Welcome to the web home of Nick and Jennifer Soucy, known as Girard le Bourguignon and Guenièvre de Monmarché. We'll try and keep it entertaining around here.
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This weekend, my father came up from Florida to drop off some yard equipment. Yay for having my own lawn mower and trimmer. However, this left us with a Sunday with no real firm plans.
So, it was time to get back to my roots as a homebrewer. You see, I actually learned brewing from my father. I was in middle school when he picked up the hobby, and I used to help with all aspects of the brewing process. I can say I’ve been bottling beer since 7th grade, and it still sucked back then.
To kick off the inaugural batch for my new keg system, I thought something with a nice creamy head would really take advantage of the kegerator. Thus, I pulled out my Creamy Vanilla Ale recipe, and Dad and I spent the afternoon relaxing, not worrying, and making home brew.
Let’s see – I found out that my stove really won’t do the job for bringing wort up to a boil. We had to span the pot over two burners to get anywhere, and it still didn’t really boil like I would have liked. Guess I need to find a turkey fryer (that might be fun in January/February). I also learned that the new yeast smack packs from American Brewmaster really take off. I smacked it at the start of the brew process and the dang thing looked like it was going to explode before the wort was cool enough. Lastly, I think I used the wrong grains – it should still be tasty, but not as blonde as the last one.
Looking forward, I’m planning two experiments in the future. In the near term, I’m going to make one more partial extract beer (to use up some of the malt extract I’ve got sitting around), but this time I want to make it with Durham’s Municipal water. I’ve gotten the watter quality assessment from the city, and it’s not horribly far off the water I’m buying in the stores.
Then, probably after Ymir, I’m going to go for an all grain batch. Considering that there will be lots of opportunities to add hops, I think that one is going to be an IPA.
If all goes well, I should be able to bring a keg or two to Ymir, and anyway, it’ll be on tap at my house. Stay tuned for news of keg tapping day.
There’s often a question as to, “what should my kit look like?” I know that fully encased arm rigs are acceptable for the 14th Century, but so aren’t mail chauces. Should I wear one with the other?
The nice folks over at A Commonplace Book linked to a nifty article by Doug Strong. He did a statistical analysis of 250 effigies in England, and broke down their armor into bar graphs per decade. Thus, I can look at the 1380’s and see that while my arm rig, gauntlets, and breastplate are great, my lack of real greaves and sabatons are woefully anachronistic. (Good thing I play in the SCA, right?)
It’s also interesting to see these graphs in relation to the 100 Years War. When you consider the Battles of Crecy and Poitiers, in 1337 and 1356 respectively, you see a bunch of different styles of armor quickly getting drilled down to one major one and a few examples of a runner up. In most cases, by the 1360’s, armor has standardized to a single type. However, you don’t see huge changes in the 1420’s after Agincourt in 1415.
Tags: 1380, armor
Tired Baron is Tired
This weekend saw fit to give me plenty of opportunities to fight a wide range of fighters. We had 18 in armor on the field, so the MOL’s saw fit to break us into two pools of 9 for our first round robin. I was in a pool with Sirs Mark and Daemon. Eight fights later, both Knights and I had fought to a 3 way tie for first place, each of us going 7 and 1. Moving into the finals, they allowed the top three of each pool to advance, placing me in a pool of 6 including Count Jason, Lord Jonathan Blackbow, and Sir Daemon’s new squire whose name escapes me at the moment. Unfortunately, while a few of the fights I had in the finals were hard fought, they were eventually counted in the loss column, sending me 0 for 5 in the finals. On top of that baker’s dozen fights in the tournament, I went two passes with Lord Galen, my new Armored Champion, and two passes each with two newer fighters during a sparsely attended pickups period.
I won’t go into all 19 fights, but I do want to break down my fights with the Chivalry as to add to my file cabinet on them. It seemed like there was a definite break between those who made the finals and those who did not. There were a lot of newer fighters on the field yesterday, and not a lot in the mid-range (where I consider myself to be). Against these new opponents, I think I did a good job of bringing my preferred game to the field. I tried to remain highly mobile while maintaining good footwork. I threw way more shots than I needed to, so I’ll need to work on more concise targeting.
Vs. Sir Mark – Sir Mark and I fought twice, each time he was fighting with an upside down katana in his off hand. The first fight I won, the second he won. In the first fight, I lined up as if to go for a standard sword side pass, only as I moved towards his “shield side”, I threw a leg wrap out around his upside down sword. I was trying to keep from getting hit by it, but it turns out it worked, and I took his leg. After that, I had to keep on him and keep throwing until I was able to take a step to my shield side and drop a wrap into his belly. In the second fight, I tried the same thing again, but he saw it coming. He tabled my shield out a bit and got my leg, forcing me to my knees. After closing on me, he was very effective in getting myself all tied up with my own sword and shield, and it was a simple matter of wrapping the back of my head.
Vs. Sir Daemon – Sir Daemon and I also fought twice. However, he won both of them, in the exact same manner (that says I didn’t learn the first time). I would close and attempt to bring the same fight I brought to everyone else, and he would block all that. Then, when the time was right, he’d throw this killer leg wrap – it’s so tight and fast. It hit high on my hip, and gets behind the shield. Once on my knees, I was able to be reasonably defensive, though I get the impression that Sir Daemon is a very patient fighter. I was almost able to take his arm, but I didn’t quite have enough power on the offside shot there – something to work on. Eventually he would throw a combo that hit my arm, then my head, fast enough that I say “good arm, head.”
Vs. Count Jason – To be honest, I did not give this Knight the best fight ever. By the time we met, I was hot and more than a little tired. I remembered the idea of trying to open him up as I changed ranges. The trouble was, I did it poorly, and he was able to step a bit off to my shield side. A quick flat snap later, and I was done. I thought I had it blocked, but it was coming for the back of my helm rather than the front side of it. Oh well, more to watch for next time.
Tags: Daemon, Fighting, Jason, Mark, tournament
In running up to the Pas d’Armes du l’Arbre d’Or, Baron Alejandro and I conducted a series of greatsword fights, building a friendly rivalry. I was looking to get some practice in before attempting to authorize, and I’m not sure Alejandro’s motivations, but sometimes things are best left un-pondered. Regardless, we had a great time taunting each other into fights where all that stood between your advisary and your soon to be bruised body was a few feet of rattan.
Girard strikes Alejandro
We fought till one of us had scored 5 good blows, so best of 9. We kept score for ourselves. We would often simply keep fighting while scoring, yelling “good, two!” as we threw our own blow.
So, considering how fun this was, and how out of practice I am with this fun form, and that it’s really only good for dueling, I open myself up for challenges once again. I will make an effort to ensure I have a greatsword with me at any and all martial events. Find me at a practice, a demo, or pickups at an event, and say, “Your Excellency, I challange you to 9 passes of greatsword,” and I shall accept your challange.
The only valid reasons to push off the challange are; some piece of armor is broken past the point of being legal/safe and can not be fixed today, I am injured to the point where I can not fight any more, or I have some very pressing time restriction that I can not dodge (like court). Notice, I didn’t include “I’m too tired” or any number of other pansy excuses.
What you need to join is an SCA legal greatsword, adequate hand protection, and if we’re at an event – a valid great weapon authorization. Otherwise, sky’s the limit. Bring it on.
The loser of the 9 passes should publicly state that the challenge was fought, the score, and something of the victor’s virtue.
So, who wan’ts into the Liechtenstein School of Swordplay? (Why Liechtenstein? Well, in what form did Sir Ulrich win his first tourney?)
Tags: Fighting, greatsword
Baron Girard in Armor
After the devastating morning where I had to bury my favorite cat, Gandalf, I’m in debt to my Baronial Army for allowing me some martial therapy Sunday afternoon.
I’m so proud of them. We really were fighting by about 1:15, and everyone was warmed up and ready to go by the time 2:00 rolled around. We were able to work on some charging drills, talk about some goals for the army, and learn quite a bit. Thank you as well to Sir Falcone for taking a leadership roll on Sunday, as my mind wasn’t quite 100% in it. Twelve fighters doesn’t sound like a huge turnout for a Baronial Practice, but let me stress that this is the start. It was the first one we’ve had all year, and that number will only grow as Pennsic looms closer. That said, don’t underestimate what a dozen well trained and disciplined shiledmen can do.
We charged each other so well and so many times that my shield arm was sore. That doesn’t happen at Pennsic folks, so let that show that we’re training harder than we’ll fight. Ulrich also nailed my right hip quite well, right where the armor wasn’t, so the walk into work today was spent stretching that out and walking it off.
Great practice folks, I’ll see you all next month.
(Special thanks to Lady Zita for the picture.)
Tags: Fighting, melee, practice
Hello All,
I’m very proud of my web staff today, as over that rainy weekend they were able to push out a brand new website for the Barony. Go take a look: windmastershill.org.
You’ll spot the brand new Baronage Blog, which Guenievre and I will use to communicate with the rest of the populace, as well as pimp up comming events and projects, and to report on such things once they have passed.
Also, our Baronial Calendar is now 100% web user generated. That’s right, if someone wants to hold a meeting, practice, get-together, A&S workshop, what ever, they can go up here and add it to the calendar themselves. No need to email it to someone, who will have to hand code it and then ftp it up to a website.
So, Windmasters’, go sign up and look around. Other Baronies, bow down before the awesome that is our new website!
Tags: announcements, baronage
I noticed a common tactic among the knights at Ice Castles the other week, and a lot of the newer fighters fell for it. Most of the knights I saw know how to do this to people, and very few people seem to know how to stop it.
Let’s say the situation comes down to 2 relatively less experienced fighters vs. 1 fighter with relatively more experience. We’ll call it 2 squires vs. 1 knight. What the knight wants to do is string out the two un-belts so that he can have 2 single fights. If the knight can accomplish, even for a couple seconds, a one-on-one with an un-belt, he’ll look to kill or leg that un-belt then move off to clean up the other one.
Of course, the two squires have a much better shot at killing said knight if they can both attack him at the same time. Actually, any two fighters that are out of the “novice” bracket should be able to kill just about any white belt they can catch together.
So, watch what happens. Sir Killer (red w/ white stripe) is looking at Squire Green (green w/ red stripe) and Squire Meat (blue w/red stripe) from the House of Green Eggs and Ham. Sir Killer is going to quickly size up the two squires, and try to figure out which is the weaker. He will run to that side of the formation. In our situation, Squire Meat is the weaker guy. (See Illustration 1.)
Illustration 1
Reactions to this vary. In the “realy bad” department, they will just turn. At that point, Sir Killer has two easy kills lined up. If he’s feeling sneaky, he can charge Squire Meat and actually throw a shot at Squire Green. Should such a thing happen, you’ll usually see Sir d’Oeuf, the guy who gave red belts to Meat and Green, on the side of the field crying into his glass of wine and considering when to have household ass wrap practice. (See Illustration 2)
Illustration 2
In the “still quite bad department”, Squire Green will try to go around Squire Meat on his Left side, following the Knight. If the knight in question is of the older, slower variety, and the Squires of the newer, faster varieties, this may work. Also, if they already had their back to the wall (’wall’ being the out of bounds line or other obstacle) this may be the only if not the best solution. If done quickly, you can trap the knight against that wall and kill him. In that situation, Squire Meat should be 90% defensive and the killing blow should come from Squire Green as he closes. However, in an open field situation, this is not the right motion. (See Illustration 3)
Illustration 3
The right motion is to “cut the corner” or “head him off at the pass”. It’s shorter by half at least, and most of the time, will have you crashing into the knight as his momentum takes him past your squire brother. At this point, you’ve successfully denied the knight his one off fight. You have two on one, so both of you should be raining blows down upon the knight, forcing him to block blows from opposite sides at the same time (or get out). (See Illustration 4).
Illustration 4
There are three possible motions that you may see at this point assuming the knight has survived the barrage. First is, the knight continues on his first course of motion, and now seeks to isolate the guy who just cut him off. The counter to that is, Squire Meat has to pull off what his comrade just accomplished – he has to cross behind and cut Sir Killer off at the pass. Following on the knight’s heals only works if you are much faster than he is, so don’t do that. (See Illustration 5)
Illustration 5
The second course is that Sir Killer may reverse direction, and attempt to roll around the other side of Squire Meat (See Illustration 6). This is the riskiest of all possible options, for both the knight and the two squires. Squire Green has to make a choice – does he throw a shot at the knight as he tries to get away (usually opening himself up to parting shots) or does he simply book ass back behind his comrade (the opposite of the motion he just did)? The answer has to be made in that split second. The first option is more aggressive, and should be undertaken on knights who move slower than you. The second option is more defensive, and should be undertaken on occasions where the knight is much better than the average white belt. Squire Meat can make this a bit easier on his buddy if he can push “out” (or towards the right in our situation). This makes Sir Killer’s path longer, and Squire Green’s path shorter.
Illustration 6
The last option for our Knight here is to retreat. They will tend to make a retreat along a “J” or “C” type path, where he both backs out and curves toward the side of one fighter or the other. (See Illustration 7) Sir Killer’s goal here is to see who runs faster, and try to get you strung out again. If he successfully escapes, don’t go rushing to follow and thereby leave your comrade behind. If he gets all the way to the side of your formation, the guy in the back needs to cut the corner again and keep both of you on him. Advance at him with the pace of the slowest guy, stay together, and don’t let him string you out. If you get that glory hound howling behind your eyes, trying to run him down while he’s running backwards, you will leave your buddy behind and both of you will most likely die.
Illustration 7
While you are in the two on one, watch out for the “blind” shot. Just because the knight is in front of your buddy, fighting with him, doesn’t mean he won’t throw a shot at you without looking at you. He’s got you in the corner of his eye (how do you think he’s blocking all your shots?), and when he see’s enough bar grill open up, he’s going to shoot for it.
Most of the time, in larger melees, this is kind of stupid. If one person can tie up two for any significant length of time, he’s won, regardless of who’s alive and who’s dead. However, you may be called upon to do this in cases where an opposing spearman is chewing up our flanks and causing a lot of casualties. Also, this might be the best way to open a hole so that another force can charge through for a shot at an enemy commander or archer. In those situations, it’s important to realize how far you need to go, and not chase the singleton across the field. Once they’ve moved off, let them go. If they come back, we’ll have you charge them again.
Why no tactics for a 3 or 4 on 1 situation? Because the only time that should happen is at the very end of a “last man standing” type battle. There’s very little reason to tie up more than two people trying to kill one enemy. If you find yourself in such a situation, just make sure you stay together and mob the person. Kill them as quickly as humanly possible, and keep throwing power until you hear good or they are on the ground, then move on. You got caught by a speed bump, the least you can do is hit the gas afterwards.
Tags: 3-man-melee, Fighting, melee
Hopefully this will be the first in a series of fighting reports, detailing my adventures in armor. If you were there and saw something, or if I mention fighting you, in one of these reports; feel free to chime in and correct any thing I say here. If you have questions like, “how did you do that?” feel free to ask. I’ll explain as best I can.
The day’s fighting was divided up into the 3 man melee in the morning, and Classic Tournament of Chivalry style pickups in the afternoon.
The 3 man melee showed to me the power of simple plans. Our goal was pretty simple. My squire brother Phillip was on the left, I was in the middle, and Sir Corby on the right. Phillip and I had shields, Corby a polearm. By running to the right hard and fast, we were generally able to deliver Sir Corby to the right flank of our opponents. This would allow him a free shot or two on our opponent’s left flank, while Phillip and I hold up all three of our opponents. When our opponents pulled the classic 2 and 1 split, we simply ignored the singleton for a second and killed one or two members of the pair. Our team went 4 and 1, and lost that one because we didn’t execute the plan correctly and quickly.
As we moved on to the single pickups, it was explained that this was *classic* style ToC. That meant, that we’d have a bear pit (or two), with Knights from one line and Unbelts from another. The classic part was, if the unbelt kills the knight, the unbelt stays. If you can run through a couple Knights, then good on ya.
I’ve found that ToC style bear pits are really good for learning and testing. I can try to formulate a plan against a given knight while I’m standing in the line, then try it out when I get to fight. Often, other fighters will “read my mind” and try what I was going to do, and will get killed, and thus I have to start over. While it looks like an endurance test for the knights, it’s a mental test for me.
Vs. Sir Corby – I managed to get stick on my knight, while he tried to stab me with his polearm. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t give him a face thrust or head chop opportunity while closing. I figured that if he went for the leading leg and I lost it, I’d just have to die forward (no easy feat on a concrete floor wearing my better knee armor) and shoot for his legs. I closed quickly and managed to get inside the reach of his weapon, then started striping up his thigh until he said “good”. We fought again, this time with Sir Corby and I both equipped for sword and board. He basically took me apart. I’m still trying to figure out what to do to penetrate his shield defense, considering he’s the one telling me how to do it to other people.
Vs. (His Majesty) Sir Jason – while I managed not to get beaten like a seal, I didn’t actually get much on him by way of stick. The shield side pass didn’t work out, and my sword side pass isn’t good enough to consider using against knights yet. In talking with Corby about it, he pointed out that there seems to be an opportunity when you back out of range – so teasing the range game might net results. Just as I’ve done with Duke Cuan (His Majesty’s Knight), I accidentally stepped on his toe. In this case, it caused him to be distracted mid leg wrap, and thus landed it with insufficient force. So yes, I stepped on the King’s toe to block.
Vs. (His Excellency) Sir Bryce – Sir Bryce surprised me. He seems able to dodge a lot more than I thought he would. I only saw him fight a couple of newer fighters before I fought him, so I didn’t get the opportunity to plan like I would have otherwise liked. His offside body shot can be devastating, and should be watched for. Don’t let his blog posts about his weight and athletic ability fool you, he’s being very modest.
Vs. Count Sinclair – I managed to surprise His Excellency from my knees with an over the head offside shot, and took him in the arm. He yielded the fight rather than re-armor. To pull this off, I had to hop up and forward, from my knees, while twisting my upper body and really flick my wrist to target and get power on the shot. It’s a little wild, but so long as you don’t land on your opponent’s toes, and you keep your target in sight so you don’t whack someone’s hand, it seems like it can be done safely.
Vs. Sir Bryan – going in I knew the two primary shots that I should expect from that boat-oar thick sword. One was a wrap to my shield side shoulder, and the other was a hanging offside that runs up and down my body. I’ve taken both of them before, and they can be rather painful in the bruise department the next day. Pain has always been a good motivation to block, in my book. Unfortunately, I think I was a bit too concentrated on defense and thus missed opportunities to go on the offense. I also tried my back step sword leg wrap on him, and ended up hitting him just a bit low. I think I may be rusty on this shot, so it’s time to get back to practice with it.
Over all, I felt like I had a really good day. Part of that was from borrowing a light sword from Sir Corby. I think it’s time to bite the bullet and get some lighter (and more expensive) basket hilts. The crappy bar stock $25 special isn’t cutting it anymore. However, part of my success was in working out plans and evaluating them on the side of the field. I had a plan to get to the range I wanted, and I had a plan for what I wanted to try once I got there. More often than not, it didn’t work out the way I wanted. However, more often than not, I lived through the pass and didn’t get one-shoted on the way there. I’ll have to polish a couple of shots (the good old flat snap, and that leg wrap), and I need to figure out an effective sword side pass.
Tags: 3-man-melee, Bryan, Bryce, Corby, Fighting, Jason, Sinclair, ToC
For those who may not have heard, Their Majesties have chosen us to be the next Baron and Baroness of Windmasters’ Hill. We’re still getting used to that idea, but it’s growing on us. For our own mental health, we had been assuming that it would be someone else, and would be happily surprised if it went another way. Well, color us surprised.
We thank everyone for their congratulations and well wishes. The out flowing of support has been greater than we ever imagined. We expect to take just about everyone up on their offers over the next couple years.
As for blogging and LJ, we intend to keep on posting things just as we did before. You folks seem to like what we’ve said so far, so seems like there’s no reason to change course there. Don’t expect juicy gossip, or baronial politics to spring up here, not even on filters. However, we won’t be going back and friends locking our entire journals. That said, there’s a good chance our updates will be a little less frequent.
Thank you again, and we hope to see you all at Ymir!
Tags: announcements, baronage
Windmasters' envelops another unit at Pennsic 35
“Make yourself a short sword with a thrusting tip, and bring it to war.” How many times have I heard that…? Each time, I roll my eyes and look away.
Why? Why is that such horrible advice? Well, it’s based on the idea that when two units crash into one another, personal space is tough to find. In those moments, hopefully, with a shorter sword that is thrusting tip equipped, you may be able to thrust someone in the face and get a kill. Sounds great right?
The trick is, if you are a shieldman in a charge, or a press, or a scrum (or whatever you call it), your job isn’t to kill people -at least not with your sword. You job is to move people, with your shield and your body. Your job is to stay alive, press to the back field, keep the spears and polearms alive, and deliver them to the back field. If your sword is not blocking your face, you’ve opened yourself up to face thrusts from your opponent’s spears, and those guys have seen you coming and are ready for you.
That said, when you are suddenly in your opponent’s backfield, and they find their lines in chaos and disarray, *that* is the time for you to be swinging your stick. You have room to maneuver, a lot of targets who are back on their heels, and they tend to be higher value targets (spears, archers, commanders, kings). You’ve broken through, you spot a knight shouting orders and move towards him, you take that last step needed and swing…
If you are using your normal length sword, the one you practice with and fight with at tournaments, you know your range and you know where to step, and you connect with that knight’s head. He shouts “good” as his last words and falls to the ground. You’ve killed the opposing commander and your unit mops up the rest of them.
If you are using some short stick with a piece of foam on the end of it, you miss and swing short. Of course he spots you, takes the very important micro step to your sword side, and drops a blow over your shield that you never knew was coming. You fall to the ground, the knight rallies his forces, and your unit is lucky to get out of there with half its people on their feet.
Don’t be that guy, dead under his shield, clutching a short stick, while your unit is routed. Be the hero, go back to camp with a story about how you killed a commander.
Tags: Fighting, melee, rants, swords