Any one in or around north carolina should drop me a line, i'm not a shitty fighter and i play well with others... maybe not but what ever.

 

this whole between the north and south thing is kicking my ass. i wanna go back to texas.

Fight with us we got three people who can come out, all have played dag or bel

I have been trying for the last 2 weeks to get all the realm reps real names and person names up on the WC Realm leader thread . And honestly it to some degree is like pulling teeth. It is a relitivly small task to undertake.. login post that you are a realm rep and post your name. I mean 15 realms have completedthe request already.

I guess I expect too much from Belegarth. If you agree with me or not you should comment about the 7 realms that have not reported their names in the WC discussion as of yet in this thread .

December is almost upon us, Their are major topics of discussion that will happen in WC for the December session. I would love to talk with you if you are a WC rep about the future of the website, the development of the guilds of Belegarth, and other December 07 topics. PM me here E-mail me at Kieselk@gmail.com, I'll shoot you my cellphone number and we can chat. I've talked with some realm reps accross the country over the last month and I do enjoy just talking with belegarthians accross the country.

[...]

 

 This is the inside of my SCA shield. I had two. My other one (pictured below) is being converted into a Belegarth shield.

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This is some of the junk I took off. The original shield was made from a 24 inch wide piece of wood. I trimmed it down to under 23 inches wide to accomidate the military camp pad I'm using for the bulk of my padding.

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It's Winter. I am trying carpet tape as a construction material since it is too cold for DAP contact cement.

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Here is where the first roll of carpet tape died. This could get expensive.

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More carpet tape.

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More foam.

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Inside the shield. The piece of wood under my project was originally going to be the core of a shield, but I decided it was too thin and flat for the kind of bashing a shield might experience. So, it has been demoted to cutting board and tablecloth protection.

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Inside foam test fit.

As you can see, I decided the steel cage needed to be added to the discard pile. I replaced it with a simple 10" gate pull.

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My edge is too sloppy for carpet tape. I'm trying gorilla glue for the bottom layer then plan on using a more flexible adhesive for the second through fourth layers of edging foam.

 

Trim, cover and done.

Dec 2, 2007

The gorilla glue produced a hard spot that went all the way around the shield where the blue foam met the green. I removed the blue foam and hacked off as much of the glue as I could with a razor knife. On the plus side, I now have a nice level area that I can attah carpet tape to.

I dont have the cover sewn yet and bad wather made fighter practice a bad idea today anyway. Hopefully, I'll have a passable shield next week.

[...]

 Goal: To develop a model for evaluating the combat effectiveness of an individual, a unit, or a side in a large-scale melee. It uses four basic characteristics and their interactions with one another:

The four characteristics are:

I) ;         Attack capability

II)         Defensive capability

III)       Mobility

IV)        Awareness

 

1)         Attack capability is defined:

            A. On an individual level.

                        1) Control and accuracy

                        2) Repertoire-For example, a fighter who can use wrap shots is generally more effective than one who cannot.

                        3) Ability to develop effective combinations-The successful chaining of attacks, both against single and multiple opponents.

            B. On a unit level.

                        1) Most casualty producing fighters.

                        2) Weapon types

            C. On a melee level.

                        1) Units that inflict the most damage

2)         Defense is defined as: the ability to avoid, intercept, deflect, or redirect an attack to prevent contact with a target zone.

            A. On an individual level.

                        1) Using the shield or weapon to block attacks.

                        2) Ability to dodge and avoid shots by using body awareness as well as footwork.

                        3) Ability to redirect blows.

            B. On a unit level.

                        1) Armor level.

                        2) Weapon types            

3)         Mobility is defined as the ability to position oneself in the proper space and time in order to be effective

            A. On an individual level.

                        1) Economy of motion-using only the amount of movement required to be effective. For example, a veteran fighter often appears "faster" because he or she only uses the amount of motion needed before moving on to the next attack/defense.

                        2) Physical conditioning. A person's physical condition has a direct impact on a person's mobility. A person who is not in good shape might be less likely to run around the battlefield and may not be willing to deal with the encumbrance of armor.                  

            B. On a unit level.

                        1) Skirmish vs. line fighters

                        2) Flexibility in roles-can a person shift from line fighting to skirmishing?

            C. On a melee level.

                        1) Skirmish vs. line units

                        2) Flexibility in roles-can a unit shift from line fighting from skirmishing?

4)         Awareness is the core of this combat model. It links together all of the other characteristics.

            A. On an individual level.

                        1) Awareness of one's body in space (kinesthetic sense)

                        2) Awareness of one's strengths, weaknesses, and "tells"

                        3) Awareness of an opponent's strengths, weakness, and "tells"

                        4) Situational/battle awareness

            B. On a unit level

                        1) Awareness in time and space

                        2) Awareness of unit strengths, weaknesses

                        3) Awareness of opposing unit strengths, weaknesses

                        4) Environmental awareness

                        5) Awareness of how individuals fit into the team.

            C. On a melee level

                        1) Awareness of placement with respect to other units

                        2) Awareness of friendly forces strengths, weaknesses

                        3) Awareness of opposing force strengths, weaknesses

                        4) Awareness of battlefield as battle progresses, i.e., where are there opportunities.

                        5) Awareness of how unit fits into friendly force objectives

 

If you'd like to discuss this, please go here:

 http://belegarth.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,38/func,view/id,20448/catid,37/

[...]

My ride (poodle) has stopped going... If anyone can help me get a ride up there... I will be eternally grateful! PLEASE HELP ME!!!

Our next door neighbor killed himself because he couldn't deal with the awesomness of Orren and I squatting in the same building as him.  I can't say I blame him.  If I wasn't as awesome as I am, I might kill myself too.  And Orren.  But him first.  And then have sex with his body.  And then me.  Because, who could live after that? 

So as of late I have taken to f-ing with my friend who do belegarth. You know the random Scream "AGNAR ARROW" while obviously at social events?:P So anyhow the other day I saw a friend walking across a cross walk. I know the guy well but to save his embarassment we will call him... "B" for now ;)

Anyhow I screamed "ARROW B DUCK" as he reached the halfway pointof the cross walk. He immediately squated down to the ground with a frantic look on his face, which immediatly turned into a red face as 10 or so passerbys and his girlfriend looked at him as though he was nuts. I thought this was the funniest thing ever till... half an hour later I saw him walking across the quad. I screamed once again this time "B ARROW BACK" He immediately jumped left knocking his girlfriend down onto the grass and again looked frantically forbut a half second before the red face came in. This time about maybe 100 students saw this so it was a fair bit more embarassing for him. So after about 5 minutes of him chasing me around the quad I dropped in beside his girlfriend who had not yet stopped laughing from the entire thing. He finally caught up to me, and after a few minutes of catching his breath and laughter he couldn't suppress no matter how hard he tried he forced me to never tell anyone this happened. Well. He never said I couldn't write it on a public blog now did he?

 

BTW "B" I expect a a good asswhipping on wednesdays practice ;)

[...]

 

The final training session was on the melee. Though we had several topics planned, I was only able to focus on field awareness as we had quite a few visitors last Sunday. To those that participated in the training especially our visitors, Sir Bo, Kayle, Trystan, and Bruder, I hope you found the training interesting and useful.

 

The first topic I talked about was tips for the battlefield:

 

-Always check behind you and warn other members of your team. Communicate!

-Strength in numbers. Try to engage single opponents with at least two or 3 people.

-Pull crippled fighters together.

-Avoid engaging the enemy's strengths. Engage at your maximum effective range. You have arrows. Use them. You have a javelin. Use it.

-Isolate and contain stragglers. Don't let them join up with other fighters.

-Don't give the enemy openings in your formations to exploit unless that's what you want them to do.

-Gimp and go. Focus on the fighters who aren't wounded first.

-Don't hesitate to engage targets of opportunity.

-Stop all missiles or else they may continue and hit someone else.

-Keep practicing. Your individual skill will contribute to your team's success.

-Head on a swivel. When you start, take note of what's around you. The hardest part of situational awareness is figuring out what's a priority and what's not. Eventually you'll start to pick up on that. The more you know about your opponents, the better the decision. Look at things like armor status, shield types, commanders, how they move once the battle starts.

-Knowing who's on your team. If there's a team name, take note of it. More importantly, know who's not on your team. It can get very confusing. If you can't keep track of everything, then focus on one person, maybe someone with very distinctive garb or armor who's on your side. Keep an eye out on that person and engage the people he or she is fighting.

-Staying with a buddy. There's always strength in numbers. Pick a partner and stay with the person. Don't let the person get so far away that you can't help him and he can't help you.

 

Then we went over our first drill for situational awareness. The human brain is very good at identifying changes so, rather than trying to take everything in all at once, you take "snapshots" of what's going on and identify the changes. This is the nerd in me but I used the analogy of an analog-to-digital converter. You're taking an analog signal and converting it into discrete values. I had the fighters line up in two parallel lines facing each other. Then I had one line turn around and close their eyes. I then shifted people around both in distance from the other line as well as positioning in relation to each other. I then had the line turn around and point out the changes. Then we switched it up.

 

Our last drill was what I like to call "freeze" battles. Essentially, you have the fighters engage in a melee and then when something tactically significant is about to happen, you call, "Freeze!" Everyone stops in place and then we go into a discussion about what's happening/about to happen as well as ways to get out of the situation.  We would then resume the battle until another situation developed. We did this type of battle three times and I think it was probably the most beneficial part of the training that day.

[...]