By Dede Kilic, Aneala

To give archers a chance to test their skills in archery against individual combatants, the Anealans developed a series of combat archery tourneys. These provide varying challenges and allow an archer to show their skill to the best advantage.

All of these archery tourneys can be run as a round robin or with one of the other related tournament formats such as double elimination.

Field Layout

This field was designed by His Excellency Baron Dameon. Two archer’s run’s (40m long and 2.5m wide) are laid out side by side with at least 6 metres between them.

Combatants

2 archers at a time with 6 arrows each.

Scenario

The archers start at opposite ends of the field from each other. Each archer has six arrows and walks down their path firing their arrows. If both archers reach the opposite end from where they started, then they return going back along their original path.

How to Win

The winner is the archer who is left standing. If both archers run out of arrows it is deemed a double kill and the bout will be refought.

Safe Viewing Areas

The only safe area is directly behind the ends of the field and given potential for an arrow to skip on the ground even that is borderline no matter how far the onlookers are pushed back. So, it is recommended that at least 30 metres be given between spectators and the archers.

Variations

When we first ran this, we had a discussion afterwards and the following alternatives were suggested:

• That each archer be restricted to 3 arrows. This would make the archers husband their resources more rather than firing one off because they might get lucky.
• Narrow the width of each run to around 1.5 metres making it harder to dodge, so archers would have to think more about closing with their opponents.