How it Works
Any scenario will work, but we like to do it as a field battle. The key is to unbalance the teams so that all of your experience is on one team, and everyone else is on the other team. Everyone fights with their best weapon form.
Begin with more fighters on the less experienced team, and then which ever team loses gains a fighter from the other team until the teams are well balanced.
Why it is a Good Scenario
- Its good practice
Novice fighters don't need to be able to kill veteran fighters. It takes years and years of practice and a little bit of talent to beat the best fighters on the field. Frankly, its a hopeless cause for most less experienced fighters. What they need to learn to do is beat them when they have a numbers advantage, learn to recognize what that looks like, and utilize some basic tactics to make that happen. Its rare for a novice fighter to beat a duke, but any three novice fighters can if they practice for it.
This practice also makes the novice fighters take ownership of the tactics and taking initiative. When the talent level is evenly spread out on both teams, the novice fighters tend to follow the veterans, and mostly let the veterans do the killing while trying to avoid getting killed, themselves, by veterans. This scenario forces them to do the killing.
Its also a really good fight for the veterans as they have to figure out how to handle being outnumbered and expect to have to get multiple kills.
Additionally I really prefer having uneven numbers because it forces tactics to be used. When the numbers are even, often times teams will just mirror each others tactics, sometimes even just pairing up into singles fights.
- Everyone has fun
The novice fighters, especially, really like this scenario. They get to kill people, and never feel overwhelmed by experience. I think they especially get an ego boost knowing that they are largely responsible for the scenarios that they win, while the veterans love the challenge of being outnumbered.
Last Friday's Fighters
We had 8 fighters and we lined them up by experience. One was brand new (walked by our practice and we talked him into putting on loaner gear), one has been fighting since the mid 90s, while the rest were in the 6 month to 4 year range of experience, all consistent 2-4 times a month practicers.
1: spear - decades of experience
2: shield - some youth fighting plus 3 years of heavy
3: pole - two years
4: shield - 1 year
5: long sword - 6 months very consistent
6: pole - 6 months
7: shield - 6 months
8: spear - first time in armor
The Teams
We started with a three on five. 1, 2, & 3 vs everyone else.
Since we only had eight fighters, we tried to avoid two on six. If three on five would be overwhelming for the five, we'd start trading fighters by making the smaller team out of 1, 2, & 4 or 1, 2, & 5.
Likewise, we tried to avoid four on four with veterans versus novice. Instead, we'd pull in the least experienced fighter on the team. So 1, 2, 3 & 8 vs 4, 5, 6, & 7. Essentially we do what we need to keep the experience on the same team.
The Results
We ran four fights before taking a break.
1) 3v5. Experienced team wins.
This worked out kind of how I had hoped. The novice team never committed to the attack, allowing the veteran spear to kill three fighters before they committed. The novices almost pulled out a win at this point as one of their shields rushed the veteran pole and got a kill, making it 2v2 with two shields vs a spear and a shield. They ran in and tried to take out the spear, who managed to squirm away as his shieldman got the final two kills.
2) 3v5. Novice team wins.
Since the scenario was competitive, we ran it again. This time the novice fighters rushed the experienced fighters and got an easy win. Less learned. Novice team levels up!
3) 4v4. Experienced team wins.
We moved the brand new guy onto the experienced team. With two spears, a pole, and a shield against two shields, a long sword, and a pole, the novice team new they needed to rush the experienced team. Their charge was unsuccessful, but the fight was close.
4) 4v4. Novice team wins.
Same fighters, same tactics. This time the novice fighters win.
We had an odd shaped field
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