I had never been to an Estrella War before, so I was very excited to attend, and compare it to Pennsic. Also, it is a good opporunity to fight and hang out with my Black Tiger friends! This a shot driving down Washington State towards Arizona. A very long drive indeed!
Here is Rob's tent. It is bigger than it looks, and very cool. You can put about a dozen people in there easily. Very period as well of course. But why isn't it black?
Here is Estrella Park. There was alot of grass at least, but they had not had any rain in almost 200 days, so everything was very very very very dry and dusty. Did I mention it was dry and dusty?
With the old time looking thents, garb, music, etc, it was a real pleasure to walk around and see the sights. I did not get a chance to see as much as I would have liked tho.
Most groups had some very nice comfortable layouts, with great "relaxing" time areas around their groups tent cluster.
Just like Pennsic, there were groups of "porta castles" everywhere, and just like Pennsic, they were always clean, available, and did not stink at all!
Here is a royal pavilian...
This is a shot of the "Great Pavilian" from across part of the Open Field. This tent was enormous. You could put a couple hundred people in there no problem.
There were alot good number of heavy fighters there, thousands of course. Although I don't do that much heavy, I do appreciate the armor and the beauty of the armor!
There was a good number of tents for shopping as well. I would say there were nearly 90 tents selling items. Pennsic had more, but only by about 25% more.
I like the fighting, but I also sure do like the shopping. These kind of items really appeal to me...great decorations for the house, or for your future SCA events!
Some very colorfull items to buy and use.
The shopping areas were pretty busy all the time, and most merchants stayed open until 10pm or so.
Here some royal or groups get ready for some event.
I did not see Lord Vail at this moment, but I did see his friend here, and that is his shield of course! His friend is a professional photographer who was covering the event.
More heavy fighters getting ready for fights.
The roman armor sure does look cool....
Here a group called "The Fifth Legion" marches to a battle.
Just a few shots of some of the heavies fighting in the Open Field next to the Great Pavilian.
More heavy fighting. Sadly, since I was fighting, I could not take that many photos. My parents come to this event happily, and so I handed them my camera often, and said take a few hundred pictures each day, please!
More heavy fightes with the 5th behind them.
Here is my mom, and the Black Tiges Hadururus and Shenafin.
First days battles on Friday, and the Black Tigers and friends strategize before and after battles.
Here is a shot of yours truely looking all happy over at my Father who is taking this photo. I want to say this is between battles, and I just got killed earlier without having killed a dozen before I died. Oh well. I did buy this new metal gorget (throat protector) earlier that day. I really like it!
A group shot of the Black Tigers at Estrella 2006 at the end of Day 1 of the wars. From left to right, FoxGlove, unkown, unknown, Lingus, Senafin, Blayde, Thomas O'Neal, Aqueus Animo, Black Zack, Tora, Kage Tatsu and Hadrurus.
A shot of a happy Sean doing all that killing and slaying!
Another shot of us strategizing during battles.
Some shots of fighting in the Broken Fields.
More shots of fighting the Broken Fields.
Broken Field Fighting
Me and Hadrurus at the end of the first days battles. He is a very very good fighter. I've seen him take Tora's arm in a true tourney situation.
Between Battles 3 and 4, we take a minute to water up and cool down.
I wish we had more photos of the actuall fighting, but without permission and armor, no photographers were allowed out in the battle areas. I'll see what I can do for the next time to get more combat photos.