May the Forth… be with you.
Yes indeed, tonight was the first ever Star Wars Social Shoot at the Bowmen Of Harrow archery club! Social masters Angelina and Kyriacos John Theodorou really outdid themselves this time.
Firstly though, this was our biggest Social event so far. When it was announced at 07:30 in the morning a few weeks ago, 20 spots sold out in 3 hours! Kyri checked how many we could have in our indoor range, and so the max was raised to 28, which also sold out promptly. (When I say ‘sold out’, I mean booked out, we don’t pay extra shooting fees here). Having said that, 28 people was actually OK. We were shooting from the 15yd line which gave us extra space and of 28 of us, maybe 13 were Barebow, whose bows were stored on the club bow rack saving space. It was a little tight but nobody stepped on any bows.
For the event I made a Mandalorian Helmet out of silver card. I wasn’t wearing it when shooting (lol) but popped it on between ends. The evening started off with a high bar, a special BoH Star Wars opening crawl on the club presentation TV. The rules were explained by Kyri, and because there were 28 of us there was a lot going on. As ever there were multiple games going on.
There were custom Star Wars targets, based on the Death Star trench from Episode IV, aside from the standard (modified) 10 zone scoring there were two Tie Fighters and 1 Tie Advance. If you hit all three in a single end it would be worth 40 points, if you didn’t hit all three, no points at all. Harsh! If you hit a 10 (Reactor exhaust) you could also claim a chocolate.
There were stickers which held hidden points and allegiences (revealed when you shot them), either Jedi, Empire or Trade Federation. So you might get 10 points and a Jedi notch. There are also hidden ‘secret’ prizes hidden amongst the stickers too! We didn’t know it but there was a Darth Vader figure, Kylo Ren figure and Clone trooper toy as well as special badges up for grabs.
Finally… yes we had the hanging cubes. These were in the form of 5cm wide Death Stars. You could only shoot ONE cube per end, if you shot more than one in an end (or a cube that’s not on your boss) you would be disqualified from the cube game.
Now, the winner with the most overall points would win the 3D printed X-Wing (with 4 arrows instead of Laser Cannons) trophy. The person who impaled the most cubes would win the Millenium Falcon trophy…
Again, we were to rotate along to the next boss per end. 8 ends meant we only had 24 shots in total, they all had to count. Now last time we had a social (Easter) I didn’t shoot for cubes until the 2nd end. This meant I was always behind and therefore at a disadvantage. This time however I was determined to commit from the get go. Points? Or Cubes and then (assuming I hit a cube) stickers?
I decided I would go for cubes (death to boxes!) and shot a cube every end, assuming there was one available to shoot, because as the shoot went on fewer and fewer cubes survived! In the end I shot 6 cubes! An unassailable lead which netted me the Cube Killer Millenium Falcon Trophy! Bonza! I also shot stickers, got a few points but hit a sticker that said ‘it’s over Anakin, I have the high ground’. I was confused but it got me the ‘Ani are you ok, are you OK Ani’ badge!
There was a ‘shot first’ badge, Jar Jar badges for total misses (which people were getting on purpose when they realised they were available lol). There was an order 66 sticker which WOULD have netted 66 points except it wasn’t claimed during the scoring ends. Best costume, most Jedi Stickers, most Imperial, most Trade Federation, all sorts of prizes and badges!
The targets also had a horrible twist. They all had a Star Wars phrase on them, ‘I have a bad feeling about this’, ‘Do or not do, there is no try’ etc… ‘it’s a trap’. And indeed it was a trap… look closer at the points scored on that particular target…
Only a Sith Lord deals with such cruelty.
I also got a General Grievous badge for most badges (6 Death Stars and 1 Ani are you OK?), ‘this badge will make a fine addition to my collection’. LOL, Star Wars references everywhere, May the Forth indeed!
I hope I haven’t forgotten anything, there was so much going on. Anyway another amazing evening at the best Archery club (if I say so myself).
TLDR; Star Wars is great, Archery is great, Star Wars Archery is EPIC.