[MR] Gulf Wars - A 'Review' by a first time attendee.

[David Ritterskamp]

[interspersed]

[let me say at the outset that I'm sorry it didn't live up to your 
expectations.  I've been going to GW since GW III and my last Pennsic was 
1996, so I haven't seen the buildup at Pennsic that you have.  Rest assured, 
though, that before Pennsic started emulating GW as far as archery, siege, 
the fort, etc., it didn't have the variety that GW used to have.]

>From: Siegfried <crossbow at freeshell.org>
>To: MerryRose <atlantia at atlantia.sca.org>
>Subject: [MR] Gulf Wars - A 'Review' by a first time attendee.
>Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 09:48:57 -0500

>Gulf Wars - A 'Review' by a first time attendee.
>
>    I just got back from attending my first Gulf Wars.  I've heard all
>the rants and raves about how great this event is, and therefore decided
>to attend this year for the first time, after about 10 years (at least)
>of 'wanting to attend', but just not getting around to it.
>
[snip]

>
>   In general, I'm sad to say that Gulf Wars just didn't seem to meet my
>expectations, nor the hype that was being based around it.  Let's talk
>about a number of points.
>
>   First of all, was a general lack of planning.  Actually, let me change
>that, there was plenty of planning, there was even a nice book that
>tried to rival the Pennsic Book.  However, you might as well throw it
>away, since very few things were done exactly as what was in the book.
>Battle scenarios were changed, timing of various activities were
>changed, prices for food were different, etc.  Without going into
>details, I was just really surprised that it didn't have the 'Book is
>Law' attitude that Pennsic does.  On top of that, there wasn't a daily
>paper, nor 'daily announcements', to let everyone know about these changes.
>
[I was surprised that the staff wasn't more on top of things myself.  In 
particular I expected to see people directing traffic on site.]

>   This especially fed into the battle scenarios, where combat archery
>was removed from one battle,

[after it was announced as being in that battle?  I don't remember that 
happening.]

Siege was essentially removed from all
>battles except for the last one,

["removed" might not be the right word..."was never included" might be more 
what you're after here.  It's never been included in anything except the 
fort battle though.  There's just no use in any of the other battles, 
according to popular opinion.]

victory conditions at the end of a
>battle were changed, etc.

[I recall at the end of the ravine battle that the "no more res" was tossed 
out but that's all I can think of.]

Also, while Pennsic is often known for it's
>hurry up and wait attitude, Gulf Wars seemed worse.  It is a small site,
>and small event, giving an impression that things should happen more on
>time.  However instead we seemed to wait long times for the battles to
>begin (especially the one where we had a horse demonstration put on
>beforehand, which granted, was neat ... but did the entire bulk of the
>army need to be on the field in armor for that to happen?)

[two words:  "captive audience."]

>
>   The marshalling also seemed a bit 'lax', causing issues such as 'lay
>on' always catching people off guard, causing people to not have their
>helms on, or no one really knowing what the res point was, for res battles.
>

[agreed.  I was quite shocked to see the field battle starting while there 
were still people putting their helmets on.  Res points are usually pretty 
well defined though.]

>   As far as the battles themselves went, well, again, I was a bit
>underwhelmed.  Now granted, they were nice, big battles, lots of
>fighters.  However, you see, I had heard of the 'great Gulf Wars fort'.
>   Which when seen after the Pennsic fort, kinda pales in comparison.
>It's at a much smaller scale. (even if it does have better 'sides').

[Gulf Wars was first, and since Pennsic had time and $ to make it better, I 
would have been surprised to see anything other than Pennsic's castle being 
bigger and better.]
  I
>had also heard of the 'fun stuff', like foam anvils, war elephants, etc.
>  None of that existed.
>

[true.  The war elephants, the boarding towers, the battering rams... none 
of those were to be found.  Very surprising.  The only thing I can suggest 
is that attendance this year seemed a bit smaller.  I know the merchants 
area was nowhere near as large as I'm used to seeing.]

>   I had been told about how there was so much combat archery, and how
>the skys darkened with all the bolts and arrows.  Yes, there was alot of
>combat archery; however, there wasn't 'massive amounts', at least,
>compared to recent Pennsics.  Yes, there was always a combat archer on
>the other side of me, sometimes 2 or 3 ... but that is always the case
>at Pennsic as well.  It was impressive seeing the huge piles of ammo at
>the end of the ravine battle; however, that seemed more due to unlimited
>ammo, and people showing up with hundreds upon hundreds of ammo each ...
>not there being a much larger percentage of archers, and again, if there
>was, it wasn't significantly so, to the point that I 'felt it'.
>

[Again, smaller attendance.  For instance, I only saw about ten archers from 
Trimaris where they typically bring 20 or 30.  Sir Erika didn't even fight 
IIRC, and she was there.]

>   I had also been told of how much siege there was, again 'darkening the
>skys' analogies had been used.  Instead, I saw FAR LESS than at Pennsic.
>  Not only was siege really only allowed in 1 battle, instead of many
>that it's allowed at Pennsic, but there were only a few engines ... In
>fact, I think I saw 1 onager, 1 treb, and 2 ballista.  At Pennsic there
>are dozens of engines in use, and it grows each year.
>

[Again, smaller attendance, and Pennsic is now apparently a known quantity 
as far as siege and such.  Recall that until a few years ago Pennsic didn't 
have CA or siege at all.]

>   So, for now, I've been talking about the fighting aspects ... but I
>wanted to touch on the other aspects as well.  The shopping, was great
>... really ... and the food excellent.  Those I cannot fault.  However,
>the A&S class schedule was lacking in breadth and quantity.  The target
>archery range was very limited in it's capacity, and it's variety.  (It
>also was being run very strict, not allowing the traditional
>before/after shooting that Pennsic does).
>

[can't comment on the archery range but the A&S seemed to be about as varied 
and as large as it ever is.]

>   And that seemed to also be the end of it, there was none of the rest
>of what seems to make 'Pennsic' so great ... performing arts, so many
>activities going on at all parts of the day and night, etc.  [snip]

>   In general, for an event that has been hyped to us as the 'must go to
>event!'  'Better than Pennsic!'  and so on ... we found it to be
>slightly lacking.  [snip]
Basically, in the locals mind, this is what
>'Kingdom Crusades' is to Atlantians.
>
>   Basically in the end, it was a fine event; however, I'm not sure it's
>worth a 15 hour drive to get there.  If it was 5 hours or less away, and
>I had the vacation, I'd go every year, but at 15 hours, it's a huge
>commitment without as much 'payback' as I would like.
>
>   It did really do one thing for my wife and I.  It really made us
>realize how special Pennsic is.  [snip]

>   I may do Gulf Wars again in the future, but if so, probably solo,
>planning on being a 'fighter-only' at the event, since it seems VERY
>geared towards the fighters (and fighters that don't have any other
>schedule commitments, besides fighting)
>
>In service,
>Siegfried

[I can't disagree with you there - if I had to drive 15 hours to get to it I 
might not go either.  But I'm a heavy fighter first, so here's my review of 
the same war.  Without a doubt the most fun I've ever had at Gulf Wars.  
(note that my review is quite fighting-centric which would account for why I 
had more fun.)

Well, let's see...

Arrived on site just after Sunday turned into Monday. Checked in to the 
hotel, trolled in, unpacked the hotel-based stuff, went to sleep.

got up, drove to the site, ate breakfast, went back to atlantian camp, 
dropped off the armor, put on the armor, went down and got inspected in time 
to catch the ravine battle. This early in the war it was just for fun and 
everybody treated it that way, which was nice.

Tuesday: Fort battle. Again, no points, so nice and low-key. Sat out the 
last two (I can't remember if there were six or four!) since they were rez 
battles and we were getting ready for the Shadow Legion 3-man. There were 7 
or 8 teams in the Shadow Legion 3-man barrier tourney which we won (myself, 
Sir Tascius, and Keiran Hunter) again. The team name was Atlantia One last 
year, since we expected more than 1 Atlantian team to enter, but nobody did. 
When we won it last year I changed the team name to Atlantia Won (didn't 
matter since I never expected to write it down) as a joke...then we won it 
this year and started coming up with all sorts of puns on the name. Atlantia 
One Two, Atlantia Won Too, Atlantia Won Two, and on, and on, and on... We 
were going to leave it as Atlantia One Squared but it just wasn't as funny. 
If one of us that was on the team can't make it next year we'll call it 
Atlantia One Two and a Third. If we manage to make it next year and maybe 
the year after we'll call it Atlantia Won Ton.

After that I was wandering around on the field looking for Afshin and got 
drafted to fight in the Great Weapons Exhibition Battle. Fun fight.

Wednesday: Town Battle. our side looked a lot like a mosh pit with sticks.

Thursday: Ravine Battle. Atlantia & Co. (East, Outlands (I think)) basically 
ran up to the top of the left hill and drove Ansteorran troops nuts for the 
entire time. Hanashi (sp?) and his 20 or so spearmen had a great time trying 
to break into their backfield. As I told them later that day, we were not 
able to achieve the objective of getting them into the backfield, but we got 
everything we wanted out of it. At one point I remember seeing about 30 or 
so troops on the left side and about 100 or so enemy troops trying to 
contain them.

Then the Bridge battle... we stacked up a cup on the end of the left bridge 
and harassed the Calontir shield wall and their troops. Had a very 
entertaining spear duel with Duke Hevec (sp?) of the West. He's at least as 
tall as I am and more slender, so hitting him was like trying to eat rice 
with chopsticks 1 grain at a time. I had to rotate to the back of the line 
to swap out spears and while I was gone he apparently clocked about six of 
our spearmen. Great guy.

Friday: Field battles. I had the pleasure of fighting Duke Patrick Michael 
at the end of the second field battle (he was the only one left and he'd 
already beaten two of our guys in single combat).

Friday afternoon saw the unbelted practices. It was jointly decided to 
simply make it a practice rather than a grudge match, so we swapped out 
troops, changed sides, and generally picked up a good bit from each other. 
Atlantia fielded about 17 troops and Middle matched.

Friday night Atlantian Court: among other recognition Skorri got a 
well-deserved Shark's Tooth. That man did everything that was asked of him 
and did it well (including repeatedly suicide charging in the Ravine 
Battle). I've taken to calling this war Gulf Wars XVI: Skorri Comes Out From 
Behind The Camera.

Saturday: Fort battles. We ran in and killed the Ansteorrans & Co. and then 
swapped sides. Atlantia & Co. (HRM Lucan, East, & I don't know exactly how 
many VDK's) were sitting inside the "abbey" (small haybale building inside 
the fort) waiting to be attacked when Ice ran up (he'd been outside doing 
scouting) and said "LET'S GO!"

Earlier in the fight one of the Trimarians had been pulled away to do 
something else and we managed to get his shield back (it was one of those 
whoppin' big "snowplow" shields and we thought we'd need it) and I decided 
to carry it since I was the biggest person in there. So we run up to the 
left breach where our troops are trying to break out, and I see that 
nobody's moving, so I set the thing up against the backs of our guys, yelled 
"DON'T SWING, JUST PUSH!" and snowplowed out the door. Very entertaining. 
Then we turned right and there was a formation of about 10 enemy troops, 
which we charged into. That snowplow shield hit about 3 of them and 
basically disintegrated the formation. So there I am drooling over the thing 
yelling "I have GOT to get me one of these!!!" and Duke Bytor found me later 
in the day and gifted me with his personal war shield. I said "I'll name it 
Snowplow." He said "Name it SnowDog." I said "I'll name it Snowplow Dog."

Squires Tourney: Very nice scroll. Jon the Tall has the ability to hit you 
with pretty much any section of his sword, including right next to his 
basket hilt, with sufficient force.

Regards,

Jonathan Blackbow

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