Blow by Blow Analysis of the Best Spear Duel I've Ever Been In

Spear Duels against Sir Dietrich at Adult Swim:  Video found here.

To be fair, I had two other duels at Adult Swim that day that were just as good, but I got this one on video (also its against the Crown Prince of Atlantia and winner of the Known World Spear Tourney, which gives it a little credibility)  =)

Blow by Blow:  Sir Dietrich vs Barri of Anglesey (me)

Pass 1:  0:00 - 0:02  I attempted a quick "disengage and fire" maneuver coming under his spear and around to the inside.  He easily parried and countered with a straight shot to my face, sneaking it in just before I could block.  The key, IMO, was how quickly Sir Dietrich could transition from a block to a thrust.  I also think I made it too easy for him to read when I was going to shoot.

Result - Sir Dietrich scores counter attack kill to face


Pass 2:  0:06 - 0:18  This time I tried setting Sir Dietrich up with a lot of feints so that the delivery of my shot was less predictable.  I finished by shooting to the inside again, and again he parried.  This time his counter was much slower, I think due to my set up, and I was able to block it.

Result - No kills


Pass 3:  0:22 - 0:28  Sir Dietrich took the initiative with a direct attack to the outside.  He fumbled his spear on the recovery as he tried to grab it with his lead hand, which allowed my an easy counter to his chest.  I deflected kind of hard without losing control of my point, which helped causing him to lose control.  Had he gone for a one handed sweep block, instead, I believe he would have gotten the block.

Result - Barri scores counter attack kill to the chest


Pass 4:  0:38 - 0:42  Sir Dietrich feints left and attacks right.  I parried.

Result - No kills


Pass 5:  0:42 - 0:50  Same exact scenario as pass 1 with same result.  I disengaged and fired inside and Sir Dietrich parried and countered to my face.

Result - Sir Dietrich scores counter attack kill to face

Note:  Guppy stepped in for several passes before I came back in.  I cut the video and put them at the end.


Pass 6:  0:53 - 1:00  Same exact scenario as passes 1 and 5.

Result - Sir Dietrich scores counter attack kill to face

Pass 7:  1:03 - 1:12  Sir Dietrich makes a couple of feints, and then tries a quick direct attack to the right.  I parried hard (similar to pass 3) and counter to the chest.  Again, the block was missed because he was trying to recover the left hand.

Result - Barri scores counter attack kill to the chest

Pass 8:  1:18 - 1:19  This time I went for a direct attack to the outside before throwing any feints.  I've been told that my timing can be predictable, so I intentionally tried to get a shot in much sooner than normal and doing something different than the patterns I'd shown before.

Result - Barri scores direct kill to face


Pass 9:  1:23 - 1:37  This was our longest pass so far with both of us hoping to counter.  Lots of feints were thrown.  I eventually threw under and to the inside as Sir Dietrich was moving back.  He parried and countered, and then followed immediately with a second counter after only pulling his spear back part of the way (I call this pump and shoot).  I blocked both with one handed sweeping defenses.  I think the key to blocking his counters on this pass was getting him to move backward with aggressive feints.  Notice he slipped as he tried to change direction to counter.

Result - No kills


Pass 10:  1:40 - 1:47  I slipped a shot in on the inside as Sir Dietrich feinted high and to my outside.  On this particular shot I was intentionally trying to look like I wasn't ready to shoot (something that was inspired by watching Guppy fight earlier in the day).  The power on the shot was borderline, but Sir Dietrich was gracious enough to take it.

Result - Barri scores direct kill to chest


Pass 11:  1:52 - 1:55  This time Sir Dietrich changes up his timing and comes in quick and early.  He smacked my spear out of the way and went for my open hip.  I managed to get my gauntlet down in time to parry the attack and then countered twice.  Sir Dietrich went for the one handed sweeping defense and parried both shots.

Result - No kills


Pass 12:  1:58 - 2:07  After some jockeying for position, Sir Dietrich went for a quick shot at my face.  He hit the side of my helmet, instead.

Result - No kills


Pass 13:  2:10 - 2:13  This time I went for a quick disengage and fire inside.  I felt I landed a hard enough shot to the chest.  He countered and hit me in the chest, but not very solidly as I was moving back.  He was pretty generous with one of the early kills I had on him so I'll take his word that my shot didn't have enough power on it.  I tend not to follow through enough when I try to sneak a quick one in.

Result - No kills


Pass 14:  2:16 - 2:23  Sir Dietrich tried to sneak a quick shot to the inside at my lead shoulder.  I parried and countered to his chest, which he blocked with a one handed sweep.

Result - No kills


Pass 15:  2:26 - 2:29  He smacked my spear up.  I expected him to immediately shoot.  When he didn't, I fired for a quick shot at his chest.  He parried and counted to my face and then pumped at the face again.  I was able to block both with a one handed sweep.

Result - No kills


Pass 16:  2:33 - 2:36  This was a bit of luck on my part.  We both went for our moves at the same time.  He went for a high fake, just as I went for an attack that I just developed last week.  I essentially take a big step that's intended to either look like an attack to the right or a feint to the right, but actually circles under his spear in one motion as I finish on the left.  I intended to hit his right hip, but hit him in the cup instead.

Result - Barri scores kill to the cup


I think its fair to point out that though I got more kills than Sir Dietrich in this session, he would have beaten me in a best of 3 or best of 5 tourney as he was ahead on kills earlier.  Also, this is practice, and there's really no way to tell if he was tired, or working on new maneuvers. etc.  Plus I got a nice break while he and Guppy fought a few rounds.  As I said ,thought we had a good give and take session.


Blow by Blow:  Sir Dietrich vs Guppy of the O.L.B.

NOTE:  I found it interesting that not only do the three of us have different styles, but that Sir Dietrich's style appeared to change when fighting Guppy instead of me.  Some of that may be due to the fact that he had to change his strategy against a different style of fighter, but some may simply be a matter of fighting a lefty (me) versus a righty (Guppy).

Pass 1:  2:43 - 2:48  Sir Dietrich lands direct attack to Guppy's leading hip.

Result - Sir Dietrich scores leg wound


Pass 2:  2:52 - 2:57  Guppy lands direct attack on Sir Dietrich's upper chest / face.

Result - Guppy scores chest/face kill


Pass 3:  2:59 - 3:01  Sir Dietrich attempts a smack and shoot.  Guppy parries.

Result - No kills


Pass 4:  3:01 - 3:05  Both fighters are keeping their points high.  Guppy circles high and drops his tip on Sir Dietrich's face/head.  Sir Dietrich asks Guppy where he thought it landed and Guppy told him that it hit the face.  I'm not certain of the rules (I should know better) but it appears by looking at the video that about half of the spear tip in on the helmet, and half on the face grill.  Sir Dietrich took it as a kill.

Result - Guppy scores kill to face.


Pass 5:  3:09 - 3:12  Sir Dietrich goes for another smack and attack to the hip.  He landed the shot on the hip, but then dropped the spear.  Maybe he would have landed the kill if he'd had his own spear and had not lost the butt of it.

Result - No kills


Pass 6:  3:20 - 3:22  Sir Dietrich goes straight in for the face.

Result - Sir Dietrich scores kill to face.


Pass 7:  3:25 - 3:31  Guppy goes for direct attack to Sir Dietrich's left shoulder and glances off.  Sir Dietrich counters to Guppy's left shoulder and glances off.

Result - No kills


Pass 8:  3:34 - 3:39  Guppy disengages and fires to the outside as Sir Dietrich tries to dodge.  Its unclear if he hit the face grill or the side of the helmet, and its also unclear to me if Sir Dietrich took it as a kill.

Result - unsure.

Adult Swim: What I Learned

I attended the first day of Adult Swim practice yesterday.  If you don't know what it was, essentially Duke Timothy (and others, I assume, but I don't know who all should be thanked) arranged a fighter practice that gathered ~300 fighters, 100+ of them being knights, masters, counts, and/or dukes coming in from ~10 kingdoms.

Everyone came in with their own goals in mind, but in general it was expected that everyone should be open about teaching and learning what they can, and that this was the place to test yourself against the best of the best.


What I did

I'll quickly walk you through my day.  I began with a spear duel against Kieren, a friend of the Bog who resides in NYC.  From there I moved onto seeking some advice on Pole vs Shield fighting from Duke Vladimir of Atlantia, which began as a conversation between the two of us which quickly turned into a clinic to a crowd of people who were drawn to this impromptu informal class on polearm fighting taught by the duke.  Next I dueled a young, quick shieldman while Vlad watched and critiqued.

Then onto testing my skills.  I called on the best spearmen (and maiden) I could find and dueled Atlantian Crown Prince Dietrich, Aethelmearc Princess Ariella, mercenary spearman Guppy of the OLB, and did a 5 man 2 on 2 spear bear pit (5th replaces the dead guy) with Sir Randall of Atlantia, Guppy, and two other guys.

After all of that, Sir Thorson got me hooked up to fight Sir Simon (I believe of the East) pole on pole, and I finished the day spearing with a barefooted master who goes by the moniker "The Oderus."


What I Learned

Pole:

1)  Don't tie up with shields for to long.

2)  Butt spike to the face hard and repeatedly.

3)  My footwork has to completely change.  Work on big strides.

4)  Learn to attack at the shieldman's head and use my body and weapon against him to leverage myself.

5)  Crash and roll in and away from the shield.

6)  Move in and past the shield, not back and around.

7)  Against other pole, work on my transitions from thrust to the inside game.


Spear:  I'm at a much higher level with spear than I am with pole, so everything I learned was based off of experience rather than tutelage.

1)  Extending the front arm out does really offer a solid defense (learned from facing Princess Ariella's defenses).

2)  I'm fast, but I'm not fast enough to kill with a direct attack against top level spearmen.  As soon as I'd flinch, they'd move to defend (Guppy, Princess Ariella, and Prince Dietrich).

3)  There's room to improve my counter attack form.  Prince Dietrich has a much more efficient and better timed approach to the counter attack than I do.  I'm fortunate that I have video!

4)  Guppy has a very sneaky style that I can learn from.  Its very difficult to tell when he's going to attack.

5)  I was best when I would set up the shots with multiple quick feints.  As I said in #2, as soon as I'd flinch, they'd move to defend.  If I came at them with multiple quick feints, I had a better chance at opening them up.


How I Did

Pole vs Shield:

I'm a solid fighter, but this is probably the area I need the most work in.  I do well against older guys with a large field, but fast guys who are at least average or better give me a lot of problems (and don't even get me started on lefties).  I fought Hugo, a young, quick shieldman from Atlantia, and he more or less killed me in every fight (I won one).


Pole vs Pole:

Here I held my own against Sir Simon.  He's the better fighter, and certainly the more knowledgable fighter, but I was able to counter that with my point game.  I can't remember how we did, but I'd say I probably won 40-50% of the fights (my sincere apologies if I'm inflating my results).  I'm happy with the results, but definitely need to improve some aspects of my fighting.


Long Spear:

I tracked down the best I could find, including both the winner and the runner up of the Known World Spear Tourney.  I considered the prince and the princess as well as Guppy to be 3 of the best spear fighters I have ever fought.  Rough order of magnitude, I went about 50/50 with all 3 of them.

Randall and his friend were also very good, but we never matched up 1 on 1.  Having said that, in the 2 on 2s, I also thought they were excellent fighters and would say we also went about 50/50.


All in all it was an excellent experience and I hope to do this again some day!


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Melee Practice: 2 on 1s & 2 on 2 resurrection battles

Keeping with our commitment to focus on more and more melee this year, we incorporated some small team practice last night.


Attendance

There were 5 of us in attendance of varying levels.  Myself (pole), Colin (pole), Badhands (center grip shield), Josh (lefty shield), and Neph (shield).


2 on 1s - set 1

We did a series of 2 on 1 fights.  Neph had not arrived yet, so we had 3 fighting and one sitting out of each round.  The one sitting out would often give feedback to the other fighters.

The addition of a lefty made the fighting interesting as I was either fighting against a lefty, or with one.  In either case, I found the key to success was keeping them at range the entire time.  We often talk about attacking on 45s (in a V formation), but I think another key, for myself anyway, is to make sure that the team of two rotates in a fashion that keeps this V attack on the single fighter.

In the case of the single fighter, he really only has one choice, and that is to commit early, and normally its going to be to commit to his sword arm side.  The goal is to move quickly toward, and around one of his two opponents in an attempt to turn it into a 1 on 1 fight.

Badhands is actually a fairly mobile fighter and experienced enough with these drills that he was actually able to commit to his shield side, and was fairly successful with it.  Normally it would begin with a fake move to his sword side, and then quickly moving in toward the opponent on his left and rotating around him quickly.

The mistakes were the same ones that are commonly made.  For the single fighter, it was standing in place and waiting too long to commit to one side or the other.  For the pair, it was moving as an individual in a 1 on 1 rather than moving in a manner that incorporates the teammate.

Even if we ignore the movement aspect of the two man team, I think the biggest mistakes made were simply taking on the red fighter in a 1 on 1 fight.  That has ~ 50% chance of success, when we want to win 90+% of these engagements.


2 on 1s - set 2

Set 2 offered us a new challenge as Neph joined the fighting.  Neph is our least experienced fighter and was also the least mobile in the group (the other 4 of us are actually pretty fast on our feet).  So this brought a new challenge of how to work with a fighter on your team whose skills don't match your own.

Overall we were pretty successful.  The more experienced fighter had to be more aware of what she was doing and couldn't just go off and attack on their own hoping that she would be right there with them.  In addition, she had to be very defensive when the single fighter committed toward her as she had a low percentage chance of winning a 1 on 1 engagement.

As it turned out, the pair still won most of the engagements with Neph getting most of the kills.  So I'll call that a huge success on our part.


2 on 2 resurrection 

This is a favorite drill of ours whenever we get 5 fighters.  It begins as a 2 on 2 fight with the 5th person waiting at the resurrection point.  As soon as one person dies, they go to the rez point and form a new team with the person waiting.  We keep rotating new teams in without stopping.

This does a really good job of training the lizard brain.  You are constantly working with a new pair of weapons and against a new pair of weapons.  When it breaks down into a 2 on 1, both teams have to be aware of the new team coming in, so positioning on the field becomes very important.

2 on 2s often break down into two 1 on 1s.  The biggest success I got out of this was being able to make a pass or two against my opponent, and then hit the other opponent in the back of the head as they had positioned themselves poorly in their 1 on 1 engagement.

We didn't really have a chance to work on that, but its something I hope to focus on in the next practice.

The rest of the night

In addition to the melees that we worked on, we did a reasonable amount of singles practice, and Colin and I finished off the night with a lot of spear dueling.



Check out Highlights from the Caer Adamant Schola here.

Highlights from Caer Adamant Schola: Southern Army Melee Tactics

I wanted to at least touch a little bit on what was discussed this past weekend, though I will be limited in detail as I promised not to make public the army's strategies.

In short, I arrived for the final class of the day, which was a discussion on battle tactics presented by Sir Thorson who intends to introduce the Southern region to a lot of the Northern region's methods of fighting.  All in all I thought it was a great presentation and am eager to see what the future holds for us.  Normally I'm quite critical of these kinds of presentations as I've found many in charge in the SCA to be stuck in old paradigms, and have had this reinforced by having read the manuals of many other kingdoms.

Having said that, I really can't find a single thing critique.  It really was an excellent presentation with a lot of really good ideas and approaches that I think are very practical and effective.

As I said, I will be short on detail, but fear not as I am certain the details will reveal themselves in the proper manner.  I'll leave it simply at this:  large scale melee fighting is built on a foundation of small team melee tactics.  If you haven't been doing so already, start drilling at your local practice.  2 on 1s.  2 on 2s.  3 on 2s.  Spear on spear.  3 rookies against the knight.  Etc.

I plan on pushing at every practice I attend that if we have at least 2 other fighters show up, we'll spend at least a portion of the practice on melee.  Will you do the same?


Check out an analysis of last Pennsic's unbelted battle here.

Pennsic's Unbelted Champions Battle: Great Execution!

I've been dissecting this battle in my head since last August and have finally gotten around to writing about it.  Having gone to most practices, attended the strategy meetings, fought in the battle, talked with my teammates, and having watched as much video as I could, I feel I've been able to draw a pretty clear picture of what happened with regard to the East's southern army unit.

First and foremost, thanks to everyone who was in that unit and especially to the commander, Harold (now Sir Harold) who got us ready and lead the team to success.  This really was an example of how build and train an army and execute a plan.

VIDEO


The Unit

The makeup of the unit was a pretty classic shield wall with polearm support in the back.

The Strategy

I don't want to get into too much detail about strategy, as our enemies might be reading (....then again, we actually fought with our enemies on this one, so probably not a big deal) but I can discuss the initial plan.

We had four units in total, plus a handful of reserves fighters, and our unit was tasked with holding the left flank.  Not too much more to it than that.


The Tactics

As far as I'm concerned, this was the meat of the fight, and what made the difference between success and failure.  The rest of our army did such a great job that it may not have really mattered what we did on our side, but I do believe it was our execution that helped make the battle won so swiftly.

As we marched forward, we had in front of us a tough, heavy hitting unit of Atlantians to contend with.  To their left was a solid Aethelmearc unit, and to our right was a Midrealm unit that we were allied with for this battle (I will have to take a rough guess on their unit make up).


Properly Dressed Front

The first thing we did right was Harold made sure that our unit was properly dressed with the unit to our right.  This may not seem like a very big deal until you see what happened to Aethelmearc's unit as it got too far out in front of its flank.

As I've said over and over in this blog, one of the keys to the melee is supporting your flanks.  To do so, your flankers generally need to be either even with your central units, or slightly ahead in an attempt to corral your enemy (or you need to have reserves in the backfield that can aid a collapsing flank).

Now lets look at the position of the units right after Aethelmearc charged.

Notice how badly exposed their backfield is.  Now our backfield could have been equally as exposed, except that we hadn't committed our troops yet (due to Atlantia's slow advance) and Klous and Morikatzu doing a good job of keeping an eye on our right flank.  Which leads to the second thing done well.


Right Flank of our Unit Exploiting an Opportunity

Once our unit passed Aethelmaerc's unit, Klous pealed off and into Aethelmaerc's backfield with Morikatzu following behind for support.

This had a combined effect of shoring up our right flank while weakening Aethelmearc's unit.

Protecting the Left Flank

We had the job of denying Atlantia on the left flank, and it was a very tough job.  We knew that Atlantia had some of the best, hard hitting fighters on the field.  Ideally we would have liked to out flank them, but as the approached us, they swung a unit out wide on us, and we did not have the unit make up to match them.

This was actually something I was concerned about heading into this battle.  Harold had put our most experienced fighters on the left most flank of our unit, which has its benefits and weaknesses.  The benefits, of course, is if the left flank gets hit, we have our best fighters keeping it from collapsing.  The downside is that our best fighters also happened to be our least mobile fighters (relatively speaking).  

Again, the strategy was perfectly fine, but due to the lessened mobility on the outside, I was mentally preparing to get outflanked, and we did.  As a result, Harold hit the main shield wall on the flanking unit hard.  I actually pulled out of the back of our unit, swung out wide, and attempted to outflank their flanking unit.

Just before this happened, Harold commanded our main unit to charge the right side of Atlantia, again, the correct call.  He really had four options given the makeup of our unit and the position we ere in, most of them bad.  We could stand there and get enveloped, charge center and get enveloped, charge left and leave a gap into both our backfield as well as the Midrealm's backfield, or charge right and hope that a small number of us can hold off the flankers, which is exactly what we did.

The final piece of this tactic involved me continuing to draw the flank out of the fight and Ryouko slipping into the gap between the two halves of the Atlantian unit and attacking the flanks of each.

The Importance of Individual Battlefield Decisions

This is a theme that I've been running with in this blog.  While strategy and command decisions are important (Harold's good unit command vs Aethelmearc getting too far ahead of Atlantia before engagement) I hope the big takeaway from this are the kinds of split second decisions that must be made by individuals during the battle:  Klous hitting the backfield of the Aethelmearc unit, Morikatzu following in support, Harold hitting the flanking shield wall, myself drawing out the end of the flanking unit, Ryouko finding the gap and attacking the ends of the units, as well as every other person in the unit following through on the main objective.

Hope you enjoyed reading!

Check out Spears to the Front here.

Bring Your Spears to the Front

*sigh*

It drives me nuts to see this.  I mean really crazy.  I originally thought to write the title in all caps, and maybe throw a few exclamation points at the end.  Or possible title it, "For the Love of God, will People Stop Putting Shields in the Front Rank?!"

Here is what I'm talking about:

Or you can watch the video (note, the initial charge shown in the video is fine.....mostly):

VIDEO


What's Wrong with this Picture?

Generally speaking, there are two formations you should see (unless you have scutums, or some other form of tall shield to make an actual shield wall with):

1)  Shields in the front - only when charging

2)  Spears in the front - during static fighting

What you see above is a mix of spears and shields in exactly the same rank.

There is actually a very big problem with this formation.  The shieldmen in the front rank cannot attack anyone, yet they've put themselves in harms way.  In other words, they've made themselves targets without providing any offensive threats (nor defensive, for that matter......they are just standing there being targets).  In addition, they are taking up space on the line that could be utilized by other spears.


What's Worse than Shields and Spears in the Same Rank?  Spears Behind the Shields.

This is an even worse tactic, unless of course the front line is actively engaged in battle.  Here's what this looks like:

This was a standard formation in the East Kingdom as recent as 10 years ago, and is unfortunately still a common tactic among many SCA groups today.  The idea is that the shields would "protect" the spears while the spears attacked from behind.  This was somewhat effective for one reason, and one reason only; the other side was using the same tactic.

Spears to the Front

Around 20 to 30 years ago, there were at least two significant groups that had adopted the "spears to the front" tactic for static fighting.  One was the Calontir army, who had an organized approach to it and used it as a specific tactic that they would call out by command.  The other were the non-SCA celtic clans (mostly) who resided in Northern Atlantia currently known as The Bog Troopers (at the time consisting of Anglesey, The Concusare, The KF, and Head Clan).

Now lets take the red unit and moves the spears to the front (or more accurately, move the shields out of range....I'm going to add a couple spears since there will be room).

It shouldn't be hard to see at this point that even if green brings their spears up in line with the front rank (as in the first picture I showed), that they are still outmatched.


Why Don't They Just Run Down the Spears?

This is a common argument that works in theory, but fails in practice against a unit with any amount of experience.  The answer is simple; because the spears don't just stand there and wait for you to kill them.  In a group that knows how to work together, the spears step 3 feet back, and the shields step 3 feet forward in the amount of time that it takes the other side's charge to cover 12 feet.  Keep in mind, its a lot easier to retreat than it is to charge because the retreater merely has to run away when they see a threat, while the chargers have to get organized and coordinate their efforts.  I've been in some battles where my teammates & I were so experienced in this scenario that we'd actually be in the second rank before the enemy took their first step (enemy commanders are often not very good at disguising their tactics).


Why do Units Still Fight with Shields in Their Front Ranks?

They do this for a variety of reasons, all which can be summed up as they just don't know any better.

1)  Commanders in the SCA are often those who are good at winning tourneys.  Tourney fighters often have little experience with spears.

2)  Many commanders in the SCA tend to micromanage their fighters too much which stifles the discovery of new tactics.  They want to display "leadership," which often comes in the form of already knowing what to do.  From this, they force both sides to use the same tactics during practice which prevents either side from exploiting the weaker tactics.

3)  There is a tendency for fighters to want to "get involved" with the fight, which lures shieldmen into coming into the front rank and "fighting" (which is really just dodging until they die).

4)  It is intuitive to think that spears need protection, or that they will get run down if left alone in teh front rank.

This is what it Should Look Like:

Note, the spears on the right did a poor job of defending against the pulse charge.  Tactics don't always trump individual skill.

River War Bridge Battle Video







Anyway, that's all I've got for now on this topic.  Thanks for reading.


Check out Notes on Pulse Charging on a Bridge here.

Notes on Pulse Charging on a Bridge

This post is inspired by a small section of a video I saw from last Pennsic's bridge battles.  What essentially happened during this short segment was that one side (The Middle/East) mounted a pulse charge that gained no ground and lost about 8 fighters.  While watching, I saw a whole lot of things done well, and a whole lot of things that could have been executed much better.  The left forces failed to execute the charge properly, while those on the right did a decent job of denying the charge.


VIDEO


How Did They Get Here?

This is about half way through the third bridge battle on the southern most bridge.  The East had pulse charged all the way across the bridge to the point of almost breaking through on the other side (great job, by the way!  I only wish those successful pulse charges were captured on film).  At this point, the Allies sent a few units down to secure the end of the bridge while the Bog (mercenaries consisting of Anglesey (my clan), The Concusare, & Galatia) filled in the front of this mob.  The Allies (and us) managed to push the line back across the bridge causing the East to pull out one of their units and replace them with a fresher unit.


Who are they?

What's important to note at this point is that the left side of the bridge in this video consists of a standard organized unit while the right side consists of a mob of fighters that are about 50% experienced mercenaries, and another 50% random SCA guys.  The left had a commander and tactics, while the right had a collection of individuals who had a solid understanding of melee fundamentals.


What Went Wrong?

There were two key mistakes that the left side made in this charge.

1)  They charged into the middle.  I preach this point over and over again.  If you don't control your flanks, you are doomed.  Charging into the middle of a group of fighters places you right in the middle of their kill pocket.  You can push as hard as you want into the middle of a unit, but if they have their flanks anchored, you are just pushing deeper and deeper into their back ranks where more and more sticks can hit you.

Looking at the diagram above, it should be pretty clear that red has not placed themselves in a very good position.  This happens for two reasons.  The first is that it seems to be a natural instinct to move toward the middle of a target.  If a football player wants to push another one back, he hits him in the middle of his body.  The problem here is that we are dealing with a collection of individual fighters.  If their center gives, that doesn't mean that it is going to pull the flanks with them.  In addition, as explained above, kill pockets are often the key to victory, and you don't really want to be in the middle of one (unless you want to get back to camp for an early lunch).

The other reason this happens (or happened, in this case) is that the right side is very good at funneling fighters into a kill pocket.  We had no commander shouting orders, so how does this happen?  We simply had to rely on the individuals to to understand the fundamentals of melee fighting (explained in more detail later).

2)  The second rank did not take control of the ground they had just gained.  If you watch the video a few times, you should notice that the charge was initially a bit successful, but then the second rank was slow at filling in behind them.  When charging to take ground, the entire unit needs to understand that they need to move forward, not just the front rank.

In addition, the second rank should contain some poles and spears.  From the video, it appears that the spears are stuck in the 3rd rank, unable to hit anyone.


What Went Right?

There are a handful of things that the right side did that successfully denied the charge.  I would like to point out up front what they did not do that you will likely find to be a bit confusing.  What they didn't do was that they didn't counter charge like this is some sort of sumo wrestling match.  More importantly, the spears did not sacrifice themselves by trying to cross check the enemy backwards.

I like to think of this almost like Tai Chi approach.  What the left side was expecting to happen was that they'd charge, and their opponents would try to meet them with a counter charge and it would become one big shoving match with the advantage going to the one who starts it.  I think they were also expecting to run down and kill the spears in the front rank.

Except that didn't happen.  The first thing that you see in the video is the spears going immediately into a defensive position and rolling out of the way.  Right at the 5 second mark you see a handful of spears pop up into a defensive position and then rolling out of the way.

Secondly you see that the spears who have not been targeted in the charge (mostly on the near side of the bridge) keep pressure on the second rank.  Meanwhile the spears on the left seem to be stuck back in the 3rd rank (as stated above), unable to really accomplish anything.

The last piece here, and probably the most important (and most impressive) are the counter charges by two shields who very effectively prevented the left side from gaining ground.  The one I'd like to highlight is an Anglesey Kensman (in the green and gold) at the 8 second mark who flies into the second rank and stops their progress.  What he did was actually pretty simple.  He saw an opportunity and he jumped into it in a safe manner, pushed back a couple of shields, threw a couple of shots, and got back out of there.  He also made sure that he came in at an angle so that his shield side was able to protect him from those that he just attacked as he moved on down the line.

Keep in mind, however, what set his situation up to begin with.  The East's second rank was slow and timid at taking the ground, they did not have good spear and pole arm support, they didn't control the flanks, and the right maintained good spear pressure on the East.  All of this coming together allowed for the shieldman to take advantage of an opportunity.


How did the Right Coordinate this Counter? (& lessons learned)

They didn't.  This is actually one of my main criticisms with the SCA approach to melee mentality.  Too much time is spent on plans and strategies and not enough time on allowing fighters to learn fundamentals that can then be adapted to melee situations as they happen.  What you see in the video is a collection of individual decisions that were made with good fundamentals.

-  The spears in the middle defended themselves and rolled out of the way
-  The spears on the edges stayed in the front ranks and kept pressure on the second rank
-  Fighters in the middle, more or less, gave ground when necessary
-  Fighters in the deeper ranks (especially poles) stepped up and killed fighters as they entered into the kill pocket
-  Veteran shieldmen seized opportunities to push back the second rank

None of this involved a real plan.  No one waited for a commander to call out a formation.  People did the jobs that they needed to do because they learned how to do those jobs from years of experience.  The real key, in my opinion, is to take ownership in what one does on the battlefield and try to not get trapped in the mentality of waiting for a commander to deliver orders.


Final Thought

I would like to point out that I'm not at all opposed to organization.  In fact, truth be told, the right was a actually a little sloppy as well.  That was, more or less, the result of a mob of several units coming together on that section of the bridge.  But I think this exemplifies my point.  There you see a situation where a single commander really can't take control because of the nature of the circumstances.  So all that is left is for the individuals on the bridge to rely on the fundamentals that they hopefully have learned.


Check out Melee Polearm Skill #37:  Drawing Out the Opponent here.