I made it back safely from www.gulfwars.org/, the SCA event in Mississippi that I drove to. The event ran the whole week, but due to a variety of mundane concerns, I was only there from Thursday morning to Saturday morning. It was a 1200 mile round trip from Austin, but I also got to see my mother in Lafayette, LA, and my wife's family in Columbus, TX, so I eked quite a bit of travel from the trip.

For those of you not in the SCA, it is a bit like Spring War. It is a regularly scheduled war between two kingdoms - Ansteorra (TX and OK) and Trimaris (FL and other parts), with other kingdoms taking sides variously. It lasts all week, and the fate of the war is decided on the results of numerous events - heavy and light tourneys and battles, equestrian events, service, A+S, et cetera. Very, very cool. As I left early, I'm not certain of the final results, but I hear that this year Ansteorra won. I know we dominated most of the combat events, especially the heavy battles.

Anyhow, about Gulf Wars. All of this is from my limited, nearly-newbie perspective, and your mileage may vary.

I took part in a few pick-up one-on-ones, and two big battles: a three-path bridge battle, and an open field battle with three lay-ons.

The bridge battle, as so many are, was a real grind. The unit I am in, the Bryn Gwlad War Company, got traded over to Trimaris to even up the sides. We simply decided not to fight other Ansteorrans, so the Trimarans put us on a bridge facing the "Kingdom of the Middle" (I think). It turned into a great waiting game, while fighting raged on the two smaller bridges to either side - we just held the line. I kept hoping for somebody to attack... I didn't care who. I was fortunate, in that I did a lot of switching out for when spearmen started to get tired of standing and holding a spear at guard, so I actually got to trade a few jabs with the other side. Mostly it was just swishing at the other side's spears, and once in a while pretending to throw a shot. When I finally got stabbed (I got careless) by some guy in purple on the "Ansteorra and Allies" side of the bridge, it was a kindness.

The open field battle was really cool, in contrast. Bryn Gwlad was selected by our leaders to be the left flank, deployed about 20ft ahead of the main body. Our job was to rush up and seize a vital bit of real estate and hold it at all costs, to be the anvil for the right flank's hammer - it felt a little like being on Little Round Top at Gettysburg...

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: [Chamberlain is addressing his junior officers before the Confederate assault on Little Round Top] "Gentlemen... the 83rd Pennsylvania, 44th New York, and 16th Michigan will be moving in to our right. But if you look to our left, you will see that there is no one there. It's because we're the end of the line. The Union army stops here. We are the flank. Do you understand, gentlemen? We cannot retreat. We cannot withdraw. We are going to have to be stubborn today."

-Gettysburg (IMDB)

Glorious enough... how did I personally do in the field battle? You know me, <b>hey diddle-diddle, right up the middle</b>. In the first rush, I went in with a glaive right behind the front/center shieldman, killed two or three people (plus one or two that didn't die right away...), then got clobbered up good. I was so in the thick of it that I spent nearly a minute kneeling down next to a dead Trimaran until we could get away from the brawl. The second rush, we got a little spread out, and archers hit us pretty bad. I went down in the first volley to an arrow out of nowhere - that sucked, but I've shot enough people with a bow that I had it coming. Oh well. On the final rush, I swapped my glaive for my new 9' spear. With that, I killed four or so (plus one or two that didn't die right away...). My spear got so tangled up that I couldn't parry with it, so I actually had to drop it and pull out my dagger! I was able to get my spear back up and stabbing, but finally got skewered and had to call it a day.

Bryn Gwlad did Ansteorra proud, though. Three times we rushed out and took that little patch of line, and three times we held it. On the third lay-on, we were facing House Bloodguard, who I am told are quite a hoss group - Trimaris moved them over to face us specifically, and we still held it, despite a tough fight. After I'd been slain the second time and was awaiting the next reset, I overheard a Trimaran fighter ask "who are those guys?". When told "Bryn Gwlad", he replied "Damn... those guys fight hard". You can't ask for a finer compliment than one from your foe.

I'm definitely going again next year, and I'm going to stay for longer.

My Meager Collection of Gulf War Pictures
www.flickr.com/photos/156...lfwarsxvii/

Don't understand the places and names?
Try the cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Main_Page.