"Hocktide Rules" as they've become colloquially known, only acknowledge good limb blows, rather than "taking" the leg or arm. Two limb blows results in a death.
The tournament also consists of an atypical format: six rounds to be fought, with a set number of "lives", the fighter with the most lives at the end wins. A fighter could have fought with or without "honors", that is to say, to contend for the Shire Defender position. Each round was a different weapon style: single sword, sword and shield, mass weapon and shield, two weapon, greatsword, pole/great weapon.
Of the six rounds I won the first two; single sword and sword and shield. To me, these were the most important. Largely, the fighting wasn't important to me, while I was fighting for the Defender title, I think that the format distracted me well enough from getting too deep into my head, and getting overly-serious.
More over, the event was relaxing and mellow. Nothing much else about this event (plus, I'm playing catch up)
