Southern Army Sunday - July 2021 - Small Teams Field Battles and Bridges

 Man, it's great to be back to doing melees!  The heat and humidity weren't bad, and considering we haven't had a spring season to get us in shape,  I think everyone had a great time.  Best guess was we had maybe 35 fighters in total.  I just want to run through some thoughts I had during and after the fights.

10v10 Field Battles

We started off being split into three teams.  Two teams fought while one team watched/rested.  I was put onto a team with a bunch of fighters that I'm not used to working with, which was a good experience to have.  Within our group I would say that we had three "uber veterans" between myself, Sir Galvin, and Morde (not a single non-gray hair between us) and a lot of the planning and leadership came through us.  

We were given very little time to plan (again, great experience).  Normally I fight with a spear, but each of the other two teams had two veteran spears to just our one spear, so I opted to fight with a pole arm.

Assessing the Range Advantage

Whenever two opposing sides meet, one needs to always asses the range advantage and then develop a quick tactic based off of which side has range weapon superiority.  If the other side has spears/archers and you don't, you NEED to charge (unless you are a small piece of a larger battle,  in which case you may retreat or stall).

For our team, we decided to concede the range advantage altogether and build a charging team (in other words, instead of fighting 1 spear vs 2, we went with 0 spears, giving us an extra close range weapon).  Our tactics for most fights were two take a 3-4 man shield wall, and run it hard to the right, while I sat wide on the left flank with a pole.

Controlling the Flanks

Always have a plan for controlling your flanks.  A collapsed flank often leads to a quick death to your team.  With our plan for a hard charge to the right, I saw two ways that we can control our flanks.  Provided that the charge was hard enough, our right flank would be protected simply by sending a mass of fighters to the right, either getting outside of their left flank, or by having numerical superiority on their left flank.  

The left is protected either by running away from their right flank, or by leaving a floater on our left for them to have to contend with.

My concern with the first option was that the other teams had aggressive mobile spears and poles with lots of melee experience, and I was afraid that they'd chew up our left flank as we ran to the right.  

This can be countered with option 2, which actually worked very well in at least one of the battles.  

In the final scenario, we were met with a team that controlled their flanks better than we did.  I honestly think we were outgunned, so I don't know if we could have won anyway, but we still made some mistakes that I'll touch on later.

Having said that, this team went with two knights, both solid, quick melee fighters with shields, and they covered each flank and attacked aggressively.  I believe Sir Sterling yelled, "Sir Klaus, I'll go left, you go right, and we'll meet in the middle!"

Klaus took me out of the fight, not by killing me, but simply by running up that flank and preventing me from attacking their right flank.  He then turned back into the fight before I could, and by that point they had secured victory.

Doing What You Do Best

There were a couple of scenarios where our team didn't do as well as we'd hoped, and in some cases it was attributed to coming up with a plan that the team (which was a collection of fighters with little experience working together) was not really prepared to handle.

In one example we faced a team with more shields than us and were expecting a charge.  I called for a kill pocket and explained that we needed a shield to cover each extreme flank by going really wide.  It didn't work well because the shields were not used to this tactic, I didn't explain it well, and it's unlikely that even if I had, that they would have been able to execute something that they were not used to.

Now I can sit here and explain what every person on our team did "wrong," but ultimately the failure was in coming up with a plan that the team was not collectively able to execute.  So the failure fell on me.

Revisiting the "lets meet in the middle" scenario above, after the fight Sir Galvin (a teammate) approached me and said, "I'm not really a middle of the shield wall kind of fighter.  I usually do much better if I'm out on a flank with a lot more flexibility."  Once I heard it, it made a lot of sense.  The whole day we were hurting ourselves by removing one of our talents with him in a position where he couldn't use all of his skills.  Maybe it would have been better for him to take one flank, and myself to take the other, much like the red team did in the "meet in the middle" scenario?  Could we have pulled off the kill pocket if I went far left and he went far right, and we told everyone else to fill in in between?

Another critical mistake was made in the "meet in the middle" scenario.  I planned a shield wall charge to the right.  Red then redeployed one of their knights, and their spears moved into a different position.  I then changed the plan to "charge left," and then called the charge after lay on.  The shield wall began the charge, but then froze in the confusion.  

In hindsight, I think we would have faired much better if we just stuck with the original plan and executed it to the best of our ability.

Sir Ryu showed us a technique that assists shield wall charges, which is to have a pole fighter stand behind the shield wall, hold the weapon horizontally, and place it across their backs.  The pole fighter can then gently steer the shield fighters by gently pushing one side or the other forward.  When the charge is called, a little more pressure can be applied to get the wall to charge together.

 I've seen him do this before, and it is a very effective technique.  Are there any problems with it?  Well, he's very much a "middle of the unit, behind the shields" kind of fighter, where I'm more of a flanker.  So this goes back to taking a talent out of position to perform a different task.  

I'm not sure what the best answer would have been, other than to have done something other than what we did.  Go with two veteran flankers?  Stick with a shield wall charge to the right?  Pull a flanker out and have him guide the charge from behind?

Effective Reforms

Reforms are important, but they must be done effectively.  Reforms can also, in some cases, hurt your team.

There was an instance where I felt like I was facing a 1v4.  Usually this spells doom for the team that I'm on, because if I'm facing 4 fighters, that means that they're probably up on numbers at this point.  I looked around and saw a bunch of my teammates disorganized and not really engaged with anyone, so I called a reform.  "Yellow team, reform!  Yellow team, reform!"  As it turned out, the opponents were also in the middle of reforming.  Once reforms were complete, we had the bigger team.

Under normal circumstances, I think the opponent should have taken advantage of a small localized numerical superiority rather than call a reform.

Looking at the picture below, the green  team needs to call a reform.  The red team, on the other hand, has a clear advantage on its left flank, and should take out the green team in several 3v1 fights before the reform is called.

This is also true when there is a range weapon mismatch. 

In the above case, again, red should not call a reform but, instead, take out the spears before they get support.

Caveat:  We discussed this after the battle and realized that the reform was called because one of the shields had lost an arm.  Additionally, I was their target and even though I couldn't beat the three of them, I'm fast on my feet and the fight would have likely tired all three fighters out.  It may have also tired myself out, but that's one tired fighter on our team in exchange for three tired fighters on their team.

Bridge Battles

I don't have much to say about these, other than that they were fun, which is the most important piece.  The other team had Vlad Iliescu commanding, and he did a fantastic job.  There were a few instances where we thought he should have called a charge, but he didn't because he wanted to give our team a chance to fight.  Sometimes this happens in a practice, or a war where winning isn't nearly as important as making sure everyone is having fun.  They had easily pushed us off of the back of our bridge, effectively establishing that they were the better team.  There was no need to fight us at our rez point, demoralizing us, and maybe making people want to quit fighting for the day.

Likewise, in another bridge battle, we had an archer on our team while they did not.  The best strategy is to form a kill pocket at the end of our bridge and shoot at them.  They might, however, respond by standing off the back edge of their bridge and waiting until the archer runs out of ammo.  We counter by not firing any arrows until they come closer.

Everyone loses due to boredom.

As a general rule, I like to meet in the middle and fight it out instead of capping the bridge.  Which ever team gets pushed back to their side of the bridge is the effective "loser."  They can save face by trying to neutralize their opponent by pulling them into a kill pocket at the end of the bridge, only after they've lost the battle for the middle.   Everyone gets to fight.  Everyone gets better.  It's a win win provided that the commanders know how to utilize the best tactics when it's important.

Again, it's not the best tactic for winning the battle, but it's a more fun way to fight for everyone involved.  I've been in battles where both sides decide to cap their end of the bridge and refuse to engage hoping that the opponent will give in and walk across the bridge and into the kill pocket.  We stood their for an eternity, and everyone hated it.

Thoughts for Alternate Bridge Battle Rules in Practice

I find that training for bigger bridge battles with small numbers to be a bit of a challenge as a small bridge (meaning 10-15 people on a side) and a large bridge (50-150 people on a side) are very different battles.  In my opinion, one of the main keys to winning the large bridge battles is organization.  Mainly this revolves around the balance between spear fighting on the front line,  charging and counter charging with your shields, and the transition between the two.  That's very hard to replicate with small numbers.

We often try to do this by throwing in 3 lives per fighter, hoping that a 15v15 might feel more like a 45v45.  What ends up happening is that it feels more like a longer lasting version of an 8v8 because of the constant flow of fighters to and from the resurrection point.

I'm wondering if maybe this could improved by calling periodic short holds, just enough to allow the dead fighters to return to the front so that the numbers can be bolstered back up to 15v15.  I might be completely wrong on this.  This might be a terrible idea because, as we know, everyone hates a hold.

I also think it would be beneficial for dead fighters to actually fall dead in the middle of the bridge so that we can practice fighting over them.  But who wants to do that in 90 degree heat during practice?

Final Thoughts on What We Hope to Accomplish

I've said this a couple of times already.  We aren't going to effectively train 100 fighters in a region when 25 show up to practice. but what we can do is train commanders, sergeants, mini-sergeants, future commanders, etc.  as well as increasing the density of effective fighters within the region.

In other words, instead of a goal of making everyone able to follow incredibly simple commands, like walking in a line while sticking together (not that there's anything wrong with it) I think we should help make the people who show up to practice into the best fighters and leaders that they are capable of being, and then give those who don't show up to practice good role models to follow on the field at war.  

I think this is the direction that we've been going in and I like it.