July 28, 2013

It seemed as if everyone had something to do this week, which lowered numbers drastically. But still, we charged on, getting in the practice that we could on the field despite our low numbers. When everyone comes back from vacation, we will have our numbers high again! 

Five took to the field on this sunny day, and we began with a simple class annihilation game. The game was divided into magic users vs. melee users with a wizard, druid, and bard against a florentine wielding monk and assassin. It soon became clear that an experienced wizard enchanted with Golem and Stoneskin by a druid is a nasty combo. Zwick was able to create a decent amount of havoc among the melee team by using his Lightning Bolt and sword combo while protected by 3 points of armor that was constantly being repaired via Mend. All the while our bard made sure that Zwick's abilities stayed charged and the other team stayed sufficiently Shoved away.

After the slaughter of the inferior melee classes, we all took a water break and chatted for a bit about the widespread desire to attend the upcoming event in Huntington before gearing up for a militia only minion game.

Zwick won two of the three minion games with Seran winning the last one. Everyone had a lot of fun, many laughs were had, and the heat was beginning to get to us all.

We then took another water break before gearing up for another class annihilation, unfortunately making sure to split up the wizard and the druid this time. 

This time when Hagari tried to dominate with Golem, he was forced to enchant the less tanking-minded Seran rather than the fearless bearded Zwick and quickly realized that the hit-and-run tactics of assassins make them not so amazing tanks. However, the few enchantments Hagari was able to get onto our assassin and bard before being skewered by the Green Lantern polearm of Henry Greatwing proved fairly useful, and the bard's ability to instantly charge abilities ensured that Seran's weapon was always poisoned.

After that, we were all beginning to feel drained by the heat and slowly began to pack our things. All in all, it was a good day and a lot of fun!

July 21, 2013

Despite the summer's unrelenting heat and miserable humidity, thirteen players took the field this week. After a short lesson about how to spot the symptoms of dehydration, we took the field for a flurry of shortened battle games.

Because of the heat, we decided to lower the life pool of all games from 27 down to 17. This ended each game earlier, but gave us a chance to retreat to the shade tent and get some much needed water.

We began, as normal, with some open ditch games to warm everyone up. We played several rounds of everyone for themselves, then a few more goofing around games just to get everyone's muscles moving and ready for a big day at the park.

After a water break, we headed out for our first class battle game of the day. We exchanged several rounds of fire on a shortened field, trying to keep everyone out of the worst of the mud. But, as mud often does in Amtgard, it found us anyway. Our first round featured many enchantments on the field, with our level six healer Prada handing them out like candy.

Cue another water break, we split the teams up anew and turned the field to its regular orientation. Since we were already muddy from the rain anyway, we didn't see how more could hurt. This second round featured undead minions on the field, a twist for players who aren't accustomed to this high level spell!

We took another break, this one a bit longer, to give everyone a chance to cool down. Temperatures were only in the high 80s, but with a 60% humidity, the day was turning sticky and required several breaks. We took the opportunity to hold an emergency Althing meeting, wherein we discussed the details of our upcoming midreign celebration.

We decided on August 4th for a date, and determined that we would hold said celebration at a restaurant after park. We decided to choose the restaurant on the day, based on everyone's tastes. Riken decided to sit out the next round, choosing instead to tour the nearby grounds in order to plan for a special quest for midreign.

While Riken scoped out paths for upcoming evil, Prada switched over to the Reeve and held a quick lesson about the finer points of battle for some of our newer members. We always try to make everyone a better fighter, so lessons like these are common on the field. Once the lesson was over, another class battle began. Tungdil pulled out his archery gear and scored some amazing shots from the far end of the field.

A new player showed up, and Riken, being out of the game already for quest creation, introduced the new player to the game. The two women spoke about the game concepts while the others played this class game and another.

Once everyone was finished, we decided to run a minion game. In this game, when a player kills someone, they are added to that person's team. Play continues until everyone is on a single team. Even the new player got in on this action, and we played two final rounds in the heat before people started packing up for the day. The gaming day lasted from 1 PM to around 4:45.

July 14, 2013

Thirteen of us showed up on Sunday for a hot sunny day of fighting. A blistering 91* F didn't stop us from having one heck of a good time this weekend!

We began, as always, with an open ditch battle to warm up a little, where we spend a few minutes with every man for himself and get the muscles ready for a day of fighting!

Then we played a class team annihilation game with life pools and a twist. We use buckets of poker chips to represent the total life pool of each team. Today, the chip bucket contained blue chips for respawns, along with a special treat: a single white and a single red chip. If someone respawned with a white chip they tied on a white ribbon and had 2 points of un-dispellable magic armor. If they respawned with a red chip they tied on a red ribbon and they swung armor and shield breaking for that one life.

The game went very well, with members of both sides tearing into each other with their special skills and verbal magic as well. We had two bows on the field this week, with arrows being shot everywhere!

 

After that game was finished, we took a break for water and to catch our breath in the heat. Prada refereed the next game. In his usual creative style, Prada hosted a field class battle with a unique twist. We played a timed game, with each team receiving ten minutes to accomplish their tasks. Riken kept the timer for us, and blew the coach's whistle when the team's ten minutes were up.

With one team attacking and one team defending, the entire point of the game was smack in the middle of the field. The

defending team had a 15 second wait whenever they were killed, while the attacking team returned to life instantly. Attackers had to get to middle of field where Prada had a bag of all blue Legos and a single model sitting out. The attacking team had to find the pieces and recreate the model using the exact piece arrangement in the sample.

Pretty easy stuff... until the first attacking team actually go to the Legos! The first round saw the attacking team come one piece within solving the design when the whistle was blown. The defending team kept killing the puzzle builder, which was slowing things down terribly. When sides switched, the second round's attacking team had an easier time of things and solved the puzzle in an impressive 4 minutes, 30 seconds!

We took a break between games and got some more water into us. Once everyone had had time to tend to their liquid needs, we hit the field again with different teams and played live action version of Call of Duty that we like to call Gun Battle. This is always a hit, and we played several rounds. This game is slightly different type, using only weapons instead of any class skills. But still a darn good time!

Another water break due to the heat, and we went back to the field for another class annihilation game. It was during this time that we witnessed a most epic magic user fail. Several of us are near the opposing spawn. Prada throw an Abeyance ball at Hagari and he didn't even try to dodge. He had no need. Prada's toss went super high and wide. 

Then, Hagari tossed an Entangle ball at me and missed as well. In response, Zwick tosses his Lightning Bolt ball... only it goes horribly wrong! The Lightning Bolt ball flies high into the air and lands harmlessly on the ground a few feet in front of Zwick, not near any player. Everyone in the skirmish just stopped, looked at it, and burst out laughing. It was pretty awesomely bad.

By the end of this everyone was exhausted, dehydrated, sun burned, and ready to go.  People started packing up.

Those who stayed for a little more fighting had an impromptu fighter's practice at the end of the day, but soon the heat got to even those who stayed, and we retreated for another week.

 

July 7th, 2013

To find out more about our game and to join us, click the Joining Amtgard link above!

Field Recap: July 7th, 2013

Eight hit the field today and braved the rain. The field was soggy and our shoes were soaked within a few minutes, but that's half the fun of playing in the mud.

We began the day with some open ditching to warm up, had our althing (the monthly meeting to vote on park matters), and then hit the field for a sixth level class game. We usually don't play by specific class levels, but this was the final week of the version 8 rules Kingdom-wide test, so we complied!

After that silliness ended, we took a break for water and then went back out for a capture the flag class game. Our game was cut short by a downpour though, so we retreated to the tent to wait out the deluge.

As it slowed down, Prada made Henry Greatwing come out and spar in the rain. Then everyone took the field again for another team annihilation game with changed teams and different builds for the spell casters.

That game was interrupted by a resumed downpour. We waited it out a little, but when it became obvious that the weather had no intention of relenting, everyone kind of wrapped it up. Shelter came down, bags were packed, and the field was vacated. We were there about 2.5 hours and left drenched to the core.

As was mentioned, the credits were tweaked for version 8. So as of next week, when we revert to our regular levels during the test, here are the levels for the 8 people who braved the elements today:

Prada: 6th Healer, 3rd Monk, 2nd Warrior
Riken: 6th Druid, 6th Healer, 2nd Bard
Zamorak: 2nd Bard
Zamos: 1st Assassin
Brod: 4th Druid, 2nd Scout
Zwick: 4th Warrior, 3rd Wizard
Henry Greatwing: 4th Barbarian, 4th Monk, 4th Warrior
Tungdil: 5th Barbarian