Gulf Wars

OK, so I’m a tad late with my Gulf Wars post, given that I’ve been to an event since that point 🙂

I caravaned down with HRM Tristram, Caillin, Duncan Fathmbjorn, Seonaid, Maximus, and Genevieve. An interesting bunch. The trip was pretty uneventful, but in Sikeston an omen for the reign occurred. We passed Lambert’s to go to a Chinese buffet. It seems Tristram is partial to Chinese trough. It’s a good thing I like Chinese.

We got there on Sunday night and slept in the parking lot until Monday morning when they let us troll in. I got as much sleep as expected in a packed car. I got set up by noon or so and took a real nap. 🙂

And then was ready for the war. Gulf was incredible for me. It was very different to be in and amongst the royalty. Usually at wars, I figure that royalty is best left alone :).

I also participated in as much stuff as I could. I fought in the Diamond Tourney, which was very interesting. You see, it was a team tourney with two fighters, one of which was a rapier fighter. Each team represented a kingdom or principality. My partner was HE Rodrigo of Northshield. There were six kingdoms represented. At one point, I was the only heavy fighter there. It’s too bad this didn’t continue, I think it would have been hilarious for the only kingdom to be represented in a combined tourney be the only kingdom that doesn’t have rapier fighting. Of course, a lot of Calontir teased me about me becoming a fencer.

The other individual thing I fought in was the Champions tourney, which really wasn’t a tourney but rather an exhibition. HRM Ansteorra and HRM Trimaris took turns picking a champion and the two champions would fight for the crowd. There were 15 bouts. Thanks to HRM Gunnar of Meridies, who allowed Calontir an extra slot, I was given the opportunity to fight Count Valharic of Atlantia. It wasn’t a long bout, he’s an extremely fast lefty, but I made him work a little bit I think :). Anyway, it was an incredible honor to be out in front of the Knowne World like that. Their Majesties Ansteorra gave me this cool Black Star pin as well, which I have to say rocks.

The battles were a lot of fun this year. It is very strange to me how much fun Gulf has become and how little fun Estrella has become. I don’t know why, either. My first couple of Gulfs were nowhere near as much fun as Estrella, but since they moved back to Estrella Mountain Park it hasn’t been as much fun and Gulf has been great the last two years. I suppose this is a good thing since it’s much more likely I’ll get to go to Gulf as opposed to Estrella for the forseeable future.

Either I have gotten better fighting with 9ft spear, or Gulf Wars spearmen aren’t as good as Estrella spearmen. I had a very good war fighting spear, which I got to do before Katrine fought. I had real good bit getting myself in a sheltered sniper hole in the town battle, and had a couple of other solid runs. I wasn’t quite as effective during the ravine battle, but I don’t like the footing in the ravine much and getting killed four times by archers accounts for a lot of that. Still, at the end, Marcus picked up a scutum and just gave me a veritable buffet of targets. I do like buffets :).

The rest of the war involved fighting with Katrine. Not to pat myself on the back too much, my idea of picking a random fyrdman to partner with me to be Katrine’s guard each day worked real well. I picked my squire brother Alasdair the first day, and he did great, including throwing himself over Katrine after she had been pulled over.

Caillin was fyrded that day, which was well deserved. She had fought incredibly well in the early town, castle, and ravine battles. We as the fyrd basically forced Tristram and Katrine to do her, as they didn’t want to because she’s on retinue. She did very well in the field battle as Katrine’s guard.

Arthur got fyrded so he got to be a part of the guard during the castle battle. Calontir as a whole did awesome defending the castle. In fact, after blowing up the troops assaulting the front gate, Calontir went out and swept around the outside including this silly, wonderful, crazy solo excursion by Ferd. Unfortunately, Katrine got to watch this from the back. We put her in one of the towers so she’d be shielded from arrow fire until she was needed in the front rank of scutums.

Which of course meant that an arrow from out of nowhere hit a 3in x 3in target and hit her in the back. Best laid plans and all that.

Other highlights included walking Katrine and Tristram into Grand Court. Aiden served as Tristram’s champion. They only allowed 3 retainers per crown, so neither of us stood behind the thrones, but we stayed to escort them out. This actually meant that we could escort the Ansteorran War Banner into court so Calontir could give it back. We sang a verse of Non Nobis as we came in, which was really cool :).

I hung around Katrine quite a bit, and we had a lot of fun sitting around the fire on Friday and Saturday singing. Ferd made a scutumhenge on Friday and on Saturday, Rebecca’s tree house was created. Damn it’s good to be Calontir at war 🙂

This was definitely a great war, enhanced by the opportunity to be Champion. I have to say that I’m truly a lucky man.

One thought on “Gulf Wars”

  1. Sounds like you had a frellin’ great time Rhodri, and being HRM’s Champion has to be and experience unto itself. Cool that you’ve had the chance to do so. I’m thinking Gulf will be my next Big War instead of Estrella, next. I do agree that I liked the old Scnep Farms site better, though this last Estrella was one of my best. I’ll see you in a week and half at Ceilehd I hope, for the Vatavian Investiture. BTW, to answer your question about GotC2, check out my LJ post today…

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