Once teams were picked, Hrafnox and Bloodguard ended up being one side while Anglesey East and a mix of unattached fighters made up the other team. The field was wide enough to do a small amount of maneuvering, but narrow enough that both flanks can be easily controlled (maybe 15 - 20 yards wide?). There was a slight hill from one end to the next, with a steeper hill from flank to flank.
Strategy/Tactics
The first thing I looked at was weapons mixes and what we could do with them. Our opponent had, in my opinion....as well as everyone else's opinion, the better units and the better fighters. Whenever that happens, I think about the game rock, paper, scissors. There are two ways to win this game. 1) If their side throws rock, then you throw paper. 2) If their side throws rock, you throw a bigger rock. Whatever they were going to throw was going to be bigger than ours, so the only chance we had was to throw something else. Looking at the weapons mixes, I noticed that they had 4-5 spears, so we went with no spears (something that is very rare to see out of Anglesey). If we could press them in the fight, then we stood a chance.
The Big Picture with Newer Fighters
I often get stuck in this paradigm trying to figure out what is THE best method, or style, or strategy that is a one size fits all best way of doing things. Likewise when a lot of people learn to fight in the SCA, they think that the way that they were taught is THE right way to do things. There are actually lots of right ways to do something (though even more wrong ways) and much of it depends on the makeup of the fighters involved.
This also largely depends on the experience of the fighters, both individually and collectively. When I used to be a high school varsity basketball coach, I read up on systems of play. I found it very interesting that at the very lowest levels, the plays were very structured and very simple. Once you got to the high school varsity level, the structure stayed, but the plays got more and more complicated. By the time one got to the pro level, a lot of the structure went away.
You see, the least experienced players need to know where to go and where everyone else is going to be, and they need to be able to process this while playing a fast paced game. An offense might, for example, always have someone standing in the corner. So you know there's always going to be someone there to throw the ball to. At the high school level they can handle more complicated plays, and be able to process the movements of their teammates more quickly. At the pro level, OTOH, there is this very advanced sense of play where each player has a myriad of things that he can do, and his teammates can anticipate which one he's going to do and generally know where to go and what to do, all in a fraction of a second.
Applying this to the SCA, newer fighters generally need a lot more structure while experienced fighters can feel the flow much more quickly and can have room to improvise on the fly.
Our Approach
Opponents who are any good generally come up with one of two systems for what is essentially a 10 man team battle. They will either set up one big unit, often as a shield wall, and try to steer that mass at a flank or a weakness that they can spot, or they will split off a small flanking unit (usually no more than 3 flankers) and try a hammer and anvil approach (the main unit press forward while the flankers pinch on the outside). In my personal opinion, I think the former approach is easier to teach and more appropriate for less experienced fighters, but that the hammer and anvil approach is more effective if implemented well.
Lately I've been using a different approach that looks to exploit either of the above approaches. Instead of a main unit and a flanking unit, I set up two equal strength units that both move onto the flanks. I then set myself as a floating commander in the backfield between the two units and call out which unit to press the attack based on their positioning.
At this point, its a pretty easy read for me. If we are facing a single large unit, either pinch on both flanks (giving us the better position in the fight) or charge at the big unit's flank with whichever unit has the flanking position. If we are, instead, facing a main unit and a flanking unit, one of our units will likely be across from the flanking unit, while the other will be across from the main unit. In this case, you attack the flankers and stall the engagement against the main unit. If you allow some flexibility in the units, some fighters can peel off and hit the flank of the main unit as they are pressing forward onto our other unit.
Initial Problems and Improvements
In our very first engagement we got slaughtered. Our left unit went after the flankers and they plain just ran around us. The fight was over very quickly.
So we corrected that by moving much more aggressively to the flanks. Over the course of the next several battles I was realizing that Anglesey East, with very little experience in the unit, was not doing a good job of stalling. The first couple of fights they charged when the other group charged. Then, even when they stopped doing that, they would still walk toward the enemy quickly when the other group charged. It took me a while to get the idea across, but they finally figured out to literally try to stay out of the fight as long as possible and to pull Bloodguard with them. We went from killing very few people in these fights to killing over half of their side.
Always remember: Kill quickly, die slowly.
At one point a member of the other team suggested giving us the uphill advantage. It wasn't much of an advantage, but it wasn't insignificant. So after switching sides we started doing a little better. The knight on our team suggested trying a different strategy. Instead of attacking the flankers, the mixed unit turned down the hill and slammed into the main unit on the oblique. This worked out well, with one problem. Anglesey East stalled and tried to stay out of the fight. I explained at this point that with the oblique attack on the main unit, they needed to charge with them so that we could attack with higher numbers and a flanked position.
By the end of the day we were able to take a group of people who don't fight together, 8 of whom have 1-2 years of experience, and go from getting slaughtered to actually being able to hold our own. Someone told me we even won 1 or 2 battles. I don't know if that was true, but if we were close enough to even believe that to be the case, then I consider it a moral victory. If anything, we were definitely delivering 7 or more casualties by the end of the fights toward the end.
Taking the Initiative
Successes in any of these formats come from taking the initiative when opportunity presents itself. Anglesey East was struggling because they were committing 70%, both when it came time to get engaged, or when it came time to refuse engagement.
The Skirmish Approach
The eventual goal is to be able to win battles like this without units and commands. We can fight under that system when we have our veterans on the field, even with 40-50% new fighters. When the new fighter ratio is literally at 83%, some organization needs to be applied.
Lessons Learned
Two constructive criticisms I got from the other side was that I left Anglesey East leaderless and they both recommended that I should have stayed with the group. The problem was, our entire side didn't have an experienced leader, so had I done that, we might have had the same problem with the other group. I'm not certain that *I* needed to be the leader, but that someone should have been. I think that's going to be the next step in our training. They didn't need a great leader, they just needed someone to make the calls that needed to be made, and I need to start asking some of the newer guys to take this on.
Having said that, I thought we did very very well given the lack of experience on our side.
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