Last night we had another Bowmen Of Harrow Social event, this time it was a Chinese New Year Shoot! (CNY instead of the usual Valentine’s shoot because our new Social Secretary thought it’d be too cheesy).
Because it’s Year of the Dragon there were many dragon-themed prizes up for grabs. OK. For this ‘fun’ (more on this later) shoot there were 2 games with 3 different targets on the wall (nuts, I forgot to take a picture of the wall and decorations). The games were… Slay the dragon and high score. Up on the wall were paper dragon cubes (2 per boss, so 14 in total) standard 60cm targets and blind cards. Shooting the dragon cubes are worth zero on points, but for every Dragon shot you get a badge. The person with the most Dragon badges gets the dragon trophy! Oh and also, if you hit a cube on an end, you’re NOT allowed to go for another on that same end. The cards were face down and based on animals of the Chinese Zodiac. There were 3 Rats (12 points), 3 Oxen (11 points) all the way down to the pig (1 point). As a bonus hitting any of the top 8 animals (rat to monkey) got a bonus dragon keyring prize. The 60cm target scored normally. Top score won another cool 3D-printed trophy… Lastly, this event was shot at 15 yards, not the usual 20.
The format of the shoot means people who go for the Dragon basically score zero, and people who go for cards potentially can score high (12!) Or low… (1…) We only had 3 shots per end, and with only 8 (lucky Chinese number) ends (rotating along bosses) So people had to choose wisely what they were shooting at…
Now, remember earlier I said it was for ‘fun’? WELL. Things got very competitive… I was going for the cubes (got to, right?) But also so was another fella, David.
First end I *glanced* the cube. Nicked the corner but unless it’s impaled, it doesn’t count. So 3 misses.
2nd end I hit a Dragon Cube, but only on the 3rd arrow.
3rd end I hit a Cube first arrow, then a card (12 and keyring!), then X.
Fourth end… both Dragon Cubes were already gone. Uh oh. So I shot a miss, card (2, no keyring) and then 10.
5th end I got a cube and a card (don’t remember the score, but I did get another keyring).
6th I hit another cube but! Controversy! Now, I had obliterated the cube. However, because the cube had basically exploded it wasn’t actually impaled by the arrow. So according to the rules, it doesn’t count. In the end it went to Social Secretary to call it, and it was ruled a hit (‘it’s been destroyed!’) so I had 4 cubes. But by this point David already had 5 cubes…
7th end my boss had no cubes remaining, but my next boss (for the 8th end) had one cube remaining, but had 4 archers left to go on it! Luckily (for me) they all missed the cube so, going into the last end I had the chance to hit the cube and level the score to enter… sudden death!
8th end… turns out the remaining cube was the one I had glanced in the first end! At this point NOBODY else was shooting, all eyes on me! First arrow… a touch low. 2nd arrow… a touch to the right… squeaky bum time. It was all down to this one last arrow… but the pressure broke me, I released early (didn’t even get through the clicker)… and it was a clear miss.
ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
When the dust cleared, 5 cubes to David, 4 to me, with 4 cubes distributed amongst 4 other archers, and one cube that no one had hit. Dragon survivor! The contest was serious entertainment for everyone… who wasn’t David or myself!
Points winner was Martin Athanasiou, whose clear focus on shooting for score paid off nicely for him. But the day belonged to David, who shot a Portsmouth PB (558), got his 550 Portsmouth Badge and Dragon Slayer trophy!