Games from An Tir Dearg

Here's some of the highlights of the games we played during our visit to An Tir Dearg on Saturday Sept 19.

1. THERMOPYLAE

From History: The Ancient Empire of Persia decided to invade Greece and subdue the independent Greek citystates. Sparta urged that all Greek states unite and fight. The Spartan army; however, could not march until a religious holiday had been obsearved. Frustrated, King Leonidas took his personal guard, 300 men, and marched north to small pass known as 'Thermoplyae'. Here he had the mountains protecting one flank and the sea on the other. The Persians, said to be hundreds of thousands strong, took three days to take the pass, and then it was only by treachery when a Greek sheep herder showed them a way through the mountains and into the rear of the Greek position.

The Battle game An Tir Dearg plays is as follows:

Divide into Three even teams. Each team will take turns holding the 'pass' against the other two teams who are the Persians.

The defending 'Greeks' can be armed in any way and have shields. They can not rez, thus they have only one life to give for Sparta.

The Persians can only be armed with Single Blue's and no shields. The Persians have a Rez point and can rez as many times as they can reach and touch the rez point.

The teams rotate until all three have had a chance to be the Greeks.

This is a timed fight. A stopwatch is used to time how long it takes for the Persians to kill all the Greeks. Once the last Greek falls, time is stopped. The winning team is the one that can last the longest.


2. THE FOUR HORSEMEN.

This can be a team fight or a team tournament. Players are divided into teams of 4 (duh). A fighting pit or arena is laid out. Two teams go in, only one comes out. The winning team may hold the field until defeated unless a tournament is being played in which case, round robbin and then elimination.

3. CARAVAN

Their version of Caravan used alot of space and some serious running. A huge field is set out with as much terrain variation as possible. A flag or 'goal' of some sort is set out at one far corner. Players are divided into 3 even teams. Each team will get a chance to be the Caravan, while the other two are the 'Bandits'.

The Caravan begins at the opposite end of the field from the Goal. The Goal is for the Caravan to take the Bag or Goods and touch the Goal with it to win.

Differences in their game from the one we learned from Aggelgord:

1. The Bag of Goods must be heavy but can be handled by one person with one hand. That person can use his other hand to wield a weapon or shield.

2. Bandits may arm in anyway and may carry shields. (Bel guys love bashing/blocking and shield tackles)

3. Bandits may rez by reaching a very far off rez point.

4. Caravaner's my rez twice, but they have to rez by touching the Bag of Goods or the person wielding it. If the bag of goods is stolen away, Caravaner's can not rez.

The Game ends when either the Caravan gets their bag of Goods to the Goal or all Caravaner's are killed.

NOTE: The game was fun but I think heavily favoured the Bandits. I think we could follow all rules but I think keep our original Bandit rules. ie the Bandits can not have shields and can only have single blues, and maybe archers. The caravaner's have no rez or maybe one rez.


4. WARLORD.

Pretty much the same game as Kill your Killers. It begins as a free for all. When you kill someone you become a "warlord" so you call your name out to the one you killed. Example "Konradr"

The killed person takes a knee and counts to 3. When he Rez's he says he belongs to Warlord Konradr. When he kills someone, he must shout "Warlord Konradr" and that person will rez to become part of Warlord Konradr's group.

If a minion of a warlord is killed, then he rez's to the new Warlord's group. When killing someone it is important to tell them which Warlord group they will belong to.

When a warlord dies, all his minions then go over to the new Warlord.

Last Warlord living will control the field and all the fighter's thus winning the game.

NOTE: Game got a bit confusing with alot of fighters on the field so I have another version that I thought up on the drive back to Barad'dun while everyone else in the van was snoring.

Konradr's version of Warlord (or Warlord II)

Divide into teams of 3 or 4. One person in each team is the Warlord and that team is Warlord X's.

When someone is killed they do a rez count 3, 5 or 10 whatever works, but rez's back to his original Warlord team.

The object is thus to kill the Warlords. When a Warlord dies all his team members go to the Warlord's team that killed him. Thus it is still imperative that you announce which warlord team you are on when you kill someone so that if that person is a Warlord he can announce to his team who they are now serving or will be serving when they rez.

Defeated Warlords may either rez as a minion of the new Warlord or optionally may be out of the game.

The object is for one Warlord to kill all other Warlords and thus own the field and all the fighters at the end.


Konradr

konradr wrote:

Bel guys love bashing/blocking and shield tackles

Hahahahaha! I had a good laugh at that one because it's true. Here's the perfect example from the main Belegarth site. Some people thought it looked a bit rough, but it does accurately portray how rough we are.

That's why Bel guys are stricter on shield padding than other organizations. We hit test our shields on the front and sides to ensure safety. Haha.



Konradr:

I also really like your upgraded version of warlord. It simplifies it and increases the challenge of having to kill the warlord, rather than just take over all of his pawns.

I wish you guys had been able to play power, but we did cover a lot of other ground. I personally don't think warlord is that much like kill-your-killer which, IMO, has more in common with power (I don't really care for kill-your-killer, but I enjoy warlord and power).

Warlord can get confusing, especially when a lot of the people on the field are playing it for the first time. We have found that the single most important thing is to always call out to the people you kill who their new warlord is and we require you to answer any query as to who your warlord is from another fighter. Communication makes this game work pretty well. The team version would be interesting to try, but I like the way it works starting from a free-for-all when everyone understands the rules and communicates. And Semtater, killing the warlord of the other group rather than wading through the pawns is generally the smart monkey option.

We have never played caravan at a practice, I had played it years ago and the version we tried Saturday was a new variation on it I was trying out. I agree that it was unbalanced in favor of the bandits and forcing them to go single blue, or at least stripping them of shields is an idea I like. I also like the idea of allowing the caravan team one or two rezes in place (10 second count) regardless of the cargo. And I'd move the bandit rez point closer. I want the odds stacked against the caravan so success is an accomplishment, but is more likely than it was on Saturday. Time is still going to be the major measure of competitive success.