Black Lance Melee Practice - Some Thoughts...

We had a great melee practice in NJ this weekend hosted by Sir Klaus and his house, Carpathia.  We did a lot of drills on the day that helped build aggression and quick decision making on the field, which I'll list below, but I wanted to speak specifically to how the tactics played out in out 10v10 field battles and some of the benefits of the scattered fighters battles.

Drills/Scenarios on the Day

- Marching in a block and following basic commands
- 10v10 single death field battles
- 5v5 single death field battles with pairs of units joining into the fights at random times
- Hold the objective unlimited rez battle (warnings called at 30s and at 5s)
- Single death field battles with scattered fighters

Field Battles

We split up into our normal units and fought five 10v10 (plus or minus) single death field battles.  One side contained a more typical mix of fighters which was, I believe, fairly shield heavy, while our side contained four shields, four spears, and two poles.  We won all five battles pretty decisively.  (Note, I got my butt kicked a lot that day, but we did well in these battles).

I had asked all of the knights who watched the battles what they thought the deciding factors were, and their answers bogged down to simply our side had more experience and were more decisive in our movements.

So what does that mean?

Well, for starters, I would never want to go into a field battle of this size with only four shields.  In general, the smaller the battle and the more quickly it resolves, the more and more shields have an advantage.  The larger the battle and the longer it takes to resolve, the more and more spears have an advantage.  Spears also tend to have an advantage in static battles, where shields have the advantage in mobile battles.  Now this doesn't mean that you should ever have only shields in one situation and only spears in another, but that the mix of weapons will move in one direction or another.  So having said that, I think we won the battles despite having what would generally be considered an inferior weapons mix.

What did the spear team do?

Fan out, move quickly, and attack with ferocity.  A team full of shields in this context is a hammer looking for a nail to hit.  A unit full of spears isn't even a nail.  Its a grape, easily splattered by a hammer of just about any ability level.  So the spear team needs to move fast and lose, and use their feet to avoid getting run over by shields.  The battle can only be won if multiple fighters team up on smaller groups of fighters, get a quick kill, and then move on to the next fighter.

The best play that the shield team probably had would have been to pick a collection of fighters and commit to running right through them.  I believe they did this on the fifth battle, and it was their best showing.  Its certainly not the only way to win with shields, but given the experience levels of both sides, it would likely give them their best chance.

On an interesting note, 6 of us on the winning team were in very similar situations just a few years ago where we were on the losing team and lost in similar fashion.  The biggest piece, in my opinion, is less tactical and more about gaining good experience to be able to make decisions quickly on the field.

Scattered Fighters Battles

This was a drill that was put together by Sir Ryu of Ironskies.  These were fun, and I think an excellent way to train fighters to win battles like shown above.  We had two teams and were individually scattered around the field in a giant circle facing outward.  When lay on was called, we had to figure out how to join up with our teammates and win the battle.





The key to these battles was finding teammates quickly, finding advantages quickly, finding people to hit quickly, and getting out of bad situations quickly.  I really liked this drill and I think it teaches all of the right melee instincts that I think get lost in a lot of kingdom practices.

I do want to incorporate this into some of the practices that we run.  However, I think we accomplish a lot of the same goals with two other scenarios that we consistently run:

Limited rez broken field battles - this allows people to make the same kinds of decisions, but at a slower pace which allows some of the newer fighters to wrap their heads around the kinds of tactical decisions that they are making.

2v2 endless rez battle - We do these when we have 5-6 fighters.  We begin with a 2v2 and a person waiting at the rez point.  As soon as someone dies, they go to the rez point and form a new team of 2 and immediately enter the battle.  This continues continuously until people are too tired to fight.  It teaches you to work with another person, think quickly, and fight tired.

Anyway, that's all.  Looking forward to the next fight!