This post is a window into my approach to drilling. I hope you enjoy.
The Usual Routine
Most shield wall practices I've been part of follow the same formula:
1 - Give a detailed explanation of how a shield wall works
2 - Put two shield walls across from each other and have them fight
3 - Correct every little mistake they make
When all is said and done, they get the following results:
1 - They know how to use a shield wall, but not when to use it
2 - They can only use them when a commander plans it all out for them
3 - They get 5-6 engagements of experience against a unit built exactly like themselves
Look, I don't want to throw the people who run practices this way under the chariots. There's a good reason why practices are run this way, but I think they can be much more effective, and I will give my example below.
But First, a Little Background
This post marks my 92nd tactics blog post over the course of 2 1/2 years, so clearly I have an interest not only in melee tactics, but in teaching as well. My first career was as a high school math teacher, and in that time I was also a high school track and field coach and basketball coach. One of the things that we learn as teachers, especially in a skill building subject like math, and double especially in a skill sport like basketball, is that lecturing has minimal effectiveness. You might find it ironic that I'm saying that was I type out this blog post, but there are two things that make the written word a little more effective than the lecture. The first is that your brain is actively engaged as you read it, and the second is that this is done outside of practice time (think of it as home work).
During practice I've found it to be much more effective to minimize the lecturing, get the athletes/fighters engaged as much as physically possible, and take very brief moments to make small corrections.
Mistakes will be made. Everyone will do something that is imperfect. Most will miss the big picture most of the time. As I write that I am reminded of an epiphany I had while coaching a bunch of teenage basketball players; it was unreasonable to expect a 17 year old kid to see the game in a way that took me until I was almost 30 to figure out, and no amount of lecture was going to change that. Pick your battles, make baby steps, and drill the small successes to death.
Create some sort of boundary, like a bridge or path. Experiment with the width of the path, but essentially you want to eliminate flanking as the purpose of the drill is to work on a shield wall charge. Place a resurrection point at either end of the path and objectives to pickup along the path. One team has all (or mostly) shields and no spears. The other team has poles and spears, and minimal shields (if any). The battle is an unlimited resurrection battle with the goal of the shield team to capture all of the objectives. You can use a time limit, but we just go until either fighters drop out, or all of the objectives have been captured.
The shield team starts at their rez point, while the spears and poles team starts at the objective closest to the shield team. We added an additional rule for safety; if a shieldman touches an objective with his foot, he yells "brick!" (they look like bricks) and is now officially dead and can walk the objective safely back to his rez point. This avoids people getting hit when they bend over, or getting hit from behind, or the annoying "throw the objective forward" when you die.
Note: the numbers of fighters on each side should be chosen to make it a roughly even fight. That will depend entirely on ability levels of the different fighters. We did a 7-8 on 5.
Here's what our last layout looked like:
So Why This Scenario?
I really like rez battles when drilling as they are very forgiving. The continuous resurrecting tends to slow the pace of the fighting to allow people to think about how to apply their tactics. They will make mistakes, but can immediately come back into the fight with that mistake fresh in their mind and try to correct it. There's also a balancing effect where the fight tends to even out closer to the weaker side's rez point. Decisions also have to be made relatively quickly and on the fly, rather than after a committee meeting to discuss strategy. And on top of all of that, you simply get more fighting in.
As for this scenario, the capturing of the objectives is meant to teach the shield team to focus on penetration rather than killing (like you would if you needed to break through a gate) and the spear/pole team has to focus on giving up as little ground as possible.
The first objectives are for early, easy success for the shield team. As they move down the line, the objectives get harder and harder to capture as the walk to and from rez point gets longer and longer for the shield team and shorter for the spear/pole team. Ideally, at some point the fight should become fairly challenging for both sides.
What Makes This a Good Scenario?
We got in 30-40 engagements (out of two run throughs)
People really broke a sweat
Mistakes were made, they were owned, they were fixed, and they were internalized
Chaos forced good on the fly communication and coordination
To a Hammer Everything Looks Like a Nail
There was actually something that inspired this scenario. There are moments on the field when you must make a quick, coordinated charge. There are also moments when the other side must be stabbed to death quickly. Often times the former is because you have the shields and they have the spears, and the latter is because you have the spears and they have the shields. When you set up similar teams and have them slam into each other, they aren't really learning to apply a charge in the right situations. You should charge when it is in your best interest to do so, not simply because that's all you know how to do.
Lessons Learned
One of our fighters came into this practice with a heightened enthusiasm for running the shield wall properly after his experience running through the drill two weeks earlier. When we first ran this drill two weeks ago (3 shields vs 2 spears and 2 poles), the shields really struggled to get past the first couple of objectives. Their charges were uncoordinated, they often went in undermanned, they didn't manage their energy well, and they gave the spears too many opportunities to kill them before they committed to the charge.
This week they looked great! They always came at us when they had a clear strength advantage. No one did any solo charges. Energy levels were managed by pulling back toward the rez point for full recoveries and not wasting efforts on charges that were doomed to fail. They did a much better job of staying out of spear range until they were ready to commit to the charge.
They also just got a lot of good experience going through 30-40 reps. One thing I noticed was, due to a couple of people dropping out, one of our more experienced fighters went to the shield side with a pole and made a huge difference. He was just very good at timing the charges. He could pretty much tell when the spears were about to attack and would use that moment to initiate the charge, and getting the rest of his team to commit.
As for the spears and poles, we learned how to get quick sniper shots before the charges began, how far in front of an objective we needed to be in order to protect it, how to disrupt the shields as they charge, how quickly or slowly to back away from the approaching wall, and how and when to shove fighters off of the path. And after 30-40 reps, a whole lot of experience was gained and timing and aggression got better.
I should add that it is common for units in general to place their spears behind their shields in formation. I've always enjoyed fighting out in front, but you have to know what you are doing to pull it off. This drill forces the spears to figure it out as there are no shields to hide behind.
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