Pennsic 47 (part 3) - Woods Battle

Many many moons ago I used to walk into woods battles with absolutely no concept of tactics or strategy.  I had heard, or rather overheard, that there were, like, flags or something that needed to be captured.....or whatever.

Seriously, I'd wander around the woods and then fight whatever people I found with different color tape on their helmets.

It wasn't that I wasn't competitive.  I just never thought of it in terms of implementing a strategy to win the battle.  I just cared about killing people, and likely used kill counts as a measure of success.

Only in the last two Pennsics have I focussed my efforts toward capturing and holding flags, and with that comes a lot of thinking about how to do it and how my unit can be more effective in the task.


Sticking Together

Given the personalities within Anglesey, we are each very easily distracted by killing opportunities.  Sitting in a second rank, doing a job that involves standing around, or having to walk past lots of fighting to get to a position are all very difficult things for us to accomplish.  Often times we will get to rez point and walk back into the woods and hear something like, "we need fighters to go this way," and we think, "oh, that sounds interesting.  Maybe it will be better fighting than what we had before."

The problem that you run into is if you have a 30 person unit dedicated to fight over a position, and then 10-15-20 fighters start drifting off in different directions, you've given up a large chunk of fighters who were holding said position.  In my opinion, unless that position is clearly a terrible place to be, you should stick to it unless there is a coordinated plan with the leadership on the field to move your fighters to another position.

Equally as important, your unit *should* fight better together than it does working with different units that have different methods of fighting.

This year I think Anglesey and the rest of the Bog fighters did a better job of sticking together.  We fought on the blue side, and were given the pine trees to the right of the center banner.  After dying, fighters were to resurrect and come straight back to this position.  I believe we did that well.


Center Banner Layout

From the blue side (represented in green below), the center banner had a "bridge width" channel that was bordered on the left with some rather thick trees, and a medical area that was taped off on the right.

This created what was effectively a bridge battle over the flag, with a more skirmish style spear battle on the flank.  The midrealm seemed to make concerted pushes alternating between The Tuchux and Dark Moon, two sets of organized shock troop units who are well built for making these kinds of pushes.  The East's answer to that was Blood Guard, a similarly built unit.

The flank, on the other hand, was largely controlled by skirmish style spearing with shields and glaives used to keep any chargers at bay.

In the short video below you can see a first person perspective from the red side of that flank.

The picture below shows the basic path that Chad (the camera man) takes in the video (marked with a red dashed line):

Fighting Over the Banner

Essentially there are three main fronts in this battle with regard to the center banner that are fought quite differently.  In the center channel you have what I would call a classic bridge battle type scenario.  Organized units with big fighters that are heavy on shields tend to fight in this area.  There's a back and forth between the spearing while static (usually in order to allow the shields to recover), and then big coordinated charges to try to take real estate fairly quickly.

If I remember this battle correctly, red was better at making big pushes toward the flag with shield heavy charges, while blue was better at whittling red down with their spears, and then taking the flag back once they have been weakened. 

Which is the better tactic?  It all depends on what you have to work with.  Red was pretty successful every time they mounted a charge, but I believe that blue held the banner for a great majority of the time.  If a unit wants to capture a banner at a given time (like they know the battle is about to end), red's tactics are generally more successful.  They are also very exhausting, which comes into play in a 90 minute resurrection woods battle.


Fighting on the Right Flank

The second front is on blue's right flank, which is more or less a skirmish battle.  Though neither side will get any points from gaining ground on this front, if one side can push the flank far enough such that they can get completely around the medical area, they can get into the backfield of the main fighting force at the flag.  Because of this danger, more often than not fighters will be pulled away from the flag area to reinforce the flank, which then weakens the center unit. 

Fighting in this area is often heavier on spears, and more of a slower stand and peck kind of battle.  Looking at the short video above, in an area that holds 8-10 fighters, the rate of death was ~1 fighter every 20 seconds. 

Here ground is generally gained in one of two ways.  Either spears will pick apart their opponent such that a clear advantage has been gained, and then a big, slow push will begin which will cause the enemy to back away from their position.  The other is when, occasionally, a shieldman or two will find a weak spot in the line (maybe a position with only spears) and will pounce on them, break a hole, and get a few kills.  If successful, the other side will walk backwards to adjust their front.  If unsuccessful, the chargers will die leaving their own side weakened, and then will have to back themselves off of the slow push referenced in the first part of the paragraph.


Fighting on the Road to the Left of the Banner

Not pictured above is a road to the left of the center banner.  The fighting here tends to be more of a mix of the two positions described above.  There's more big coordinated charges than on the right flank, but more skirmish fighting than in the center.  I feel that this position is less critical than the other two, though it still has to be controlled.  More ground needs to be gained than on the right flank in order to get into the enemy's backfield, but it can still happen if left uncontested.


Nuances to Fighting on the Flank

The Bog fighters don't really fight as a single unit in this region, but rather in small clusters filling important gaps in the line.  In any given position you'll find 3-5 or more of us working together, but also mixing in with other fighters.  There are little subtle nuances that lead to killing opportunities as well as defending our line.  Some examples:

-  Getting the shields out of the way and into support positions.

In the first picture below, you can see shields up on the front line accomplishing little more than being targets.  Hey, who am I to tell them how to enjoy their battle, but if you want to be effective, I'm a big fan of getting shields off the line with rare exceptions.  Those being a) if there is no one else to fill that spot and b) if you are so good that you can effectively bait and fend off good spearmen.  Most people are not.

In the next shot you can see where Rygus (Anglesey), Sir Rory (Serpentius), and myself (being sneaky) take the front line with no shields in our way. 

And shieldmen are behind us, watching the battle, and discouraging anyone from rushing us.  Furthermore, they are protecting the corner of the medical area, which leads right into the backfield of the units fighting directly over the center banner.  In fact, a little before this screenshot, I had called one of our newer fighters over (pictured as the right most fighter in green) as I noticed that there was a critical weakness in that area with a couple of shieldmen directly across from that position.

-  Using spears to control the areas between the trees.

At the very end of the video, you see Chad ask the spearman to move to the left of the tree.  Shortly after he did that, Sir Rory moved into the position that he just abandoned and got a quick kill on the camera man.

Pushing the Flank

For a brief moment I was put in command of the center banner.  Oh, yeah, I got a kick out of that and tell everyone I run into.  I'm not too proud to brag!  During that time I saw that we had already lost control of the banner and did not really seem to have the numbers to directly take it back.

So I walked down the flank to see what was going on.  I noticed that we actually had about a 2 to 1 numbers advantage.  I found the only knight I could and asked if there was a plan to hold that position and he said no.  So I decided to call a push on the flank to try to apply pressure in the backfield of the center banner.  There were three fighters on the other side who were just hanging out, ready to waltz into our back field, so I asked three fighters to keep an eye on them.  As for everyone else, I called a big push forward.

Given the numbers advantage, it was actually quite easy.  Walk forward, and the enemy will walk back.  Shots didn't really even need to be be thrown.


Personal Approach to this Year's Battle

I died a lot last year fighting with a spear, mainly just by being too aggressive and not noticing that I was drawing the attention of enemy fighters.  Most of my deaths were from someone hiding behind a tree that I didn't notice.

This year I deliberately slowed down a bit and took more time to survey my surroundings.  As a result, I hardly died at all this year.  I made it a point to cycle in and out of the fight and take some time to watch the battle.  If we had control, I rested and watched.  If I saw a weakness in the line, or a hot spearman on the other side, and stepped in and went to work.  If the problem went away, I stepped out and let some of the younger fighters take over.