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.

Communication, Organization, and Aggression - Sometimes Less is More

 We just finished up two small melee practices in the East Kingdom Southern Region over the last two weekends.  I really enjoyed them and appreciated everyone who made it out in these crazy times.  I should open up by stating that often times in these blogs I nitpick on the failures instead of the successes.  There were lots and lots of great successes at these practices, from all levels of people who participated, including the newest fighters, to the uber-veterans, knights, commanders, and royalty.  I think every last person made some real positive contributions, and am very pleased with the effort and enthusiasm that everyone brought.

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.

Southern Region War Camp Pt1 - Moving Spears and Shields Past Each Other

 It was great to be back! This was the first official SCA event I'd attended in over a year.  It was hot, we were out of shape, and the masks were difficult to breathe in.  But we persevered!

I'll cut to the meat of what I think is a key piece that we, and likely most scadians, need to work on regarding melee in static battles (part 2 will talk to the rest of the day)

Author's Note:

I'm about to address three areas with room for improvement.  I want to note first and foremost that there is always room for improvement with every group of fighters.   Having said that, I was really impressed with the group that we had on the field yesterday and thought everyone did a fantastic job fighting and I look forward to a year with many more well fought events!

Moving Spears and Shields Past Each Other

Consider a basic bridge battle.  In our case we had a very narrow bridge, maybe 7 feet wide, with about 10 or so fighters per side.  I almost always want to begin this scenario with a shield wall at the front.  More often than not, our opponent does the same, and we both march across the bridge and meet in the middle.



In most bridge battles I've seen, one or both sides will bring their spears to the front, and the spears will work for a while trying to get as many kills as they can.  At some point, one of the two sides decides that either a) they are losing the spear duels or b) they spot a weakness that can be exploited by a charge (like the opponent has spears in the 2nd rank).

Think of it like a mixed marshal arts fight.  Standing up, punching and kicking, is like fighting with spears in the front.  Charging at the opponent in an attempt to grab him and throw him to the ground is like a shield charge.  Most MMA fights start with both opponents striking, until one opponent decides that their odds would improve if they charged their opponent.  In this instance, both opponents need to be trained not just for striking, and grappling (the grabbing part), but also the transition between the two (one wants to initiate the grapple, the other needs to avoid being dumped on their head).






What I found while fighting were three areas in need of improvement:

1-Communication (Spears Talking to Shields)
2-Keeping Spears Off the 2nd Rank
3-Spacing the Spears

Communication:  A Lack of Assertiveness and Communication from the Spears

At some point a commander should (and will) yell with a commanding voice, "Spears to the front!" or "Spears up!" or "Let the the spears up!"

Shields in the front rank never respond to these commands because they aren't spears, and they feel a sense of duty to hold their ground when standing directly across from the enemy.  Additionally, they cannot take their eyes off of what's in front of them or they'll get killed, so they have no way of knowing what is coming up behind them.

What needs to happen is that as a spear comes to the front line, they need to be very assertive, and very vocal about what they want to do.  This does not come naturally for a lot of people, but it is necessary.  

Begin by sticking the point of the spear well past the shield fighter who's spot you wish to take.  This is necessary in order for them to know that there's a spear coming up, because they can't look behind them.  You then have to say something loudly to let them know what you want to do, and you have to identify them in some manner so that they know that you are talking to them and not one of the other 30 people within ear shot.

"Hey Roman guy, can I have your spot?"
"Magnus, I'm coming up behind you with a spear."
"His Majesty, may I please stand in front of you with my spear?"
"Guys, I'm coming up with a spear (tap tap tap) M'lady, I'm coming up on your left (tap tap tap)."

And when you get almost up to the front rank, don't be afraid to do a bit of shoving and jostling to get your spot.  As long as everyone knows that the command has been given for spears to replace shields, this shouldn't be an issue.

Below is a short video that models exactly how this is done (the whole video is valuable, but this particular part is at 1:19):

Keeping Speers Off the 2nd Rank

Another problem I noticed was spears who don't fit on the front line would crowd up the second rank.  This is very bad, especially if there's any reason to hold ground on the bridge.  Any time I see an opponent with spears in the front rank AND the second rank, I immediately call a charge.

A spear in the second rank is completely useless when the spears are in the front.  The fight is 9 feet away from the front rank, which means it's 12 feet away from the second rank.  There's nothing you can stab.  You're just an obstacle preventing your own shields from being able to get into action when needed (when the charge occurs).  




Bad Spacing of the Spears

Spears need to be spread out.  Though arguments can be made for the value of an anchor on the flank of a bridge, make sure you have a good reason to put an anchor there (guarding a flag?) and a good person to have in that position (someone who's really good at pulsing in and out, or throwing people off of bridges).

I personally like to have one spear at each extreme flank on the bridge, with spears evenly spaced between.

Notice below how the spear to the right side of the picture moved out to get a good kill angle on the two of us on the left (photo from a 2v2 fight 1 week ago before the Southern Region War Camp).

Final Thoughts

As I've finished writing this blog, I thought "what could I have done better?"

I was in command at some points.  We could have started the battle with a quick prep on what the tactics are.  I could have shouted very clear instructions, like, "Spears to the front!  We want exactly THREE spears on the front line.  NO SHIELDS should be on the front line!  If you have a spear, and you are not on the front line, then fall to the back rank!  You'll get your chance to fight.  Angus, tell Johan to fall back.  He's got a spear and should not be in the front rank."

I'm also hoping that in future practices we can work a bit more on this coordination.

One thing I expressed to those at the practice is that you can't train an entire region of fighters at a practice with 20.  The real value is for commanders to learn how fighters will naturally behave, and to figure out how to command them in the moment.  We also need to get all 20 fighters at the practice not just to be able to model good fighting at war, but to be able to translate these same ideas to those on the field who need to be taught in the moment.  Remember, there's a difference between what you can accomplish with a group of people who practice together daily, and a group of people who will never be able to practice together with any regularity.

Please see my blog post on bridge battle (it's quite nice!)

https://thetacticalfighter.blogspot.com/2019/10/baris-bridge-battles.html

Command Basics - Applying the FLANKS Method to Your Unit

 Hey all, this is a follow up to a question on the SCA Combat page.  Specifically asked, "[are there] little stratagems to keep in mind while learning command?"

So I decided to go into a little bit of depth of my FLANKS method  (side note, I really need to figure out a better name, but that's another task for another day).

Before going further, I'd like to say that when I developed this nemonic, I was really only trying to come up with a way to describe to our fighters the basics behind celt style skirmish fighting (not the historical celts, but rather the SCA celtic groups of the northern Atlantia and southern East kingdoms).  I've since come to realize that it can pretty much be applied to most unit styles.

What Are the Unit Styles?

I'm going to focus on three main styles of units, which I've learned about from various sources but I should probably at least credit a long conversation I had with Sir Ryu Ironskies of the East and a video I watched lead by Sir Billy, Duke Christoph, and Sir Felix of Atlantia.  There is a lot better information out there on these definitions, but I did want to touch on them a bit, here.

Cavalry - Fast moving units in tight formations.  These are often "fire and forget" units, built out of lots of shields, normally tightly packed into a wall.  A commander picks a target, moves toward the target quickly, and then hits with heavy impact.  

Cavalry units require a certain degree of unit cohesion that requires at least a little bit of regular practice.  Effective cavalry units are normally not a collection of whoever showed up at war that day, but rather a dedicated unit of fighters with a fair amount of experience together.  

Infantry - Slower moving, big blocks of troops.  Even though you may be in the middle of a mobile field battle, each individual fighter feels more like they are in a static fight upon impact.  An individual fighter may find themselves completely surrounded by their friends if they are in the middle of the unit.  This style of fighting tends to be easier to learn for both less experienced fighters, or collections of fighters who don't normally practice together in any sort of coordinated fashion.  

Skirmish - Loosely organized faster moving troops.  I believe this may be the riskiest unit formation and takes the longest to learn, but also has the biggest payoff (this is the way Anglesey fights).  I saw a video recently where skirmish units were described as being "good at distracting."  I think this greatly minimizes the effectiveness of a good skirmish unit.  A good skirmish unit can move much more quickly and be much more flexible that the previous two forms, and if it finds a good spot, can be more deadly.  Its biggest strength is finding and exploiting weaknesses in its opponent, while its biggest weakness is holding ground.

I personally think that though a skirmish unit may not be ideal for organizing a new unit for war later that day, it's the most fun to train for over the long term.

The FLANKS Method Summarized

I'll explain each piece in depth further down, but here's a quick summary.  Think of this as a quick checklist to go through before each battle.

F - Secure your Flanks
L - Leg'em and leave 'em
A - Assess which side has the advantage with range weapons
N - Never fight a fair fight.  Only fight when you have the advantage
K - Know who are your killers, and who should be in support
S - Spread out your talent

F - Secure Your Flanks

The method is called "flanks" and flanks in the first concept in the method for good reason.  In SCA melee combat, dealing with your flanks may just be the most important job you need to do.  Units that get hit in the flank don't survive long.  Regardless of what your experience level is, before the battle begins, think about how you are going to defend your own flanks while looking to attack an enemy flank.

Now, there are many ways to handle this depending on what kind of unit you have and what you are facing.  I just want to talk about a few examples here.

Consider the diagram below, with a green cavalry unit on the left, a disorganized green unit on the bottom, and a red infantry unit at the top:

So each of these units actually has a way to deal with their flanks, despite that not a single unit actually has any fighters dedicated to protecting them.

The green cavalry unit is protecting both of its flanks by positioning itself to the far left of the red unit and pointing at the red flank.  From this position, red really isn't challenging either of this unit's flanks.

The green disorganized unit at the bottom has its right flank on the field's border, and it's left flank is protected both by having another unit to it's left, but also having its extreme left flank positioned further left than red's extreme flank.  

Now red, however, is not in a great position, but if its commander recognizes this early, there are a few things that he or she can do to deal with the exposed flanks.

One is to move hard and fast away from the cavalry unit.  The flank protection is dealt with by running away from the enemy.  

Is that the best idea?  Probably not.  Infantry units don't generally move faster than cavalry units, but who knows?  Maybe it's a poorly commanded cavalry unit.  Either way, this was a better maneuver than to stand there and get flanked.

Red could also have tried to slide to its right to cut off the cavalry unit and hope that the main green unit below responds slowly.

Or, red could hole up in the corner of the field.  I've seen this be very successful many times.

Or perhaps red could have set up as two units and protect both flanks with the border.

Some of these ideas will work out better than others, but notice how in each tactic red is dealing with the horribly exposed right flank (to the left of the picture with the cavalry unit pointed at it).  

When fighting in a skirmish unit (which every unit becomes after first contact, so it's good to understand this) we tend to deal with the flanks a little differently.  We generally like to go wider than the enemy, and make sure that strong, mobile shieldmen are protecting our flanks, as well as having a few people in the backfield who can plug weaknesses quickly.

Notice below that the green skirmish unit is wider than the red unit.  Both the left and right flanks are protected by their best mobile shieldmen.  When red threatens green's left flank, green has three fighters in the back field respond to the threat.

For my last example, I'd like to show you a poorly executed plan to deal with flanks and how a small three man team exploited it.  At this event, the field was bordered by a pond on one side, and some thick woods on the other.  The green team spread out into one thin line across the field, from pond to woods, figuring that they would have both flanks secured and no holes in the line.

They failed in two critical ways.  First, their left flank was filled with three spears.  You never want to "protect" a flank with spears.  If you have a mobile spear with a great sense of field awareness, he or she can hang out on the flank, but they cannot be relied on to stop a charging shield, let alone several.

The second mistake they made was having no one in the back field to react to holes being punched in the line.

In this scenario, the three of us walked up to the line, charged the three spears, and had the scenario won in maybe 20 seconds.  

L - Leg 'em & Leave 'em

This one is pretty straight forward.  Don't waste your time fighting legged fighters, not unless they are a quick, easy kill (like an archer or spear).  This doesn't mean to never take a shot at a legged fighter.  It simply means that if there's a person in the middle of the field by themselves on their knees, and they're not an archer, ignore them.  Go find other people to fight.  You can always come back to this fighter later.

A - Assess Who Has the Range Advantage

In a nutshell, a lot of what you'll be doing on the field is either charging, or not-charging.  If you've got a unit full of archers and spears, you don't want to charge a unit of shields.  Ideally you'd like to form a kill pocket and hope that they stand there and allow you to stab them.

Several years ago at War of the Wings, we encountered exactly this situation.  We saw that our enemy had only shields, and that we had a lot of spears.  Our commander told us ahead of time, "Obviously they are going to charge.  We're going to have to scatter when they do, try to stay alive, and hopefully we can stab them on the regroup."

As we neared their line, we heard their commander say, "They've got a lot of spears."  But instead of charging, their team turtled up into a defensive position, and allowed us to pick them apart with our spears.  They made the exact wrong tactical decision.  

I was at another event where there was a particular unit commander that I knew who thought that there was no problem too big that couldn't be solved with a nice, powerful charge.  In their first field battle, they got overrun by a bigger, more talented unit.  In the second field battle, he responded by having his unit sprint across the field and charge right into the middle of this unit.  The result?  They died, again, but this time much earlier in the battle, and in a far less convenient spot.  The winning unit then turned and was able to hit the flank of one of our other units.  

Above you can see that Unit 1 was just too small to handle Unit A.  Charging hard into Unit A just kills Unit 1 quickly, and right in the middle of the field.  Sometimes you just need to stall a bigger, better unit or even drag them out of the fight.

Needless to say, as a new commander, start to learn what kinds of situations call for aggressive charges, and which ones don't.

N - Never Fight a Fair Fight

As a singles fighter, the natural inclination is going to be to find a single opponent, give them a fair chance to face you in single combat, and give them a nice 1v1 fight.

Not in melee.  You want to fight when you have the advantage, and avoid the fight when you don't.  This doesn't mean to be dirty, but rather to look for a flank, or a place where you have the enemy pinned, or you have more fighters than your opponent does.

Consider the following example:

If you are on the green team, you have a 5 to 3 advantage on the left side, but a 5 to 7 disadvantage on the right.  In this case, you clearly want to engage and win as quickly as possible on the left, while avoiding the fight for as long as possible on the right.   

Always look for advantages when fighting, and try to avoid the disadvantages.

K - Know Who are Your Killers and Who Are Your Supporters

In many cases, as much as half to two thirds of the unit won't really be fighting, but instead will be supporting their teammates while they fight.  Often times the spears are doing all the work, while the shields are there to either be ready to charge when called on, or to defend against the charge when they receive one.

Sometimes in smaller units, a knight might be the killing machine on the field, and his squires should follow him around to keep people off of their knight's back.

If you are a shield and on the green team in this picture below, you are not a killer.  You are a supporter while the spears do the work.  

If, however, the red team gets whittled down to maybe 1/3 strength, then a green charge may be called, in which case the shields and poles become the killers, and the spears go into he support role.

Sometimes you may look around and find that YOU are the killer on your team, and it's time to step up and do some killing!  And maybe you have some brand new fighters.  Put them in a support role, and tell them to try not to die, or get in the way, but to be there when needed.

S - Spread Out Your Talent

Make sure that everyone is in a good spot on the field.  So often, people just fight from where ever they happened to be standing at the time.  Don't have all of your spears on the left, and all of your shields on the right.  Don't have all of your new fighters in the same spot on the field.  

A few years ago my house, Anglesey, had a big influx of new fighters.  We were at ~50% new fighters at Pennsic.  We went with a buddy system, where every new fighter had someone that they were to follow.  Once the first engagement took place, the system kind of fell apart, but what it did that was valuable was it made sure that we lined up Vet, Newb, Vet, Newb, Vet, Newb, etc. throughout our unit.

The focus was simply making sure that we didn't have any large clumps of fighters who didn't know what to do.

Final Thoughts

Keep fighting, keep watching, keep reading, keep thinking.  Never resign yourself to simply being told what to do.  Ask questions and get involved.  I've been watching this game for almost 30 years, and it is constantly evolving.  Tactics that I was told were "the right way" 30 years ago are now laughably out of date.  Make mistakes, and more importantly, learn from your mistakes.  Even today, I look back at some of my earlier blog posts and cringe at how naive some of my thoughts were at the time, but it was a necessary process to get me from there to here.

And most importantly, be safe, have fun, and make sure everyone around you is having fun as well.


- The Honorable Lord Bari of Anglesey

Melee Command Basics - Understanding Different Methods

 Hi all,

This post is inspired by a recent question from someone looking for some good resources regarding melee tactics and command.  Hoards of people recommended my blog.........or maybe it was only two people.  Anyway, lots not quibble over minor details!  ;)

So, while I happen to think this blog offers a fair amount of insight about common situations that we see on the field, training philosophy, or maybe a unique perspective or two, I don't really think it's a step by step guide to commanding troops.

And it's still not going to be.  But I am hoping with this post I can offer some insights to seeing the big picture, as well as a really good starting point for getting the most important jobs done on the field.

This Post in Three Sections

I just want to prepare you for what you are about to read.  I think all of it is important, but the "what should I know about command" won't really come until the third section.  Here are the three sections, in order:

1)  Fighting anecdote, and a comparison of two fundamentally different tactics to solve the same problem
2)  How those tactics can be applied depending on the quality and training of your unit
3)  Some basics to learning field command

Enjoy!

1) 3v4 Melee Scenario - EK Southern Army Practice, 2015

A little over 6 years ago I grabbed the armor bag out of my attic and the straps disintegrated in my hands.  I pulled the armor out piece by piece, tried to put it on, and nothing fit.  It had been 10 years since I'd fought.  Fast forward 6 months, I've knocked most of the rust off, and ultimately found myself at a kingdom practice.  I was meeting people (and they were meeting me), and I was integrating myself into the practice.  Despite a decade of experience, I'd never been involved in a kingdom practice, and even if I had, I'd have been 10 years removed.  Methods had certainly changed in that time frame.

Nevertheless, I found myself on a team of 3 about to attack a team of 4.  Two of our team attacked the right flank hard, while I went after the left flank.  If I remember correctly, I believe we won, and yet I was pulled aside and was told that I was "doing it wrong."

I listened, reflected on the comments, and experimented over the next several years, and have come to a few conclusions.

The Kingdom Approach

What we were taught at this practice was that if a smaller unit faces a larger unit, that the smaller unit should group together and charge at a single flank.  The basic idea is that though you have smaller numbers, you can get a numerical advantage by throwing all of your fighters at a smaller number of their fighters.  ie a 3v4 can turn into a 3v2 with the remaining 2 enemy fighters being left out of the fight.

My Approach

I should qualify, it's not specifically "my" approach, but rather a method that I have adopted over the years.  Though it is certainly not the most common method, it also isn't one I invented.  I might, however, be one of the few to have ever written it down (at least in SCA fighting).

Split.  Always split if you have a numerical disadvantage.  And if you have the advantage, and they split, then you still split.  Split, split, split!

There are several reasons to split:

1)  The enemy is looking for a single target to attack, and you aren't giving them one.
2)  You gain a flanking advantage
3)  IF they stick together, much like the kingdom leaders wanted us to, and much like most sca melee fighters are taught, then at least one of your flanks is going to get very easy kills.  Which ever way the red team decides to move is going to expose their backs to the fighters they are ignoring, which is very bad.

If red sticks together, this is an easy fight to win for green.

And if red splits...........




This is really the best response for red as they ensure that their flanks are not left exposed.  Whether red splits into 1 & 3, or 2 & 2, green & red create the same scenario;  they split into two fights, one of which has a small numerical advantage for red, and one which is an even fight.

In this case, green wants to stall on the disadvantage, and press on the even fight.  Red wants to do the opposite.  If green is successful at stalling, then they have a 2v2 fight, which is better than the 3v4 odds that they'd have otherwise.

But didn't the kingdom tactic give green a 3v2 advantage?  Not really.  That only happens if the remaining two red fighters are tactically bad enough that they stay disengaged.  If that's the case, if they really are that bad, then I don't see that the team is going to split like in the picture above. 

If, however, they are tactically savvy, then they will wrap green's left flank if green sticks together.



In my opinion, sticking together is much worse for green than splitting, at least in this very specific scenario.

2)  Why Apply One Tactic vs The Other

So it sounds like I made a pretty good case for why my tactic was a superior tactic to what the kingdom teachers where telling me I should do.  Well, it's not that simple.  Which tactic to employ entirely depends on what your unit is made up of.

If, for example, you follow the tactics of professional team sports, you'll notice that the less experienced the team is (ie like a youth team) the simpler, and more rigid that the tactics are.  The more experienced they are, the more complex the tactics are, and the more flexibility is granted to the players on the field to make improvised decisions on the flay.

My point above is that a unit full of tourney fighters with limited melee experience is not going to be able to pull off the splitting method in the 3v4.  But in a single practice they can be taught the "stick together and charge right" method, which is largely why a lot of sca kingdoms teach this.  It isn't the "better" method, but possibly the "right" method for the level of fighters in the unit.

To quote a friend from a recent conversation:  "Your typical sca fighter is going to fight whatever individual fighter that they see in front of them, and they are going to fight that person until the fight is finished, and they'll have no idea what is going on on the rest of the field until that fight is over."

To be able to split, hold your position until a flank is exposed, and disengage from the fight if two fighters come at you, are not beginner skills.

Key Takeaways

The point of the previous anecdote is to understand that there isn't "the way to fight."  There are many ways to fight, and you need to do your best to try to understand the different variants, and how and when they should be applied.  

Some bullets:

-  Before coming up with a plan, understand what your unit is capable of, both as a group, but also as individuals.  Maybe there are people who can perform special tasks, or can be given more flexibility to improvise on their own.

- There is no single right way to do something, but there's even more wrong ways.  Figure out what your unit can accomplish effectively.  

- Even if you fervently believe that a certain method is inferior, at least understand it so that you can address it when you see it.  Understand not only how to beat your enemy, but why some of your teammates may be doing something that doesn't fit your plan.

3)  Basics for a Beginning Commander

So, moving forward, here's a short list of basics.  This is only a starting point, but after several years of dedicated practice, field command will make more and more sense.


- As stated above, get an idea for what kind of people you have in your unit and what level of organization they will require and can handle.

- Keep It Simple, Sir!  Complicated plans never work.  For the most part your decisions will be on the order of "attack those people" or "don't attack those people."  You're the central decision maker in the unit, so tell everyone what the plan is in simple terms.  "Go get those guys."  "Go get those other fighters."  "Stay here until we see things develop."  "Charge on my command!"  "Spears to the front!"

- Learn how to give loud, easy to understand directions.  Learn the timing of them.  

- Talk to the other commanders on the field, before, during, and after the battle.

- Learn from your mistakes.

- Take it upon yourself to communicate safety issues to the right people.  Also tell the marshals when your unit is not happy with how the scenarios are going.  Bad scenarios can be turned into good ones, but only if someone speaks up.  

- Get used to surveying the field.  My last Pennsic woods battle, every time I came back from the rez point, I walked up and down our line, probably 50 yards worth of frontage, just to get an idea of what was going on.  Even if the first time you do this you have no idea what to do with that information, you'll be gaining command experience.  

- Watch other commanders and learn.  Here's the key, though.  Some are good.  Some are terrible.  Some are good, but have a completely different style than you are capable of.  Don't just copy someone else's style, but rather absorb all of it and then figure out what will work for you.

- Learn basic tactics.  There's not enough room in this post to cover all of them, but you can feel free to read through my other blog posts (bridge battle tactical summary linked at the end).  I will give one example, however.  In one of my last Pennsic field battles someone called me in a desperate tone and said, "we need spears."  My unit had a lot of spears.  I ran over and did a quick survey of the situation.  The other side did have spears.  Lots of spears.  A whole lot of spears, and way more than we could possibly spare.  And they were poised to chew through our line.  I then quickly assessed the rest of their unit.  They had only spears.  What do you do when they have lots of spears and you have lots of shields?  Well, provided that there's nothing else stopping you, you charge.  I looked to their commander and yelled, "They have no shields.  We need to charge this gap right now!"  He did a quick look, agreed, and made the call, and we took their spears out.

This is what I mean by a basic tactic.  I knew that shields charge spears, and when I communicated it to their commander, he knew that as well.  It was a simple tactic.  The hard part was assessing it quickly, communicating it to the right people, and making the call to implement the tactic.

Final Thoughts

I don't consider myself a great commander, and I don't think the bards are signing songs about my command abilities.   I'm much more an analyst, or a tactician, or a coach.  Some people like being in charge and telling people what to do.  That's not really me.  Also, it feels like work, and I'm there to have fun, which often involves stabbing people and cracking jokes.  I will, however, step up and yell the obvious command when I see that no one else is stepping up, or find someone else to do it.

I think my point here is I don't want to pass off this blog post as the words of a successful commander.  These are just the thoughts of a fighters who's been around the town square and has managed to avoid the gallows more than once.


Example of a tactical blog post:

https://thetacticalfighter.blogspot.com/2019/10/baris-bridge-battles.html

How to Practice with Four Fighters for a Four Fighter Team?

 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:

The general idea of the "stick together" method, is that you are hoping that if the other side does not stick together, you can move your four fighters to engage with 1 or 2 of their fighters, while the remaining fighters stand around and watch.

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 case, green "sticks together" and charges to the right.  The red wolf pack responds.  The two red fighters on the right (their left) see a unit of four charging at them and, knowing that they'll get run over if they stand there, they move away from the chargers.  The two red fighters on the left see the green unit charging away from them exposing their sides, and they move in to attack the flank.

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).

Basic Fundamentals

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.

How Does This Apply to a 4v4 Battle?

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.

When this happens, there are four key things to remember:

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.