What Happens When They Have the Shields AND the Spears

I fight with a spear about 90% of the time.  Of that, my team often will have the range advantage.  As I've said many times in this blog, one of the most fundamental tactical decisions you need to make is to determine which team has the range advantage.  If its the other team, then you need to press them hard or charge.  Recently I had some experience where the other team had both the range advantage as well as the shield advantage, and it challenged us on a tactical level.

In a couple of series of 4v4 battles in a small field, one team would have three shields and one spear, while the other team had no spears and either all poles, or a mix of poles and spears.  Normally you wouldn't want to charge a line (all else being equal) that had more shields than you, but in a situation where the other team has a good spear and you have none, you really have little choice but to neutralize and/or take out that spear. 

In one of our sessions, we kept sending our best shieldman straight at the spear, and he was never successful.

What was happening was that the pole to the left of the spear had the surprising situational awareness (he was a very new fighter) to take a passing shot at the sheildman's back as he'd run by.  The spear was also able to withdraw just a bit and put up a defense as the charge was coming directly in.

We were never able to figure out how to win this scenario during the practice. 

At this point I'd like to step in and point out two big errors that I often see at SCA practices.  One is that they often would rebalance the teams to make sure that each side has the same ability levels and weapon types in order to make the fight "fair."  The other that I see (less common) is that they will leave two sides unbalanced and just let one team slaughter the other over and over again throughout the day.  There is, of course, a happy medium.

In this case, we were struggling, but not getting slaughtered in an un-winnable fight, and just needed to figure out how to beat this scenario.

A few more weeks passed and we found the opportunity to run the scenario again.  This time it was 3 shields and a spear versus 4 poles, and the pole team actually managed to win about half of the scenarios.  Now, winning a scenario often comes down to ability level, and we did have the more experienced fighter, but we were still able to figure out some tactics to improve our chances. 

This time the poles were coming in from the flanks and using the other team members as "picks," or rather, using them to block each other.

From the right flank, I was using a very inexperienced shieldman on the inside to pick a more experienced flanker.  On the left, our left pole used a large flanker to hide behind.  Positioning and timing in each case is essential.  Also, making a move at the fighter that you intend to use as a pick is helpful as it will often discourage them from making a passing shot.

It also appeared that the kills on the spear were a little easier as we were coming in from steep angles rather than from directly in front of him.

One thing to note, when making a charge into a group of fighters like this, you need to make sure you go all the way through, out the back side, and reestablish your front to the fight (and your back away from your enemies).

FWIW, this is one reason why I like to fight with the spear out in front.  One might think that it just makes it easier to get to the spear, but what ends up happening is the spear will take one or two steps back to safely avoid the charge while the rest of the line collapses on whomever is going after the spear.  I've been doing this for decades, but every now and then we'll experiment with it and verify that it is still a very effective tactic.


Other Related Thoughts

Triangulate the Spears

In a few of our fights each side had two spears.  I almost always prefer to have the spears split so that you can effectively triangulate the attacks.  I definitely noticed the benefits in this series of battles. 




In the above picture, red spears had really good angles on the green spears.  Each red spear only has to worry about guarding one side of their body, while the green spears have to worry about shots coming from both sides.

Caveat:  I don't usually like having spears protecting the flanks,  I was a bit surprised the the green shield was not able to exploit the weakened flank, but I was not on that side to see what was happening.


Don't Turtle Up

In one of our series of fights, our flanking shieldman was employing a very common tactic, one that is actually taught in a lot of SCA groups and its one that I don't think is very effective.  In fact, one of our friendly knights was teaching this at an Atlantian practice, and the Anglesey fighters told him that they disagreed with the approach.

"Turtling Up," is when the flanking shieldman stays tight against the group, allows the opponent to out flank him, and then turns his back toward his own line.

In this specific example, the shields were able to approach our line without exposing their open side, and it was preventing our spear (me) from even throwing shots in their direction because I'd have to turn my side to the opposing spears.



If that sheildman can extend the flank, it opens up angles on the open sides of those shields, and pushes their line back a bit so that I don't have to expose myself as much to the opposing spears.




Know When You are Out Gunned

The final thought here is that we had a fight last week where each side had two spears.  I'm about as experienced as any spearman out there, but the other team had TWO spearman who had been fighting since the 80s.   My team often relies on me to take the lead in the attacks, but I just could not hold these two off.  We had to adjust our tactics and start pressing them.

Highland River Melees (organization on a bridge and other topics)

We fought at the Northern Atlatian event Highland River Melees last weekend and had a lot of fun despite the hot conditions.  In a nutshell, the northern region of Atlantia of the past couple of decades has developed a really laid back culture at their melee events, while also bringing a reasonably good level of competition.  At the end of the day, there is no prize for winning, and the individuals will be judged subjectively on their merit and their comportment rather than counting kills and deaths.  If a melee is run well, sides will be chosen so that most of the fights are competitive, so why not just keep everything relaxed and fun?  Its a sparring session or a pickup game, not the finals of crown.

I recently noted to someone after observing the great attitude of an East Kingdom Knight, "When you're the best tourney fighter in the land, there's two ways to protect your ego in a melee.  You can blow off everything or you can take everything.  Either way, people won't REALLY know how good you were that day.  One way will make you enemies while the other makes you friends."


Heat

Sir Tash runs a great event and is a shining example of what a knight should be (full disclosure, Tash is a friend of mine BUT resides in a different kingdom, so I get no brownie points for sucking up).  We had given him some constructive feedback about the scenarios and he let us know that his first priority was everyone's safety in the heat, and reminded us that we did have a fighter have to leave the field as a result, so points were well taken.

In general, however, the Bog Celts prefer repeating scenarios a few times before moving on.  It seems like a more efficient way to cram in some fighting with less standing around in the heat.  Again, the heat was a wild card that day.

I'd also like to add that there are ways that you can mitigate the heat.  I've worked on this a lot over the last 5 years, in particular, and here's what has worked for me:

- Cardio;  The better you're cardio, the better you will handle the hot weather fighting.
- Heat acclimation;  Get outside as much as possible and make yourself sweat.
- Hot weather tunic;  My upper arms breathe.  This alone may make the biggest difference.
- Water:  I try to drink 1-2 liters of water before the fighting begins, plus regular hydration during the fighting.

Hot weather vs cold weather tunics
(photos by Korrin Villman & Ursus)

Bridge Battle
We fought two bridge battles.  In the first one we got our butts kicked, while we won the second one fairly decisively.  Each battle had two ballistas pointed at one team (teams changed sides) giving that team a disadvantage.  It was, IMO, only a small disadvantage and drove the expediency of the tactics.  Either team could have lost or won from either side depending on the tactical decisions made by both sides.

So what happened?

First of all, our team was made up of a mix of Bog Celts and Atlantians.  Most of our shields were Atlantians while most of the spears and poles were Celts.  Having a mixed group tends to create a level of disorganization as neither group is used to working with each other.  The other side was 100% Atlantians.  Though they are less experienced working with each other (due to a mix of houses) than the Bog is with itself, they are more experienced than the mix of Bog and Atlantians.  They also had King Christoph as their leader, which gives them a well defined command structure.

So, what did we do wrong?  No commander.  No organization.  We began with a shieldwall on the front line who stood there and never pressed (they were given no command to do so).  We had a plethora or spears sitting in the back not doing anything.  We never had more than one spear on the front line, often not throwing any shots.  What did I do?  I started off on the wrong side of the bridge.  By the time I moved to the other side, I got shot by an archer, possibly the best thing that could have happened to me as I got to watch us die horribly (a good learning experience).

The Atlantians did the right thing.  They treated themselves like gate defenders and put up a shield wall and stalled the fight, allowing the ballistas to whittle us down.

Note:  Only one spear up front (photo by Ursus)

The Fix

So there's really only two ways to win a battle like this when you need to attack a gate and get through it before other elements beat you.  Most scadians would look at this situation and say that we should have charged.  I don't believe that would have been very effective.  The Atlantian team was built better for a close range battle as they had more shields with a handful of high level talent (King Christoph and Sir Felix coming to mind).

The other method is to attack aggressively with spears.  This means, for the width of this bridge, four on the front line.  And if you are on the front line, you are throwing shots fast and aggressively!  We may still have lost the battle, but we would have gone down swinging, and we likely would have taken some of them with us.


Bridge 2 Results

I surveyed our group to see who would be the most fit for command and, well, it appeared that I would have been as good as anyone.  I spoke to the warlord of Galatia to get some thoughts from him, and then decided to give the group a little pep talk and get them organized.

Every bridge needs to begin either ready to charge, or ready to repel a charge.  This means shields to the front, so we did that and got our shield wall established.  Then I got the spears to move to the sides to clear out the crowding in the middle.  This allows you to charge and repel charges a little more effectively, and also sets up a natural queue so that spears know who will be up next to fight.

Another issue I've noticed with fights like this is that the shields on the front can't see what's behind them, and most spears don't feel comfortable telling a fighter they don't know to move so that they can take their spot.  This meant that someone would have to do that for them, which fell on me.  As much as I wanted to fight, I thought it best to stay out of the fight and facilitate and let the others do the killing.  Often times the fight will come to me, anyway.

Once we got set up and lay on was called, the Atlantian team immediately charged to avoid the ballista bolts.  A few years ago I preferred to have more spears up in the front, but have since noticed that it really weakens the line against charges.  So I've since gone with more of a mix on the front line.  If this results in us facing more spears than we are willing to put up on the line, then WE need to charge.

We successfully repelled the charge.  The spears sank back into the ranks, shields took their places, and the poles moved into the second rank.  Keeping the rest of the spears to the sides allowed for this to happen very naturally. 

There were a couple of elements that I found interesting.  King Christoph thought that they may have called the charge too soon.  He wanted to avoid attrition due to the ballista fire, but thinks that he may have pushed his army right into a kill pocket off the end of the bridge.  He would have preferred drawing us into the middle of the bridge first.  Duke Vladimir (on our team) thought that the Bog just did what the Bog does, and that we are really good at repelling charges, which I don't disagree with.  Though our mix of weapons makes us ill equipped to initiate charges, we do seem to have the experience and the weapons mix to repel them (and if that sounds crazy, then maybe I'm crazy and we should have charged in the first battle).

I actually felt that the Atlantian team was really close to winning the battle due to a weakness on our left corner.  I wrote a blog once citing this as a potential Achilles heal in gate defenses and was told in the comments section that it would never happen.  Oh, yes it does.  I see it happen all of the time, and it very nearly happened this time.

Essentially, if the defending team does not secure the far left corner, a right handed shieldman can push through it and get into the backfield.  As they pressed, I managed to kill the first fighter to come up by stabbing him in the belly.  The second one made it through and very nearly killed me.  I was saved by a decent spear defense (I blocked the first shot and then pressed my spear tip against his sword) and having Arundoor (a very experienced and highly talented melee fighter) come up and save me.  Had that corner fallen, the Atlantians may have been able to surround us, and considering that we had a lot of spears in the backfield, they may have been able to chop them down.

Left Picture:  4 spears up front.  Shields mixed in.  Spears in columns on the side
Right Picture:  Left most red shield threatens to break through corner.  White spear and shield deny.

Field Skirmish Maneuver

There was one maneuver that stood out in my mind.  I was part of a single death field skirmish that was about 7 on 7.  On my right was Sir Felix, who was probably the best 1v1 fighter on the field.  Across from him was Arundoor, who is an excellent melee fighter and though his 1v1 skills are quite good, he felt that the odds were not in his favor against Felix.  He even called out, "Okay, you guys are going to have to win this one.  I won't be able to help."

As I moved up, my initial thought was that Sir Felix may jump Arundoor, and I'd either stab him in the gut, or would threaten the stab allowing Felix easier attacks.  Arundoor saw this and countered by moving out to his left and getting to the outside of Felix.  This meant that if I moved in, it would pull me completely out of the main fight and I'd have to turn my back to the battle.  So, instead, I turned toward the rest of the fight hoping that Felix could at least keep Arundoor occupied.

After that, Treason, a newer fighter, yet a very fit, young, former marine, saw an opportunity to jump me and my wingman.  He came in so fast that my only chance to survive was to let him pass by, and then circle around him and turn back toward the battle front from the other side.  I'm usually very successful with this maneuver, but Arundoor was able to see it quickly and respond.  He made a move at Felix, threw a "safe shot," and then carried his momentum toward me and killed me before I could reestablish myself in the fight.  Maneuvers like this, as well as my maneuver, are mostly instinctual built from years and years of relatively unstructured melee practice.

See the pictures below for a play by play (all photos by Ursus):