Border Raids 2008

This was actually my first trip to Border Raids. It actually wouldn’t have been a bad drive if it hadn’t taken me over an hour just to get through Nashville. Going to and from work I generally have the luxury of taking the most recently expanded freeways, but heading up to Kentucky I wasn’t so lucky.

Friday night was trying. Getting to site and setting up my tent was easy enough, but we had some nasty thunderstorms over night, and I spent a good bit of it awake making sure I didn’t get too much water pooling on top of the tent. There were predictions of similar storms for Saturday, but fortunately they never materialized and the weather was excellent all day and all night.

Theoretically the fencing activities were to start at 10am, and I actually did get my armor and equipment inspected then, but because some of the heavy fighters on both sides intended to switch equipment and play in the fencing battles, too, we actually delayed the fencing activities until the heavy battles were over. We Meridiens spent the time bearing water for the heavy field.

Things could have gone better on the heavy field. Our kingdom has plenty of great fighters, but not many great fighting units. Our heavies tend to fight as a bunch of individuals seeking to win the battle with personal heroics, while the Midrealm fields more of an organized army with a coherent plan. Consequently, we didn’t do well in the field battles, while our fighters did well in the Champions tournament that was held later.

On the fencing field, the situation was much different. We had a lot of experienced fencers on the field, and most of us have fought as a unit in field battles at Gulf Wars. The Midrealm side, on the other hand, had a lot of pretty new fighters, although they did have a unit that practiced together. All the same, we dominated the fencing field and won our two out of three rounds in quick succession to secure the war point. Lord Feodor also won his fight in the Champions Tournament.

Following the war point activities, we had a charity tournament for the Sarah Cannon Cancer Center. Together the light and heavy tourneys raised $590. Lord Tristram won the fencing prize (a spiffy baldric made by Feodor).

Their Majesties and Highnesses of both the Midrealm and Meridies held a combined court Saturday evening, and King Lutr of the Midrealm has a rather pleasant custom for his courts; he has an intermission in which food and drinks are served (including brats and beer at this event).

Taddea and I held an improvised dance that night. Not a huge turnout, but not bad for something that was never on the schedule.

I’ll see about posting some of my pictures from the event. I didn’t take them myself, but a lovely young lady at the fencing field was kind enough to put my camera to some use for me.

Edit: Pictures added. Alas, all of them are from the fencing field, since the camera's battery ran out there.