Huzzah for the 2010 Battle of the Ring! There were, I heard, approximately 140 fighters. That's only 100 more than I'd fought with before ;-).
The field battles were chaotic, and I'm sure I team-killed at least a couple people (especially swinging at the fool who was charging our line to get back into position). It was nice to have a real shield wall in front of me, and I found I survived much longer when I stayed behind it. I was less effective than I would have liked to have been, but I'm sure that will come with experience in fighting. I did manage on occasion, however, to serve as a fatal distraction (unfortunately, usually fatal to myself as well, but hey).
There were a few couple new (to me) games we played. There was a variation on kill-your-killer where you had to make eye contact with your opponent as you slew them --- this made things harder on me, as my favourite tactic is to 'stab' people in the back. I did not take part in the village-lake battle (I did not arrive in time to hear the rules, and watching the first bout seemed overly complicated.). My favourite, however, was 'Valhalla'. This involved a free-for-all, however when you died you were assigned into a team of three dead fighters and fought with those warriors as your team. I'm not sure the name, but there was a good tactician I fought with a couple times who kept us alive for a respectable period of time. The 'labyrinth' battle (a three-bridge bridge battle) could have been improved with fewer fighters, as the battle was over before some fighters were able to enter the labyrinth.
The day also saw tournaments. There was sword-and-board, single blue, Florentine, reds-and-greens, and archery. We had fighters enter each of them, and did quite well, actually. Rau won the archery tournament, and we progressed well into single blue and reds-and-greens. I entered the Florentine tourney, but was thoroughly schooled in the first round. I did have my revenge, however, in the kill-your-killer battle, where we simul-ed twice. Huzzah!
The final battle, the Battle of the Two Towers, was less enjoyable than most of the day, though still fun. The first part was fun enough, as we had a quarter of the fighters on our side. We battled for Isengard, with the battle ending when a 'hero' had killed all of us. Then we 'became' the Rohirrim, and charged into the Battle of Helm's Deep. This was confusing, and we ended up charging the humans instead of the orcs, doing more damage to the side of 'good' than help. 'Good' still won out in the end, however, and the future of Middle Earth was decided (assuming the humans distracted the orcs long enough for a couple dirty hobbits to destroy a piece of jewelry).
I am very pleased with the turnout and the way the day turned out, and am looking forward to doing this again next year, after another year of practice! Maybe then my Florentine-fu will be better!