Retinue League: The Conclusion

Six months and four days ago we started the fifth Companions of the Longbow Retinue League.  This was a competition between three teams, the Bowyers, the Stringfellows and the Fletchers, each consisting of twelve archers each from the club.  There was also a float of three mercenary archers who were on hand to bolster teams that had a low turn out.  The league was themed “medieval outlaws” and each week (well nearly each week) we played a game based or inspired on sixteen real or legendary medieval outlaws.  In addition to the main league there were also three mini-games in operation.

Firstly, placed in the teams were “sheriff’s men” (or women), one in each of the three teams.  The sheriff’s man in each of the Bowyers, Fletchers or Stringfellows teams had to subtly sabotage their team’s chances.  The winner of this first mini-game would be the sheriff’s man who was in the team who came last.

Secondly the mercenaries also had a sheriff’s man.  The sheriff’s man had to make it to the end of the league and not be picked as the sheriff’s man in the overall final vote.

Third and finally the remaining two mercenaries had to shoot well enough so that they were not suspected as being a sheriff’s man in the overall final vote.

Last Saturday was the final game in the league and featured the unmasking of the sheriff’s men and the chance of winning the bonus points.  So to begin, let’s have a look at the score before the final Week 16 game.  The scores from last time were; in third place with 25 Retinue Points the Fletchers, in second place are the Stringfellows with 28 Retinue Points and in the lead are the Bowyers with 34 Retinue Points.

The last outlaw for our league is a fellow named Piers Venables and you can read what tiny fraction of a miniscule bit of information we have on him by clicking here.

So this game is based on the story of Piers Venables who has escaped to the green wood.  The local sheriff has enacted a Posse Comitatus, a sheriff’s posse, the common-law authority of the county sheriff to conscript any able-bodied male to assist him pursuing and arresting a felon.  For this game, the posse and the outlaws have just met within effective bow range and an archery battle ensues.

We have three League teams but for this game the available archers were merged into two game teams; the “outlaws” and the “posse”.  The posse consisted of two League teams who had to work together, while the remaining League team acted as the outnumbered outlaws.  The stakes were well worth playing for though as up for grabs in the final game were 6 whole Retinue Points.  The catch was that the posse had to split the points between them if they won (3 Retinue Points each) while the outlaws got to grab all the points for themselves (6 Retinue Points).

To decide who would be the posse and who would be the outlaws we asked each League team to put forward a champion to play a one arrow nearest the bullseye game.  The team nearest the bull would gain control and decide whether they wished to be the outlaws or whether they wished to be the posse and with which other League team they would compete with.  Through this nearest the bull decider the Bowyers gained control and elected to be the “outlaws” leaving the Stringfellows and the Fletchers to be the posse.  Numbers were always the Bowyers strong point and the posse (Stringfellows & Fletchers) only had a couple more archers, but would this be enough?   So on to the main game.

If I could I’d have issued both teams with tin hats and blunts and had them shoot at each other for real.  However a shortage of such equipment and those pesky health and safety laws meant that both game teams (the posse and the outlaws) had the following equipment instead;

A pole with a flag.

A rope that was seven paces long, looped and hooked over the pole.

A target stand.

A practice boss.

The game started by placing each team pole at opposite end of the field, some two hundred paces or more apart.  Each team’s stand and boss was also be set up in front of their poles.  Each round of the game consisted of a movement phase where both teams got to move their flagpoles and a shooting phase where each team got to either clout shoot or directly shoot at their opponents targets (the area around the flag pole or direct onto the boss).

The game began proper with the nominated captains of the outlaws & the posse simultaneously picking up their flag poles and walking or pacing in any direction up to, but not more than twenty five paces.  The could move forward, backwards, sideways or anywhere but the captains had only one minute to place their flag poles.  If they couldn’t or wouldn’t within this time the movement phase was over.  The ropes, which were looped over the flag poles, were then laid out facing the opposite team.  During the shooting phase this acted as the defined shooting line.

We started with the outlaws (each team would take it in turns to shoot first) but after making sure all of the posse had moved behind the outlaws shooting line the outlaws were then allowed six arrows to shoot at the posse’s target.  All archers then moved over to the posse’s shooting line and the posse lined up on their shooting line and shot back at the outlaws targets.  Everyone then moved over to the posse shooting line and the posse then shot back.  For each arrow that hit the boss the teams score one point.  For each arrow that’s within the zone created by sweeping the rope around the flag pole the teams score one point.  When all points had been scored the movement phase began again, followed by the shooting and then the scoring.

One additional rule was that for each collective 40 points scored on an opposing team they lost one of their collective arrows per volley.  So if the outlaws had scored 40 points then for the next round the posse would only be allowed five arrows per archer.  Later in the game if the posse gets to 80 points or more then the outlaws are down to 4 arrows per volley.

Finally one hour was given over to the game, so that the winner would be decided if a team is reduced to zero arrows or on points if the time ran out.  So how did they do?

After the initial movement phase it became quickly apparent that both teams recognised the need to close the range and use the hay bale backstop wall (which is in the middle of our field) as some sort of cover.  The outlaws (the Bowyers) shot first at a target that was about 180 yards away.  Because they were only allowed to shoot if they were on the seven pace rope shooting line they had the problem that only the last two archers could see the posse’s flag.  This was because the hay bale wall was partially blocking the outlaw’s view.

There was some good long distance shooting but they ended the first round with only 1 point scored.  The posse now had a chance to shoot back; perhaps with the advantage of seeing where the outlaws flag was during their shooting phase helped as they managed to better score of 4 points.

The next round and the race was definitely on for the hay bale backstop as both teams moved forward and closed the distance to about 130 paces.  This time the advantage was with the outlaws as they shot and scored 11 points to the posse’s 10 (good shooting from Clive in the outlaws there).  The next round and the range close down even more to around 80 paces.  The outlaws were now within 30 paces of the hay bale wall and were off to one side of centre.  The posse were still marginally more in the open ground but despite some very short arrows this didn’t stop the posse from scoring 28 points to the outlaws 18.  It’s probably taken little or no time for you to read this but by now the hour was nearly up and so the game went into the final round with the outlaws on 30 points and the posse on 42.  The posse’s score of 42 also forced the outlaws down from 6 arrows per volley to 5.

In this round the outlaws only moved forward slightly while the posse moved swiftly right up to one corner of the hay bale backstop.  In doing so the posse managed to position their flag (and hence their stand) just behind the corner of the hay bale wall and trail their rope shooting line out around the corner.  This gave them a rather cramped, but good, direct line on to the outlaws target boss which they proceeded to do.  The outlaws on the other hand could not see the posse’s target boss and were forced to shoot directly into the ground in and around the posse’s rope shooting line.  The result was that in the final round the outlaws scored 27 points and finished with an overall score of 57 while the posse scored 33 points and finished with an overall score of 75.

So the Fletchers and Stringfellows won a much needed 3 Retinue Points apiece and closed the gap on the Bowyers.  We now went into the final bonus points rounds with the Bowyers still on 34 Retinue Points, the Stringfellows now on 31 Retinue Points and the Fletchers now on 28 Retinue Points.

So, the final, final game… here the teams were split out back into their three Retinue Teams and each given pieces of paper.  On the paper were the names of all the team members and the mercenaries.  The retinues were allowed to mark on the paper which out of the three teams and the mercenaries they thought were the sheriff’s men.  This gave them the potential of getting four correct answers which would be converted to a possible four arrows.  The teams would then select a champion from their ranks who would shoot on a 80cm FITA target for bonus points; 5 for a gold, 4 for a red, 3 for a blue, 2 for a black and 1 for a white.  This meant that each team had the possibility of winning 20 additional Retinue Points, so it was clearly all still to play for.

On collecting the papers the following results were in;

The Fletchers had selected Ade as their sheriff’s man.  They had also selected Jen (Jennie A.) as the sheriff’s man for the Bowyers and Nigel for the sheriff’s man for the Stringfellows.  They had also selected Dave A. (Dangerous Dave) as the sheriff’s man for the mercenaries.

The Bowyers had selected Martin as their sheriff’s man.  They had also selected Chris as the sheriff’s man for the Fletchers and Richard for the sheriff’s man for the Stringfellows.  They had also selected Dave A. (Dangerous Dave) as the sheriff’s man for the mercenaries.

The Stringfellows (who only had Richard turn up on the day!) had selected Hels (Helen) as his sherff’s man.  He also selected Clive as the sheriff’s man for the Bowyers and Ade as the sheriff’s man in the Fletchers.  He also selected Andrew (le Chat) as the sheriff’s man for the mercenaries.

Well I can now tell you who were the sheriff’s men; for the Bowyers the sheriff’s man was Clive, for the Stringfellows the sheriff’s man was Richard and for the Fletchers the sheriff’s man was Ade.  Of course the mercenary sheriff’s man was Andrew (le Chat).  The teams weren’t told this until after the final bonus points were shot and scored though because they still might choose a sheriff’s man as their champion and he could still cause some chaos … and one did!

Richard was a sheriff’s man who was the only Stringfellow on the field.  He was also the only “team” to correctly guess three out of the four sheriffs men (none of the sheriff’s men knew who the other were and he could not pick himself as a sheriff’s man for his team so went for the team captain!).  This gave the Stringfellows 3 bonus arrows.  The Bowyers and the Fletchers had only managed to guess one of the sheriff’s men each (the Bowyers sussed out Richard in Stringfellows and the Fletchers guessed correctly their own sheriff’s man with Ade).  So the maximum scores the Bowyers could get was 39 Retinue Points (one arrow on gold is 5 points plus their existing 34 Retinue Points) and the maximum score the Fletchers could get was 33 Retinue Points (one arrow on gold is 5 points plus their existing 28 Retinue Points).  Meanwhile the Stringfellows could score anything from 0 to 15 points with their bonus arrows giving them a maximum score of 46 Retinue Points.  Unfortunately Richard as a sheriff’s man had been working hard to make sure his team came last, so he still needed to score a big fat zero.  No one knew this apart from Richard though as the three champions stepped up to the line…

Shooting for the Bowyers was Clive, shooting for the Fletchers was Alex and of course shooting for the Stringfellows was Richard.  Richard shot his first arrow and hit the hay bale.  He shot his second and surprise, surprise, he hit the hay bale again.  Next, and I’m unclear who shot next but either Clive shot his sole arrow or Alex did.  Either way they both scored black which was a bonus of just 2 points each.  The Bowyers had fished with 36 Retinue Points and the Fletchers had finished with 30 Retinue Points.  With one arrow left Richard knew that the Stringfellows had managed to steal second place with the existing 31 Retinue Points and that he now couldn’t win the sheriff’s man competition (where he needed to get the Stringfellows to come last).  So Richard shot and scored 2 points too.

Honourable mention must go to Richard though who as sheriff’s man managed to wangle the position of temporary captain of the Stringfellows for most weeks in Hels absence.  Mention must also go to Andy TB who as a mercenary never appeared to have the finger of suspicion alight on him.  Bad luck to John as captain of the Fletchers; most weeks Andrew le Chat was given over to the Stringfellows in addition to Richard and they still managed to fluke their way into second place…  The Fletchers were also the only team to get their own sheriff’s man right.  So congratulations!

That’s the 5th Retinue Competition over and thanks to everyone who took part.  Over the winter months when turn out can sometimes be lower than the Stringfellows team I’ll be running the Companions Challenges (one off shots inspired by history, film, books and television) for Prizes of Dubious Worth.  We’ve got a back catalogue of old challenges (members can take a look in the Members Area) which I’ll be interspersing with brand new challenges.  Next week’s challenge will be a new one entitled “The Death of Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy”.  The Companions Trophy will also be back next week!