Turn the Corner! - Lesson from Tuesday Night Fighter Practice

When you get the chance, turn the corner.  Turn it, turn it fast, turn it aggressively, turn it now!

Most SCA groups teach their guys to "stick together."  This is what I consider lesson 1.   Lesson 2 is to turn the corner.

Let me expand on this point.


Lets Build a Raft

I like the raft analogy as its one I learned in a philosophy class in college.  Sometimes we need to do things in our lives that are not the end result, but rather a tool to get us to the next step.

"Sticking together" is a tool to help fighters who flail about on their own in a melee.  A loose, disorganized group of fighters will get destroyed by a tight unit that knows how to stick together.  I've been watching a lot of newbie fighters at the last few practices, and they really do just get mowed down when they hang out in the field on their own.

So in order to solve this problem, you teach your fighters to "stick together," as this is the easiest way to build an effective unit out of a pack of ineffective fighters.

So we've got a bunch of fighters flailing about in the river and drowning.  Now we've pulled them all to shore and we got them to build a raft.  Great!  Now what?  Is that it?  One day at war camp and they teach you to stick together and move as a group.  Is that all you can ever hope to achieve as a melee fighter?

Once you've mastered "sticking together," you need to start to learn how to make an impact as an individual on the field.

You've Built the Raft.  Now Use It!  Step 1:  Turn the Corner

Turning the corner essentially means to get around the flank of whatever fighter, or groups of fighters you are facing.

Here's an example of a 4 on 4 situation that occurred last night:

The pole on the right actually has a fair amount of melee experience and felt very comfortable going a little wider than the front his opponents were setting.  Before I go any further I want to point out the perspective that I'm aiming for.  Maybe green could have charged, or maybe red could have charged, or maybe one command or another could have been called.

None of that happened, and often times none of that will happen.  Even if you drill your squad over and over again to have some sort of consistent unit tactic, you can't count on always fighting with that squad, and after initial impact, the command structure will always break down.

Regardless of what happens within either unit, the green pole fighter will always be in a position where he has the ability to think about how to handle the circumstances he is presented with.

In this particular case, the green pole went wide and the red unit allowed him to do it.  He then stepped just a little to the outside and attacked around the shield, and then right back into his unit.

This is actually a step in the right direction.  What he should do, in my opinion, is actually "turn the corner" of the red unit.

When this is done, red has three responses.  They can do nothing, which means that the red shield will quickly die (believe it or not, this is the most common response, which is why I'm such a big fan of turning the corner).

The red shield can rotate to defend against the green pole.

Though this is certainly better than just allowing the pole to hit him in the back of the head, this is still not a great position to be in.  Green is herding red into a corral such that their backs are facing each other, and they are exposing gaps that are hard to defend.

The best option for red is simply to deny the turn.

But Now They are Fighting One on One

Yes.  Yes they are.  Most SCA groups have a way to prevent that from happening.  They tell the red team that they are not allowed to leave the unit.  The problem is, then green will turn the corner on them and collapse that flank every time.

This problem is "solved" by telling green that they are not allowed to leave the unit, either.  I put the word "solved" in quotes because its not really a solution.  Whenever you restrict both sides to exactly the same tactical limitations, neither group will have the ability to exploit the other group's weaknesses.  If you remove the limitations of sticking together for one of the groups, which ever one is effective at turning the corner will have a big advantage in every battle.

The Big Picture

In order to turn the corner, you have to have fighters on the flanks that are experienced enough to do so.  There is a not so fine line between effectively working off of the boundaries of your unit, and flailing out on the field by yourself.

I'll contend that most SCA units would be best served by keeping the slower fighters (heavy troops) and the less experienced fighters in a tighter mass, but allowing faster and more experienced melee fighters to go out and attack the edges of the enemy (see my post on Advanced Jobs here.)

Anglesey and the Bog Troopers will often go with no core unit at all as we are all very experienced melee fighters (15-30 years for most members).  However, we had a recent event where we had a large enough number of newer fighters that we had to create a small unit of 2-3 new fighters with an experienced pole commanding them so that they could avoid "drowning in the river."  It took us a good several rounds of combat to recognize that they were just not able to pick up the flow of our skirmish tactics quickly.

Additional Note:

I should add, sometimes I will practice 3 on 3s, which often break down into 3 one on ones. Though this might be the most effective way to resolve the combat, it is not very good at learning how to work together. We will often restrict either side from leaving the group, but purely in the interest of trying to get used to fighting together, not because its the best tactic for that scenario.