Having said that, I've been fighting as a melee specialist for almost three decades, in a melee household, with an additional background as a basketball coach and hockey player, and I may be a bit blunt at times when I see things that I don't like, some of which I'll illustrate below.
TLDR:
-Sometimes lots of little short bites of communication needs to occur (small teams skirmish)
-Sometimes everyone needs to all yell at the same time (getting a big unit to rush an objective)
-Sometimes a small number of commanders need to yell very clear commands (organization on a bridge battle)
-Sometimes deliberate organization is needed (shield wall. bridge battle)
-Sometimes less organization is better (small teams skirmish)
-Aggression at the right moment is key (you have a 30v20)
-Aggression at the wrong moment will lose you the battle (you have mostly spears, but you call an aggressive charge against a unit of shields)
Capture the Flag
These are my absolute favorite for drilling melee tactics with small numbers of fighters. These allow the most opportunity for a small group of fighters to get together to workout tactics, make mistakes, identify and fix them on their own, and to find successes.
Two weekends ago we fought 7v7 in a broken pass that looked a bit like this:
If you died, you went to a resurrection corral which would let out every 30 seconds. On either side was a flag for the other team to try to capture.
In this scenario, we ran it over and over and over again, each side making small adjustments as they started to figure the other side out, much like a basketball or football team would throughout the course of a game.
One example was when the King of the East noticed that I was controlling the middle of the pass with my spear, but had no backup. For two scenarios in a row, he set up across from me and then jumped me, which caused our side to collapse as I had no one to support me. This was tough as we only had two shields, and felt that we needed them to control the two flanks. We also tried a few times to press hard on the right, which meant that we'd be weak on the left. That worked a couple of times, but the other team adjusted.
Ultimately we discovered that the red team was better at charging, and we were better and countering. There were several scenarios where red would charge up the right flank, and green would fall back and get them into a kill pocket. Sometimes red made it all the way to the flag and would win. Other times, green would pick apart red as they worked their way through the kill pocket. If green could kill all of red, they could then run across the field and grab the flag before the dead re-spawned.
This past weekend we fought similar battles with similar results. Both teams lined up across from each other and tried to find a weakness to exploit in the other side. Someone would win. Both teams would work it out among themselves and then make adjustments.
Communication
One of the knights observing had mentioned that we were not communicating when fighting as he didn't hear us talking.
Now I won't doubt that the communication could have been improved, and I'm certain that some people probably weren't communicating at all, but talking while fighting is more than a box that should be checked off to keep the pointy haired manager off of your back. It needs to be appropriate and effective communication. One of my friends has said, "If the knights are watching, I'll just randomly call a reform for no reason, and they always compliment me in front of everyone, because they have no idea if we should have reformed or not. They just think that calling reforms is evidence of good communication."
I had a conversation with a friend last night who played a lot of hockey when he was younger, and he currently coaches his son's team and is a professional educator. "Yes, kids need to learn to talk, but it's usually short, simple ideas, and centered around simply making sure they they aren't both doing the same thing. Saying, 'I'll get the puck,' or, 'cut to the net,' are examples of good communication. There's no way that you can communicate a complicated plan in the middle of a game when the guy on the other team is trying to check you into the boards." This is consistent with my background on the subject.
The reason why I bring this up is that two examples of communication were brought up by observers that were good examples, but inappropriate to the situation.
We tried something different in one scenario. One person yelled and commands loudly and enthusiastically throughout the 2-3 minutes of fighting. Though it was meant to be helpful, it drowned out any opportunities for us to communicate useful information to each other. It was also distracting because I can't look for kill opportunities and also process what someone is saying at the same time, and eventually it got tuned out completely. There was one point where I was completely exposed on a flank and needed to bail. I wanted to tell my team to fall back to the rez point, but they would not have heard me. I'd also like to note that, historically, I get a lot of kills by stabbing whomever starts talking. Most people can't talk and fight at the same time.
FWIW, I did exactly the same thing when I was first put in charge of a unit many years ago, and received similar critique.
This kind of communication is perfect for a Pennsic field battle where you've decided (hopefully correctly) that you need to move a large set of troops through an enemy unit quickly and aggressively. In this case, there isn't any person to person communicating necessary, you just need to ramp up everyone's aggression and to get them to execute a simple task (move forward and swing hard). "GO! GO! GO! DON'T STOP! KEEP MOVING!!!" is very effective here.
Another example given by an observer was to tell your teammate, "Hey, I'm going to attack this guy low, you attack him high." This works in static battles where everyone is tired. In faster moving battles, communication needs to be short and simple. "45s!" "Pin his spear!" "Jump him, now!" "Lets get him!" There just isn't enough time to communicate ideas more complicated than these.
Organization
I've found that so few scadians have a team sports background, and of the ones who do, many come from football, which is a unique sport that allows for a lot of organization to occur between the plays. I honestly believe that if you let a scadian coach basketball, hockey, lacrosse, soccer, or ultimate frisbee, they'd try to group the players into blocks and have them march around the field while following basic commands.
The sports I listed above are more skirmish oriented. Players are expected to understand basic fundamental jobs rather than to follow rules or wait for commands (though commands do have their time and place, which is why they have sideline coaches).
Which of these two pictures is the better organized group?
If you were a scadian walking in on a practice and didn't really know what you were looking at, you might be much happier if you saw them fighting like the second group.
The first picture is actually a screen shot of a professional basketball game.
Now this doesn't mean that scadians should adapt professional basketball offenses to their tactics. I'm only trying to illustrate the point that just because something doesn't appear to be organized to the untrained eye doesn't mean that micromanaging your team into something with symmetry is going to help.
At one point during the fighting last weekend, it was suggested that we pair up. I call this the "buddy system." Some kingdoms try something similar with "triads." While I think the buddy system is great for brand new fighters who are just completely lost on the field, I have two big problems with it:
1) Jobs need to be done on the field. A fighter's job is not to "fight next to Johan." It's to run down a loan spear, plug a hole, secure a flank, double team a fighter, stab someone, stop a threat, call a retreat, etc. Once you've adopted a buddy system, jobs are left undone.
2) You've now taken all of the complexity out of fighting and simplified it to "find Johan." A fighter will never learn how to fight if they aren't given the flexibility to make decisions on the field. Yes, they'll make mistakes. They'll make bad decisions. But they will never learn if you don't give them the opportunity.
Aggression
I heard several times over the last two weeks that the side that more aggressively took the initiative was the side that won.
I don't fully agree. In fact, as I said above, green had won several battles by getting red to charge into a kill pocket.
Level 1 fighters have no aggression and die with the "deer in the headlights" look.
Level 2 fighters learn aggression.
Beyond that, you need to learn when and where to apply aggression. If you are facing a 10v20 as part of a field battle, the 10 better not try charging right into the unit of 20.
The first step is finding where your advantage is, and then aggressively seizing that initiative. Sometimes aggression and initiative are key, but sometimes it's better to wait.
My Approach to Teaching/Learning in Melee Practices
I said to the kingdom commander last week, "You aren't going to train an army when only 15 guys show up to practice, but you can train leaders." All the people who don't show up to practice? They're the ones who won't know what to do. They're the ones who need buddies. They're the two people in the triad following the one who knows what to do. They're the ones who need to learn to be aggressive and follow commands.
But each and every one of the 15 who did show up need to be allowed to make most of their decisions on their own, with a bit of guidance from veterans.
Every scenario that we run at a practice, I let the first one go without saying anything to my team. One of the best teachers is losing to disorganization. Then as each scenario goes by, we get together and discuss, as a team, what changes need to be made. Keep in mind, I don't have all of the answers at the beginning, either. I'm also learning as we go. Just because I'm the guy writing this blog doesn't mean I have the best ideas on the field.
Then when we pop our helmets, we get together in a group and discuss what we learned, what we thought worked, what didn't work, what we should have done differently, etc. While telling a fighter to "do it this way," may be very effective in the knight/squire relationship when it comes to singles, I really think that more flexibility needs to be allowed in melee practice.
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