorized fighters in its use in their home kingdom.
Rubber band guns will be allowed during the rapier melees, but the one loaner RBG available will be prioritized for any team captains that do not have their own. All marshals must have eye protection (fencing masks qualify) if RBG’s are in use
Reduced Armor will be allowed, but only if one can show that they are authorized to participate in the experiment. Reduced armor use during the melees is highly discouraged, as the experiment only allows for a total of ten fighters if reduced armor is being used.
All formats for melees or tournaments are subject to change at the discretion of the MiC, the event lead, the Coronets of the Summits, or the Crown of An Tir.
Questions?
You can email the marshal-in-charge with questions at egils@antir.org. Put Steel Combat in the subject line.