It is time to finish up my thoughts on war. From the moment I first joined the SCA, I've looked forward to going to Gulf Wars. Her Excellency Countess Rebecca, who first teased me with the idea of a place where being born out of time is not a weirdness but the status quo, told me all about her experiences at war. This just whetted my appetite, made me want it all the more. It took me around 6 years of playing to finally be in a place in mundane life that allowed me to go. It was rough and it took a lot of planning, but with the constant support of my Lady Beatrice, we were able to get ourselves to Lumberton.
I am going to do this Gulf Wars wrap-up by focusing mostly on what I learned from my first Gulf Wars, which can be broken down into three main areas: scheduling, fighting, and camping. I thought that I'd done a fair bit of all of these so that war wouldn’t be such a huge shock, and while we survived without making a fool of myself, there are tons of places that I could have done much better. Some of my worst mistakes came from thinking that this would be no different than a regular long weekend camping trip. The majority came from wanting to do everything at once. My own lack of organization was the biggest issue as far as setting up the campsite, and scheduling.
Alright, let's start off with our campsite: Gulf Wars was the most we had ever done with our tent and our campsite. We bought solar powered stake lights to illuminate the area and save people from tripping over the line for our porch, and we had packed more things than usual in anticipation of the tent being our home for a week. Our packing list included survival supplies, more drawers, and more tables. This gave us plenty of “countertop” space to make the tent a functional home. Overall, our internal set up of the tent was really good. It allowed us plenty of space and access to all of our stuff. The only really bad thing was the angle of the hill we were on, and there was nothing that could be done about that.
My camping lessons came in preparing the campsit, for example making sure the ground isn't full of razor sharp things, and that there is good runoff for water. Next time I camp, I will be sure to check the ground really well to avoid damage to the tent. To aid in this I am going to be buying a brighter lantern and an entrenching tool. These should be good enough for most weekend trips, and for war I will have other things available as needed.
The current concern is that at Spring Coronation, our tent was destroyed (the retelling of that epic event will be next week's post, so stay tuned!). This means that we will be buying a new tent. After a ton of research, seesawing, budgeting, and thinking, we decided to buy a period tent, which means it's entirely possible that everything I know about tenting to this point will need to relearned. Let's see how it goes!
The next set of lessons came early on: organization. Leading up to war, Beatrice and I had been pouring over the schedule, picking classes we wanted to take, deciding how much time we needed between activities, and trying to figure out when we would see each other. Our choices were tremendously overambitious. We wanted to do 6+ things a day, plus all the other duties, and volunteer. This just wasn’t possible. Once we were on site, we decided our main priority was helping out the Royals with anything they needed. They were a little understaffed, and we were fortunate enough to be able to help. That being said, we picked the classes we wanted to do regardless, and scheduled our volunteer times around them. Still, I feel like we wasted a ton of time, and I know that we missed out on some great opportunities. For next war, the plan will be to pick one class per day that we really want to take, and schedule the rest of the day around it. This will let us take at least 6 classes, and get the chance to really enjoy that aspect of the war.
Now, on to fighting: it's the main thing people think of about war, and yet it was not a huge part of my experience. Now, don't get me wrong: he fighting was great! Plus I only missed one battle; but the thing is that the total experience was really what made the war for me: time spent with Their Majesties, time spent with all my friends, and time spent just wandering the site in awe. Since I didn’t get any real one-on-one time at war, everything I learned was in regards to war fighting. The main lesson that I learned was just in getting acclimated to the different pace of the scenarios. Even when the tactics are similar, each scenario plays very differently. I'm sure they can even feel very different year to year. For example, this year the town battle was a holding action, we pushed the enemy into a position and we held them there. This made the battle one where my main objective was just staying alive, and generally obstructing progress. The ravine battle has a similar idea, we push to where we hold the points and then defend. My job there was to stand in front of the objective, and when enemy forces were looking like they were massing, call for reinforcements or participate in a charge to break them up. It was a much more active battle for me.
I learned three lessons on equipment, two of them thanks to the ravine battle. While sitting on the line, I had time to look around my feet, and I noticed that there were tons of thrown weapons sitting on the ground. Working with Vikarr, I started picking up the ones that were in reach. The new gauntlets let me switch the axe to the hand that is holding the shield, which left me with one hand free to chuck things. It was pretty helpful being able to make archers duck, or just aggravate spearmen. I don't know that anyone took any of the hits, or even if I connected, but I did see some people duck, and to be honest that's just another way I can aggravate the enemy while on the wall. For next year, my goal is to make at least two thrown axes and get some practice with them, as well as a belt holder, which will keep them accessible. Again, I am not expecting to get a ton of kills with them, but if I can make one archer question the safety of their position, it will keep the spears on my side a little safer. I have heard some disadvantages to thrown weapons, mainly that people don't call the shots and that they can be thrown back. To me, the first sort of counteracts the second. If they are hardly effective, then them being thrown back isn't a huge issue. The second ravine lesson involved daggers. Apparently there is a dagger party in the last five minutes of the ravine battle. This is something I need to be involved in, and towards that end I will be making myself a seax to be sure to be able to jump in next year. My final equipment lesson is the easiest one to take care of: I need a bandana. My hair is terrible: it's not long enough to put in a ponytail or short enough to stay out of my eyes; a bandana should take care of that issue as well as give me a little more padding, which has been an issue in larger battles, as the back of my head starts to hurt once I have been in my helmet for a few hours.
These were my war lessons. Hopefully I will be able to put them to use and perform better next war. What are your biggest survival war tips? Post them in the comments below!
Pictures by THL Valgardr Gunnarsson
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