A friend reached out recently for some thoughts on this as he has a very similar goal in mind. Really the question was more like, how can we teach four new-ish fighters how to fight if they intend to be part of a four fighter team.
So, the first thing you do, IMO, is you completely ignore standard SCA kingdom conventions.
I'm not saying that to be mean, or to suggest that they don't know what they are doing. What I'm saying is that a four man team is a "wolf pack," and it's not something that kingdoms train for. When you join a karate class, you go in with the goal of earning a black belt, and they run you through training built on a philosophy that gets you there. They aren't there to teach you how to box nor how to wrestle.
Likewise, most SCA kingdom training conventions teach infantry fighting, or occasional medium sized cavalry fighting, which are both very valuable, but they don't teach wolf pack fighting.
The conventions that they teach are essentially A) listen to the leader, B) stick together. Both, IMO, are big hinderances for a four fighter wolf pack.
Generally speaking, they teach to either bunch together, pick a target, and charge at it, or if one of the fighters is a highly skilled knight, to follow him around assuming that he'll know where to go and will likely do all of the killing, and the rest of his team just needs to keep people off of his back.
(side note: Anglesey has done the latter when we've had large numbers of new fighters combined with small numbers of veterans, so I'm not saying that it's wrong, only that it's not the end goal).
Look at the diagram below:
This is not a bad starting point, but it only works against low level melee fighters. The counter to this approach is diagramed below:
In this picture, red is in a very superior position.
(side note: I once got killed by the world's suckiest fighter with this tactic. My team even had a numbers advantage. We "stuck together" and charged right. He stepped left and hit me in the back. It really isn't that hard to do).
I've been using this mnemonic device for a while: FLANKS
F - Secure your flanks
L - Leg 'em an leave 'em
A - Assess who has the range advantage and either fight at range or in their faces
N - Never fight a fair fight
K - Know who are your killers and who are your supporters
S - Spread out your talent
F: You always want to be getting into their back field, and keeping them out of yours. The easiest thing to remember is that you want your side to be wider than theirs, and make sure you put your best defensive fighters (usually shields) on the flanks. In the picture above, red is doing a better job than green in this respect.
L: Once a fighter has been hit in the leg, leave him and go help your friends fight other people.
A: If they have spears and archers, you need to charge immediately, and take those guys out. If your side has a really good spear fighter, let him do the killing while the rest of you keep people off of him.
N: If you have a 2v1 fight (you have two, they have one), fight that fight and win it quickly. If they have a 2v1, avoid that fight. Try to survive long enough to let your other teammates win their fights. Play defense. Run away. Do whatever you can to slow these guys up. If it's a 1v1, only fight it if that's the best option on the field.
K - If you have a spear and they don't, he's probably your killer and he needs to be killing, and the rest of you need to support him. If you have a really good sword and shieldman who's running into the fray, he's your killer, and the rest of you need to keep people off of his back.
S - This doesn't really apply to a 4 fighter team, but on larger teams you don't want to have holes in your line filled with either spears or all new fighters. You want to make sure that your weapon types and your different levels of fighters are spread out fairly evenly.
There are a handful of ways a 4v4 battle will be set up. Either both teams will bunch up together and slam into each other, or one team will bunch up together and try to charge a smaller number of fighters on the other side (shown in the diagrams above).
If we're talking about newer fighters, sometimes one team will bunch up and then just stand there. In that case, you can try to pick them apart with a longer weapon if you have one. Whether you do or not, you still want to try to surround your opponents, and hit them on the flanks while avoiding the battle where you may be outnumbered.
More often than not, if both sides have a little bit of experience, the fight will spread out and turn into fours pairs of 1v1.
1) Try to identify who has the best chance of winning their fight, and let that guy fight while the rest of you bide your time.
2) If you find yourself against two opponents, DON'T fight them. Defend yourself and try to avoid them. Dying quickly is the worst thing you can do for your team.
3) If you kill someone, go find someone else to kill as quickly as possible. You might be able to get a 2v1 opportunity.
4) Avoid turning your back to your team. Notice the green guy on the right pictured above? That is not a good position as he can't see what the rest of his team is doing.
Don't Forget About Range!
If one team has a range weapon, like a spear, and the other doesn't, this should drive your strategy. If they have the range weapon, you need to focus on running it down and taking it out. If your team has it, then that guy needs to stab quickly and try to get off a quick kill before the opponent figures out what is happening.
Side note: you need to work together. I once fought a 5v5 battle with 4 new guys. The other team had two of the best fighters at the practice, and three average guys, We expected to get destroyed. We ended up winning the fight, and it was the new guys that got all of the kills. What happened? I had a spear, and our opponents immediately charged at me, so I ran away. As I ran away, the new guys were able to kill the guys chasing me. The lesson here is that if you send someone to run down the spear, the rest of your team needs to protect that guy! All they needed to do was engage in four 1v1s, but play defense, and let the one guy run me down.
How to Train
Everything I wrote above might be interesting, but it really isn't going to make you any better. It's like trying to learn how to play the bass by reading about it. You need to practice.
So ideally you'd do a lot of 4v4 fights. But what if you don't have 8 fighters? What if it's just the 4 of you?
Well, what most people do is they only practice singles, or they will fight 2v2. The first will certainly help you get that first kill when the two sides in the 4v4 break up into four 1v1s, but the 2v2 is kind of a waste of time. Instead, try the following:
2v1: This helps the two fighters learn how to get a quick kill, and the single fighter learn how to defend against two fighters at once. I have other blog posts that talk about how to fight these, but in a nut shell, the single fighter wants to try to move to get one of his opponents in the way of the other. The two fighters want to learn how to work together, not to get into each other's way, and how to surround their opponent. Usually the guy on the right wants to throw a lot of shots high and to the right, and the guy on the left wants to throw low and to the left.
2v1 with boundaries and a time limit: Make some sort of "ring" that the fighters have to stay inside, maybe 20ft x 20ft. Have the fighter sitting out count to 15. If the single fighter is still alive with no wounds, he wins.
2v2 resurrection battle: You have a resurrection point for each side. As soon as someone dies, they have to go back and touch that point before they can come back into the battle. So essentially, the fight will likely break up into two 1v1s. You want to keep an eye on your partner and not turn your back to him. As soon as you die, you need to run back to the resurrection point as quickly as possible so that you can get back into the fight. If you kill someone, you need to run over and help your partner kill his opponent before the dead guy gets back into the fight. If your partner dies, you need to avoid fighting the two opponents until your partner rejoins you.
One time we did this scenario with myself and three new fighters. I remember my partner died, and the two opponents turned to face me and gave that "on guard" look. I looked at them, and then casually walked backward toward the resurrection point until my partner came back to rejoin. One opponent said, "Hmmmm, it never occurred to me that you would just walk away."
Ultimately what these scenarios are teaching are some basic fundamentals and training you to think fast on your feet. In terms of specific techniques you should be using, you'll figure out what works for you on your own.
End Notes
Ultimately, if you take this team into a large battle like Pennsic, you're too small to really fight on your own, so you'll be looking for opportunities to go and join the flanks of bigger units. Ultimately you'll want to hang back and wait for the bigger units to engage, and then jump into action once you see an opportunity. Maybe you'll find some stragglers on the flanks that you can disrupt.
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