I've been dissecting this battle in my head since last August and have finally gotten around to writing about it. Having gone to most practices, attended the strategy meetings, fought in the battle, talked with my teammates, and having watched as much video as I could, I feel I've been able to draw a pretty clear picture of what happened with regard to the East's southern army unit.
First and foremost, thanks to everyone who was in that unit and especially to the commander, Harold (now Sir Harold) who got us ready and lead the team to success. This really was an example of how build and train an army and execute a plan.
VIDEO
The Unit
The makeup of the unit was a pretty classic shield wall with polearm support in the back.
The Strategy
I don't want to get into too much detail about strategy, as our enemies might be reading (....then again, we actually fought with our enemies on this one, so probably not a big deal) but I can discuss the initial plan.
We had four units in total, plus a handful of reserves fighters, and our unit was tasked with holding the left flank. Not too much more to it than that.
The Tactics
As far as I'm concerned, this was the meat of the fight, and what made the difference between success and failure. The rest of our army did such a great job that it may not have really mattered what we did on our side, but I do believe it was our execution that helped make the battle won so swiftly.
As we marched forward, we had in front of us a tough, heavy hitting unit of Atlantians to contend with. To their left was a solid Aethelmearc unit, and to our right was a Midrealm unit that we were allied with for this battle (I will have to take a rough guess on their unit make up).
Properly Dressed Front
The first thing we did right was Harold made sure that our unit was properly dressed with the unit to our right. This may not seem like a very big deal until you see what happened to Aethelmearc's unit as it got too far out in front of its flank.
As I've said over and over in this blog, one of the keys to the melee is supporting your flanks. To do so, your flankers generally need to be either even with your central units, or slightly ahead in an attempt to corral your enemy (or you need to have reserves in the backfield that can aid a collapsing flank).
Notice how badly exposed their backfield is. Now our backfield could have been equally as exposed, except that we hadn't committed our troops yet (due to Atlantia's slow advance) and Klous and Morikatzu doing a good job of keeping an eye on our right flank. Which leads to the second thing done well.
Right Flank of our Unit Exploiting an Opportunity
Once our unit passed Aethelmaerc's unit, Klous pealed off and into Aethelmaerc's backfield with Morikatzu following behind for support.
This had a combined effect of shoring up our right flank while weakening Aethelmearc's unit.
Protecting the Left Flank
We had the job of denying Atlantia on the left flank, and it was a very tough job. We knew that Atlantia had some of the best, hard hitting fighters on the field. Ideally we would have liked to out flank them, but as the approached us, they swung a unit out wide on us, and we did not have the unit make up to match them.
This was actually something I was concerned about heading into this battle. Harold had put our most experienced fighters on the left most flank of our unit, which has its benefits and weaknesses. The benefits, of course, is if the left flank gets hit, we have our best fighters keeping it from collapsing. The downside is that our best fighters also happened to be our least mobile fighters (relatively speaking).
Again, the strategy was perfectly fine, but due to the lessened mobility on the outside, I was mentally preparing to get outflanked, and we did. As a result, Harold hit the main shield wall on the flanking unit hard. I actually pulled out of the back of our unit, swung out wide, and attempted to outflank their flanking unit.
Just before this happened, Harold commanded our main unit to charge the right side of Atlantia, again, the correct call. He really had four options given the makeup of our unit and the position we ere in, most of them bad. We could stand there and get enveloped, charge center and get enveloped, charge left and leave a gap into both our backfield as well as the Midrealm's backfield, or charge right and hope that a small number of us can hold off the flankers, which is exactly what we did.
The final piece of this tactic involved me continuing to draw the flank out of the fight and Ryouko slipping into the gap between the two halves of the Atlantian unit and attacking the flanks of each.
The Importance of Individual Battlefield Decisions
This is a theme that I've been running with in this blog. While strategy and command decisions are important (Harold's good unit command vs Aethelmearc getting too far ahead of Atlantia before engagement) I hope the big takeaway from this are the kinds of split second decisions that must be made by individuals during the battle: Klous hitting the backfield of the Aethelmearc unit, Morikatzu following in support, Harold hitting the flanking shield wall, myself drawing out the end of the flanking unit, Ryouko finding the gap and attacking the ends of the units, as well as every other person in the unit following through on the main objective.
Hope you enjoyed reading!
Hope you enjoyed reading!
Check out Spears to the Front here.
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ReplyDeleteBTW, I'm sharing this with my Atlantian brethren. :-D
ReplyDeleteRedoing the comment. I was speaking about the Allied champs battle.
ReplyDeleteHere I can just go with nice analysis
Thanks, Alric. I didn't see your earlier comment, but if I remember the Allied Champs battle (technically Century Champs battle) correctly, we got the first point, and then your side took everything else.
DeleteMy short analysis of that was that you simply had more and better spears. =)
Also, tell your Atlantian friends that they did a fantastic job and actually out maneuvered us in the initial engagement, though I think they should have hit us earlier to prevent what ended up happening in Aethelmearc's backfield.
Thanks for the comment! =)
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ReplyDeleteWe noticed something similar in the rapier melees. Units from different groups would stay together and move at different rates; there would ways be a small separation between different units. don't know if it applies to heave, but in rapier two guys can pry that gap between lines and wreak havoc very quickly.
ReplyDeleteNice analysis. The terminology we use is different. The concepts, shifting roles, and decision tree is exactly the same.
ReplyDeleteGreat job.
-just another godless orc-
So, having read through your analysis, watched the video (there's another on YouTube that shows it from the opposite side - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1UMkdXO6y8), and spoken with some of the members of the AEthelmearc unit, I have a different take:
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me say that your guys did a great job, and none of my comments are meant to take anything away from any of them or what they did.
However, my take on it was that AEthelmearc was completely screwed, even before first contact:
• They apparently had no unit commander - no-one was assigned by their higher-ups, and no-one from within just did the job at any point.
• They had no plan beyond "We're in the center, and we kinda think this is how the enemy will run their fight" (which was not at all what you did, BTW).
• At 0:17, they let the unit to their left (your right) go completely by, potentially allowing a bad flanking maneuver to happen to them (I'll get back to that), and as such, failed to adapt at all to a changing situation.
• At 0:20, when they actually engage, they've changed from being a tight, well-formed unit, a shield wall with great weapon support, into a 1-/2-man column charge, 17 deep, square at the center of the opposing unit that has big war shields (which stops them dead in their tracks), and it takes another 5 seconds for them to fully engage, during which the guys in front are being badly outnumbered.
From there, it looks like a fairly balanced engagement, your side having perhaps a slight upper hand against the combined AEthelmearc / Atlantia unit, until 0:29, when a half-dozen guys from the unit that was allowed to run past AEthelmearc swing back into frame and decimate the backfield; once that's happened it goes very quickly from a ~20::20 fight to a 25+::15 fight with a sizable unit in the rear of the smaller force, and your side took quick and good advantage of the situation.
To my perception, AEthelmearc would have been much more successful - even without having a real plan or an assigned commander - if they had done any of the following:
• Thrown some chunk of their reserve into the flank of the unit that was passing them on their left; they may not have done much damage, but they would have slowed that unit's advance, broken up some of their cohesion, and created better tactical situation for their allies on their left (*someone* would get flank there).
• Attacked with at least half, if not 70%, of their unit more or less simultaneously, in a cohesive line, rather than in dribs and drabs, spreading out from a column charge, allowing short-term very significant numerical superiority with quick losses in return for nothing tactically.
• Had someone, *anyone*, watch for what was going on in their left rear, once the flanking unit passed them by; you can see that everyone is looking forward, in their front 60° (90° if I'm feeling generous), not even the folks in the rearguard, with no thought to whether anyone from that unit was coming around behind them (which, in fact, happened in short order), let alone have someone actually facing vaguely that way when the hammer fell.
So, yes, your guys did everything right that AEthelmearc did wrong: you maintained a strong cohesive unit, at least as wide as your opponents to not allow local numerical superiority; you had your flanks out in front of the center, so that if a flanking maneuever was imminent, you'd at least see it coming; and you had fighters checking your flanks whenever there appeared to be anyone headed that way, and engaged them. None of these things are flashy or revolutionary, but the fundamentals and basics are what wins, and you guys executed them very well. Good job!
- Sir Koredono, AEthelmearc (and old OTC)
Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply, Sir Korendono! I really couldn't piece together what happened in the middle.
DeleteIn the big picture, I think we all knew ahead of time that our side was already going in with a big advantage by simply having two large kingdoms with lots of Unbelted Champions experience going into the battle while Aethelmearc had to try to pull some allies together.
Having said that, we were pretty certain that the weakness was going to be the mixed unit, which turned out to be on our right, their left flank (and no offense to the fighters who fought in that unit. Its just a matter of being unfamiliar with each other because they were mixed kingdoms).
Having said that, Aethelmearc should have also known that going into the battle. The mixed unit was the first to be hit. I think it would have been much better for Aethelmearc to have that unit stall engagement as much as possible and be the last to be hit. If anything, it would have given them a straight up even fight in the middle without having to deal with 10+ fighters coming at them from the back.
Thanks again!