Barony Wars - Part 1

Holy cow, what a great time...  I am so glad I went for many reasons.  First off, Baron Gunner of Endless Hill in Aethelmearc has been trying to get me to come to this event for a few years now.  At this Pennsic, I was told a good friend, a brother in arms and then some, was to be elevated to the Order of the White Scarf.  Po and I had a bet running for a few years now.  I bet him that he would receive a White Scarf before I would be elevated to the Order of the Golden Rapier.  He was sure I would elevated prior to him.  So we made a bet based on the above.  He who lost the bet would owe the other a bottle of rum.  I'm so very proud of my friend, and will be glad to get that bottle of rum.

So I made a deal with Baron Gunner.  To fight for Endless Hills, he was to pay Sean and I one bottle of Honey Jack.  So we get on site and ask Gunner if he has our payment.  He didn't, but we would have fought for him anyway.  But when I saw the sides line up, Concordia had five fencers.  So I switched over to fight for Baron Pierre.  Sean came over as well.  Since we had not been paid, we were not breaking our contract.  Now we were at seven for our side.  A target rich environment.

The first tourney was a baronial champions tourney, then followed by a tourney with some strange rules.  Basically you fought one or two bouts, losers were out of the tournament.   Winner was the side with he last people standing.  We were at a disadvantage due to numbers.  Pierre sent me out against Jinx for my first bout.  She had wanted to do some passes with me, but due to weather cutting things short, I at least got one bout in with her.  Then Deftwood threw Dorinda out against me.  During the fight, I thought, win or lose, this has been one of those epic fights.  There was a beautiful conversation of blades and bodies happening.  I was smiling inside.  We outlasted three other fights in the second list.  back and forth, each trying for a little advantage.  Eventually, I seized on an advantage and won the fight.  I was beaming when I left the list.  Not because I had won, well that too, but because it was one of those fights that are the reason you pick up a rapier in the first place.

I then went on to win a few more bouts.  I hit one opponent with a buckler pretty hard in the mask.  I was holding my blade low, blocked from his view by his buckler.  He leaned over while stepping in as I was throwing the rising shot.  Caught him square in the face.  I immediately apologized and offered to refight the bout which he took me up on.  This time I was able to land a nicely calibrated blow to his body.

Eventually, it was JP, Sean, and I left for our side while the other groups had some numbers remaining.  I was the first one to lose of the three of us.  JP and Sean eliminated the remaining Delftwood fencers, and many of the Endless Hills army.  Eventually, Ian took out JP, and Mark took out Sean.  But damn, what a showing for the smallest team.

Then onto melees, where we teamed up with Delftwood against Endless Hills.  If we won, we'd then face Delftwood in capture the flag for the point.  We won the first battle.  Concordia was the reserve unit, and after the initial engagement, we stormed the center.  We were able to overwhelm the enemy and turn their backs to get a lot of DFBs.  Against Delftoow, we were 6 on 12.  We almost had them.  It was closer than it should have been given the numbers.

After the organized stuff, I did some pickups with Christian, current Queen's champion of Aethelmearc and Dorinda.  Christian kicked my ass three ways from Sunday and gave me some ideas to think about. Dorinda was more of the same from our earlier passes.

Well, I'm getting tired.  I'll post Part 2 tomorrow....