On the second day of the big battles I woke up feeling it. What exactly was it? Well the horse that must have been on the field at some point that ran me down via my left shoulder. I vaguely recall having been hit in that shoulder at some point during the battles the day before, but I did not think it was that serious. This morning it was definitely tight. Of course some of that I am sure was also because of the out of shape me and the 100 pound war shield that I was carrying.

Before I start describing the events, one thing I left out previous was the huge as long as forever wait the day before. Then once everyone was lined up, we had to do this pair off and shake hands. Hmmm, maybe I did mention it. Anyway… the anticipation and even some of the early reporting indicated a second round of such time delay and pretty much pointless delay. Of course, this did not happen. But because of the prophecy there were, I am guessing a lot of VIP fighters that were not present and we still took forever to get started with the open field battles.

So, when we eventually started the field battles it was awesome. It was a lot more fluid and required a lot more attention to where the lines were to stay in the right place and hence alive. Lines, once engaged generally become a swirly mass, but watch the flanks if anything should become open. I am going by a sketchy memory. I do know all the following happened, but I do not recall the exact battles in which things occurred. Oh, and today, we (being myself and a couple of good friends) were fighting with the Barony of Phoenix today, though in most cases Stalgheist was still pretty close to where we were most of the day.

So what I believe was the first battle, we pretty much closed and I was kind of in the pack for sometime. I aggressively made my to an opening where people I knew where hotly contested and pretty much took about one swing, one block and did not get my big fat slow head out of way and was dead almost before it started, but definitely before things went in earnest.

In the second battle, which is when I think we switch sides and direction that we were working the field, there was a lot of movement on our side, but a seeming refusal on the other part to engage. We would creep up a bit, and stop. Our unit was in reserve on the near extreme right of the line so it promised to be a long time. At some point, when we were over halfway across the field, someone gave the command for our reserve to oblique to the center behind a gradual forward move and when we hit the middle of our line there was going to be charge in mass. The battle furry must have taken over, as I don’t know if I center looked weak before that or not, I suppose it did. But as we crashed into the opposing line, which had barely moved the end of the field at the moment if impact we broke them. From there, we rolled to the right, basically doing a classic envelope of the exposed flank that was formerly their center. In the swirl isolated pockets were destroyed.

As the remains turned, there was some pockets to the left, but our own left had been pushed hard. We turned and took on the resistance in pockets to our left, often find just a few opposing fighters nearly surrounded. I am not sure of kills, but I hit several what should have been good blows in this sequence. Now I unit was working back across the field on the left side from whence we had originally came. Eventually it become a mop up job of victory, when horse would have been a nice asset.

The third battle of the day, after a LONG delay (or was between the 1st and 2nd?) for someone to be knighted on the field was similar to the second one. Though the tactics did not work out the same. Somewhere in this battle, I know our until engaged and for a moment it seemed liked we were going to push them easily. Then all the sudden a surge on the oppose side as we swirled to nearly 90 degrees of our original facing. I knew those shields… who are they. Oh yeah, that is House EbonWolfe and that is indeed Duke Logan. (The same that as the spears and who I have seen in tournaments, so fast, so hard-hitting, and just in general, awesome). Boom, I was hit. Guess I was paying too much attention the Duke who was not really close to my own front. As I went down, boom, boom, boom – wanted to make sure I was dead and going to take it. Do not even thing it a house EbonWolfe that hit me, but it was a spear or maybe a pole-arm on the extra blows. What a pretty bruise that left that showed up a few days later. And glad the next day we had a general break, as I am not sure I could have lifted my shield.

Tags: armor, armour, event, heavy-fighting, Midrealm, pennsic, sca, Society for Creative Anachronism, war