Pennsic 48 Heavy Combat - My Perspective

Hey all, just got back from war yesterday and wanted to jot down my thoughts while fresh.  I've now been to 21 Pennsics since 1994 and have fought in 16 of them.  The highlights:

- I was in shape, but wished I had done more walking up hills for exercise instead of cycling
- I'm 46, which means I'm slower than I've ever been
- I was also more wise and a better commander than I've ever been
- Anglesey brought over 20 fighters with another 10+ from our allies in the bog
     - Our old guys got older
     - Our young guys got better
     - We were missing a lot of our veterans
     - This year we were very spear heavy
     - Our ballista teams have gotten better
- I spent the last year talking to East kingdom commanders to make sure they understood how our unit worked, and it seemed to have paid off.  Communication and cooperation was very good this year (thank you Vachir, Sir Ryu, Master Dimitri, and Duke Tindal!  Also thanks to Dagar of the Tuchux)

I think the overarching point here is that every year is going to present slightly different challenges that you will have to work with.  Tactics are not a one size fits all concept.  Looking at a group picture from two Pennsics ago, we were missing 7-8 of our most reliable veteran fighters.  In their place were fighters with less than 3 years of experience, and a whole lot less aggression, situational awareness, and brawn.  Two years ago I was 11th in seniority in our group.  This year I was 5th until Tuesday, and then bumped up to 3rd due to injuries.

Times are a changin'!


Saturday - Kamikaze Battle

We use this battle every year as a warmup.  If you aren't familiar with it, it is a broken field endless resurrection battle with no objective.  You just fight.  People come and go as they please, and will sometimes switch sides.  Back in the way back Anglesey used to have a kinsman versus swordbrother battle (think knights versus squires), but war has gotten so busy that its been hard to fit it into our schedule.  It was easier when kinsmen were in their early 30s.  Now we are in out 40s and don't want to risk injury.  Also, they used to only run a single bridge battle and single field.  Now its 4-5 of each, sop we are more worn down from the fighting.

This year we used the Kamikaze Battle to accomplish the same goal and put our kinsmen and swordbrothers across from each other to see how the swordbrothers do.  For the most part, they were doing fine.  There's really not much more to say than that.  Our approach is to exploit their mistakes and hope that they learn from them.  If they don't, then we teach them.

Note:  One of our newer fighters commented that there was a lack of leadership and direction.  In this battle that was true, and it was by design.  The newer fighters have to learn how to lead themselves.


Sunday - Allied Champions Battle

We got our butts kicked.

I think this battle came down to four key issues:

1) Not enough fighters

We had 15 subs instead of 25.  That means each fighter had to, on average, fight 15 minutes before taking a 3 minute break, while the other side only had to fight 9 minutes before their 3 minute break.

2)  Less talent

The Allied Champions Battle includes 200 fighters out of 1,000 at Pennsic.  Remove the East and the Mid, who are ineligible to fight, and you are left with maybe 600-700?  So theoretically a champion would be in the upper 3rd of talent and experience.  If my observations and the rumors I heard were correct, we had to dip well below that 67th percentile mark to field 100 fighters, and we still came up 10 fighters short.  the East Allies just didn't have the depth.

3)  Not enough shields

This was a rare year where it was the shields that won this battle and not the spears.  I normally tell people that this is a spear fight, but you can certainly have too many spears.  It was also not a particularly hot Pennsic and we had unlimited substitutions, which pushes the battle at a faster pace.  Generally speaking, the faster the pace of the battle, the more valuable shields become (they have the energy to charge).  The slower the pace, the more valuable spears become.

4)  Tactics

I can't tell you what happened on the left flank as I was never over there.  On the far right flank, we had 5 ranks of Tuchux and Cloven Shield stacked up.  I didn't think this was a bad idea, and it actually paid off early in the fight.  They rolled over the Mid/Aethlelmearc spears in the first handful of engagements and scored a point or two.  As the fight wore on, however, the charges became less and less effective as fatigue set in, and we were covering the far right flank with ~20 fighters 5 ranks deep which meant we were fighting a 55 on 65 battle across the rest of the field.

I'm not sure what changes would have helped, especially considering the top three factors.  Again, its not that it was a bad plan, but rather that the plan stopped working as the battle wore on.  I think it might have been interesting to try the following:  use that group as our hammer in every other series and have them sub out in between.  That would give us a very well rested set of shock troops every other series.  In the alternating series we could do our best to play defense with a 75 v 75 matchup.

Final thought on this, my general approach to fighting these battles is to load up with good spears and whittle down the other side with them until there is a distinct advantage and then make a hard push for the banner.  I don't think the Tuchux or Cloven Shield are built that way, so the options are to either replace them with low end fighters who are accustomed to the plan I just mentioned (low end because we've already got all the high end guys.  I don't think this is a good plan), or to utilize them in a manner that they are best suited for, which is what we did.  As I said, I think since they were doing the heavy lifting early on, we may have needed a substitution plan to get them recharged so that they could perform at their best.

Truth be told, I'm doing a lot of guess work here. 


Monday - Field Battles

We lost these pretty decisively as we were greatly outnumbered. 

I don't have much to say on a strategic level other than that the smaller side needs to figure out a way to find fair or even advantageous fights, and get into those fights quickly while stalling everywhere else on the battlefield.

Every unit is going to be different.  Here's what we had to work with:

14 spears (48%)
11 shields (38%)
3   poles (10%)

1   archer (3%)

To me, this is a pretty solid spear skirmish unit that needs to find a static battle, one that it can win, with a lot of inexperienced fighters.  An exposed flank is something that this unit can quickly chew through.  Hitting a unit head on is risky, especially if it is poised to charge and is heavy with shields.

FB 1

In our first battle we keyed off of an East Kingdom division and the Tuchux, waited until they drew some attention, and then pounced on an exposed flank of a large unit.  What we saw was what I would describe as "fresh meat."  While the front on their unit was engaged, we hit the back end of their right flank and started chewing through inexperienced fighters who were back on their heals.

The initial idea was that our far right flank was getting rolled due to a lack of numbers.  We had hit the inside of that flank and were hoping to push through it and follow the back side of red's far left flank.  I got killed before we could accomplish that and am not sure how it played out.

I was criticized for getting us into a bad fight, that we would have been better off staying mobile, and that we needed to lead with our shields.  While I don't disagree that it would have been ideal to stick and move, I didn't see any good options available and had to react quickly because a couple of units looked like they were quickly getting behind us with no resistance.  The theme for the day was "bad positions, or worse positions."  When numbers are even, there's more time to find a really good position to exploit.  When you are outnumbered, I believe you need to capitalize on any good opportunity that you can find before getting surrounded.  I'd also thought that our current configuration was better built for a more static spear fight than to lead in with our shields.  We had a lot of spears, have a bevy of smaller sized fighters (Half were under 190 lbs.  Half were under 5' 10".  Your typical fighter is 6' and well over 200 lbs), and the experience was largely in the spears, not the shields. 

As I said, we saw an exposed flank full of fresh meat and jumped on it.  The post fight feedback leads me to believe that we ended up with a really high kill ratio,  so I was satisfied with the decision.

One critique I heard from the sideline was that our less experienced fighters seemed a little lost and unengaged.  I'm not sure how to train for that, other than to get them more Pennsic experience.  Our best commanders were our best killers, and we were short on experienced killers, so the hope was that we could lead from the front and that our newer guys would jump in with us.

FB 2

We were in a similar position as before with the Tuchux, Cloven Shield, and a couple of other units to our right, this time fighting from the north side of the field and facing south (a new set up this year).  As the battle began, it was clear that our right flank wanted to stay on top of the hill and force the Midrealm to come up and fight us.  This isn't a bad plan except that the Mid never came up and was happy to wait while our left flank got demolished by Atlantia. 

My thoughts on this as a strategy:  Either you roll the dice and hope that the other side is dumb enough to walk up the hill and fight you, you place all of your units at the top and play a game of chicken (please God, no.......too many standoffs in the 90s that took hours to resolve), or you have to reduce the numbers on the top of the hill and deploy them elsewhere hoping to improve your chances elsewhere in the fight.  If the opponent still doesn't climb the hill, then at least your other guys are fighting with better numbers while you stall with fewer.  If they do come up to fight, hopefully it takes a bit of time and energy to get there, and that the uphill advantage helps even out the fight.

Anyway, as our left collapsed, we eventually went down the hill, a little too late.  As a skirmish unit of 30, we had no choice but to wait for the bigger units to initiate the push.  We found ourselves in an unmaneuverable position (ie no gaps between the units), so we fought a straight up fight.  At some point I was called over because "we need spears."  I ran over to find 8 spears against my lonesome.  I pulled back, surveyed the situation, and saw that they were one thin line.  I yelled out that we needed to charge.  Someone responded and lead a charge to take out the spears.

Again, that was a bad option but better than the worse option.  Instead of getting picked apart by spears, we (an Eastern unit) took them out, but then we ended up getting surrounded on three sides.  Our only chance was to punch through those spears, out the other other side, and then try to maneuver to an exposed flank.  It never happened. 

I eventually yielded once the battle was beyond hopeless.

Side note:  I fought 6 days this Pennsic and didn't get whacked in the head once.  If you are worried about concussions,  get better at learning how to avoid unwinnable situations. 

FB 3

This went a little better.  The East decided to run most of its forces to the left leaving a smaller force to defend the right.  We were in the gap between, which I think was a good position for us, and had the option to go left or right depending on how things developed.  Ultimately our job was to cover the flank of the Eastern unit that was to our left. 

I can only assume that the Midrealm decided to push most of its forces in the same direction as we ended up in a big empty gap.  Ultimately we decided to push to our left and clean up the exposed left flank of a unit that the East engaged with.  After that, we found ourselves with no one to fight.  This is always a bad position to be in.  You always either want to be engaged with an opponent, or stalling an opponent.  If you are in an empty field, that means that somewhere else out there, your allies are fighting against bad odds.  We rallied and turned up the hill to find more red, eventually dying (well, everyone on our side eventually died).

FB 4

Same plan as FB 3, except this time we found ourselves across from two big shield wall units in Dark Yard and a roman unit (please correct me on the name.  They have the rectangular shields with the 6 castles).  We stalled them a bit and kept them from targeting the flank of the Eastern unit.  They eventually came right at us.  Our veterans are used to this kind of fight, but our newer fighters were not.  Normally these units can be strung out and picked apart if you know how to pull them into a kill pocket, but you have to know what you are doing and have good timing.  If you don't, then a unit built like ours will just get run over. 

Ultimately I was happy with how we did.  I think we lost the engagement, but took a lot of them with us and forced a long fight.  If anyone has numbers on those two units, please send them my way.  I believe they had maybe 30-50% more fighters than us.

EDIT:  I just saw the video and did a head count.  We were outnumbered 2:1. 



Side note:  before the engagement, a bunch of archers started firing arrows from a distance.  I warned everyone that we were within range.  One of our kinsmen got shot.  I'll say this much; 4 years ago I was a pin cushion against archery.  I have gotten a LOT better.  It is a skill that can be improved, but you have to actively focus on it.  As an example, I let the East Kingdom archers shoot at me instead of targets when they gear up for Pennsic.  I've learned how to better dodge arrows, how close I can get to an archer before it becomes too dangerous, and to see the archers on the field as you fight.  I only got hit once this war, and that was because I had stopped to let my opponent help a guy up off the ground.

Photo by Andrea Nichols

Additional note:  I believe we fought well in this battle.  One thing I'll never understand is why units like to block up and go straight at the enemy.  If one of these units had split in half (let alone both of them) and flanked us, we would have quickly perished.  Our only chance of surviving was for them to stay directly in front of us, which is exactly what they did.

Having said that, I don't know anything about their training logistics, so maybe they just went with a conservative plan that kept their units cohesive. 

This harkens back to a previous thought that I had, which is that Anglesey, Galatia, and the Concusare are built a certain way and have certain kinds of experiences year in and year out, so when we get to Pennsic, we fight the way that we are best suited.  I would assume that that is what most units on the field are doing.

FB 5

This was a very fun battle and I hope they do this scenario again.  It was a "kill the king" scenario.  Whomever loses their king first, loses the battle.  Our strategy was to have our king run to the top of the hill and we'd defend him while other units went after the Midrealm king.  At least that's what I thought the strategy was.  At some point I saw our unit wandering down the hill and I followed, having no idea what we were trying to accomplish.  At some point we found some fighters and, lacking better options, fought them to try and take them out.  Again, this is something you do if you have a clear advantage, and something to avoid if you don't.  We then turned back up the hill, chewing through small units of stragglers (we had some fun trash talk along the way with Duke Timothy, Wally of the Gaggle, and Sir Beatrix Aethelmearc).  At this point I was focussed on getting back to our king as I thought I had seen a bunch of enemy troops moving in on him. 

To be honest, I think I screwed up and saw the Midrealm banner run right past us, hardly protected, and it just didn't register.  Live and learn, I guess.

Field Battle Summary
Our newer fighters need to learn to be more aggressive when the enemy is on its heels.  Most of the year we do a lot of what I would call "chess match fighting," which is where you try to slowly out position your opponent and wait for good shots.  Pennsic is mostly about avoiding bad situations and aggressively capitalizing on good situations. 

The best advice I'd heard from a fellow kinsman years ago is that you need to be able to recognize a bad situation and quickly get out of it.  If Pennsic can be dumbed down into one simple statement, that might be it.

Tuesday - Woods Battle

The Midrealm has a reputation for having a light turnout in the woods.  I assume that this year was no different as we won the woods pretty decisively, though we did have to work for it. 

The 2019 version of Anglesey and the rest of the bog celts is built pretty good for a woods battle.  We have a lot of younger, lighter fighters who fight with spears and skirmish.  While this isn't great for defending a gate, it's fantastic for a 90 minute battle on a hill in the woods in August.

I want to preface this with the fact that my tactical awareness in the woods has dramatically improved over the last two years.  Truth be told, I've now fought in 15 Pennsic woods battles.  In the first 12 I didn't even know what a flag was.  I just aimlessly wandered through the woods looking for people to hit.  Two years ago I actually focussed on the left flank of the center banner with the goal of trying to capture it.  Last year, I sat back and watched the fighting for periods of time, talking to the commanders, while occasionally moving in to try to take out a knight who was causing us problems.  At one point I even assessed the the fighting on the line and made my first command decision to roll a flank using random SCA fighters.

This year I assessed the battle lines every time I came up to the front before engaging, and stayed in constant contact with the other commanders on our side.

The job handed to us was to create a distraction on the left side of the woods so that the Midrealm would keep sending troops in our direction rather than toward another flag.  Our side conceded the left flag and focussed its fighting on the other three.

I told our liaison up front that we would likely pull people away and send them to more important spots if needed, and he understood.  What I found were two things;  The Tuchux like to resurrect as a group, which means when they get to the front line, they generally can punch a hole in it, but once they are all dead, there is a clear weakness in the line.  The other was that there was a gap between the Tuchux to the right of the road that they were controlling.

Many of us often found ourselves either filling that gap, or holding the road until the Tuchux returned, while most of our younger fighters stayed on the far left (it was better fighting if you are only interested in racking up kills).

I found myself constantly surveying the landscape and moving to where the problems were while calling them out to our side.  On onc occasion one of the commanders had his back to the line and was sending everyone down the hill and to our left, as I'm guessing there was a unit initially coming up from there.  When I got to him I told him that I was going to survey the situation first.  When I did, I noticed that a large unit at formed up the hill from us and was threatening to hit our flank and create a big weakness in our line making the center flag vulnerable.  I pointed this out and he adjusted the commands.

My favorite moment of the war was when I found ourselves surrounded and managed to not only pull out of the bad spot, but to also turn our flank on them.



As you can see above, Red's right flank had pushed us far enough back the we got surrounded in the middle.  This is a horrible position to be in as they will generally have more numbers than us in that location when the line is contoured this way, but also they will have some really good angles of attack on us.  If we don't fix it, it goes from being bad to very bad. 

One of the Galatians, Titus, pointed it out to me and I followed him as he bailed, calling out for others to do the same.

What I was most concerned with, however, was that once that pocket collapsed, red would make a push for the flag with numerical superiority as all of the fighters surrounding the pocket would cram into it doubling the typical amount of troops in that amount of space.

My instincts told me that if that many people were crammed into that small space, then there must be another spot in the woods where they were thin. I pulled out and started walking to the left until I found the end of their flank. Once I got there I did a quick count and noticed that we had a clear numbers advantage.  I started pressing on the flank and called out, "If we don't push this flank right now, we are going to lose the center flag.  This is where the battle will be won," or some other overly dramatic phrase that scadians seem to like.  I might have even yelled, "mi'lords and ladies!."

Anyway, not only did I notice that the line was thin, but so was the talent.  All of the better fighters were fighting up the hill for the banner.  We started walking that flank back but then got stuck behind a big defendable log.  I had almost given up until I heard Ying of Anglesey shouting, "Hey!  Hey!" to my right.  Not only did it draw my attention, but it caused the pocket that he was fighting around to start walking back on its heels.  This is when I knew that we had them.  I called a charge and we cleaned up the flank.  The impact worked its way up the line and we managed to secure the flag.

I'm certain that there were similar moves being made further up the hill that helped us defend the flag and that this was only one piece of it, but I was rather satisfied with the moves that we made and that I wasn't simply trying to kill random people in front of me without purpose.

Note:  Last year in the woods I prided myself with only dying once.  This year I died somewhere between 5 and 20 times, yet one of my friends didn't much at all this year.  I also remember my 3rd or 4th Pennsic being almost impossible to kill.  Truth be told, the number of deaths (or kills) often has more to do with circumstances than anything else.  I wasn't an amazing fighter in my 3rd or 4th Pennsic.  Last year I remembered never seeing two knights next to each other.  This year, I rarely saw one by himself.  Two knights are a lot harder to kill than one.

Summary note:  The takeaway from all of this is that you have time to think in the woods, so do it.  Stop before you get to the line, look around, and think about your situation.  If this a good spot to get kills?  Kills are good, but are they the best kills?  Will this help capture or protect a banner?


Wednesday - Bridge Battles
We were assigned to be reserve units.  I'll be blunt, the first two battles sucked.  The other side just had too many fighters. 

BB 1 & 2

In the first battle we moved down to support a unit protecting the southern bridge.  Our ballista was doing some damage firing right at the knights and royals of Atlantia, but they were firing back with archers and whittling down the unit that was capping the bridge.  They then made one big push after our side had thinned out and broke through the end of the bridge. 

I would much rather have attempted to stuff them on the bridge than to give them a chance to break through, but that wasn't our call.  We would have lost anyway, but it wouldn't have been so disastrous.  One thing I found really annoying was just how much impact 2-3 cheaters can have. Most of Atlantia fought very honorably, but 2-3 guys pushed through and blew off countless shots.  Unfortunately, each one manages to create a hole and pulls off 4-6 fighters with him.  We just didn't have the numbers to afford that.  Additionally, as I said, we have small guys.  The only way we can stop chargers is by killing them.  If they don't take their shots, then we're screwed.

 BB 3

After losing two battles, a contingent of about 50 fighters opted to switch sides.  As a result, we managed to (I think) win the next two battles, but barely.  Obviously the reason we won was the shifting of the numbers, but we still had to work for the win. 

This time our task was to lead out in front of the Tuchux with our spears.  Across from us was a unit of romans (the guys with 6 castles on their shields) and Dark Yard, both shield heavy units.  We knew they would charge right into us and that we wouldn't be able to stop them.

After several conversations with Dagar, the Tuchux commander (I assumed), we agreed that we'd only send one rank out and that the rest of us would be filed on the sides to allow for a Tuchux column to repel a charge.  The idea was that our front rank would just filter back into the ranks of the Tuchux.

One of the things we are working on with our group is to not simply meander as a disorganized mob wherever we go.  Had we had our unit bunched up in the front of the Tuchux, I fear we would have been wiped out pretty quickly.  Every individual needs to know what they are capable of and where they best fit.  We had a 210 lb 25 year old former marine right up front with his shield the whole fight knocking people over left and right.  I'm a 46 year old 190 lb spearman with skinny runner legs.  You won't find me up there because I'm simply not built for it.  Unfortunately most of our unit is not built for receiving a shield wall charge in the middle of a bridge.

Anyway, there's not much more to talk about here tactically.  The Tuchux are hard to work with, not because they are difficult people, but because they have a very aggressive system that works best when its Tuchux working with Tuchux.  Every now and then one of our guys would find a good spot on the edge and rack up some kills.  Two Galatians in particular were doing some good spear work on either side.  Basically, when the Tuchux are up front and working, its best just to get out of their way and let them do what they do.

As I watched our side getting whittled down and pushed toward the end of the bridge, I noticed that we had a numbers advantage on the next bridge down.  I thought about moving down there and calling a charge as it looked like maybe 30 on 15.  BUT, I've made that mistake before.  Our side had a lot of spears, while their side had very few.  To me this means aggressive spear work.  REALLY aggressive.  I moved down there, found a spot up front and fired as many shots as I could while encouraging others to do the same.  I feel I did well, but eventually died.  Soon after that, our side walked them across the bridge and finished them off, and then came around the back side of the north bridge and finished that fight just as our last remaining fighters on that bridge died. 

If I had to throw out a rough number guess, our unit of 25 fighters probably netted 25-50 kills (maybe more, maybe less).  Had we been bunched up and caught between the Tuchux and Darkyard, I think we would have lost a lot of key fighters and gotten far fewer kills.  When a battle is that close, little decisions like that count for something.

Note:  I counted the kills in the video during the charge.  We did much better than I had thought, but still not in an ideal position to maximize our potential.

BB 4

This was a fun battle that didn't allow range weapons or anything over 6 feet long.  It was fun spearing with a 6 footer, and occasionally back handing someone charging past me. 

The only tactical comments I can make was when we cleaned up the top two bridges, everyone stopped fighting and cheered.  I yelled that the fight wasn't over and that we needed to go and finish off the other bridges.  More importantly, I checked each bridge to make sure we had at least one person occupying it.

........I think that was the victory condition.  If I was really savy, I would have read what the victory conditions were ahead of time.  ;)

Friday - Mountain Pass Battle

This was a fun MOAB style battle.  In a nutshell, there were four passes; the goat path, the hot gate, the mines, and the catacombs.  Two were narrow (2 fighters wide) and two were wide.  Two allowed the use of spears, two did not.  There was something for everyone.  The way the battle works is that the attackers get unlimited resurrections while the defenders get three lives.  There's a time limit, and then you switch sides.

Tactically speaking, the wide paths are shoving matches.  The attackers need to send their heaviest guys in and keep charging and shoving people off the sides.  If they can get some killing in, go for it.  The defenders, OTOH, gain very little by killing people, except if its to stop a big aggressive charger.  Every kill is just replaced by the guy behind him. 

We were on the goat path.  I'm not sure what the best tactic is here, but my gut says that it largely depends on how each unit on the path is built.  If you are big shieldmen, then you probably want to charge and push people off the path.  If you are small spearmen, then you may want to just fire away.

The path we were on had a lot of archers and we struggled dealing with them.  I actually managed to avoid getting shot (the exception being the time I stopped to let a dead guy get out safely) and I think that was due to a lot of focused training against archery over the last several years.

In my opinion, here's the key to avoid getting killed by arrows.

Step 1)  Stay out of range, or at least far enough out that you can more easily doge incoming arrows.
Step 2)  Watch the archers, not the shields.  If you are more than 5 feet away from the shields, you don't need to look at them.  They aren't going anywhere and they aren't going to do anything.  The archers will.
Step 3)  When its your turn to fight, run up to the front and keep throwing shots until you die.




Toward the end of this battle, one of our fighters (Boagrius of Galatia) grabbed three shields and convinced them to charge ahead of us to shield us from arrows.  When they got to the front, they charged right into the mass of fighters (why not, there's unlimited resurrections) and quickly died.  However, they pushed us past the end of the path and allowed a mass of our unit to break through and get to the banner that they were protecting.  Score!

Note:  A few years ago a local Duke (Duke Brennan) told us at a practice that when you have unlimited resurrections and a time limit, that you need to be aggressive and continually charge.  I think his advice was good enough in that it applies to 90+% of the situations, but technically it isn't correct.  I only know this because I have called charges in the past that didn't lead to a single kill, and have since gotten better at quickly analyzing our troop makeup before calling the charge.

In a nutshell, if your unit is 100% spears and archers, calling a charge isn't going to do diddly.  Here's my rule of thumb; if you have more fighters than them, and at least as many shields, then you are probably ready for a charge.  This assumes that they don't get bonuses for being better fighters, in a defensible position, or they calibrate higher than your guys (maybe they cheat?  Maybe your guys don't throw hard shots).  Otherwise, you may need to use your spears and arrows to weaken your opponent before charging.


Hope you enjoyed reading!

How to Skirmish Effectively (Analysis of a Small Team Skirmish)

Some of our Anglesey members drove down to meet with some Galatians south of Baltimore last weekend for a nice little tune up before Pennsic.  We didn't really work on anything specific, but rather just enjoyed the afternoon getting some experience in, getting used to the heat, and as usual, constantly making little minor improvements.  Where as the local kingdom army practice often focusses on ramping up aggression, we do the opposite.  Most of our shots are thrown at probably half to three quarter power, the philosophy being that the less we hurt each other, the more we'll be able to fight.  The reality is when fighting skirmish style, more often than not you get a kill because you beat someone tactically, so there's no need to drive the point home with a concussive blow.

I should say up front that there wasn't anything particularly interesting about this fight.  It's just 9 people of various ability levels fighting in a back yard, but the more and more I watched the video, the more and more little things jump out at me.

The Scenario

I'm focussing on a single battle that was a single resurrection (two lives each) 4v5 fight in a relatively contained area.  We placed three of the four most experienced fighters on the team of 4, with the goal being to have relatively balanced sides, but with uneven numbers.  Had we had 10 fighters, we would have tried fighting 4v6, or 4v6 with the 4 getting extra lives, or possibly 4v6 with the team of 6 being required to hold at least one fighter at the rez point at all times.  Essentially, we modify the battle so that both sides have a reasonable chance to win.


The Conditions

This was a very hot and humid day, and this fight was, I believe, the last fight we fought on the day, so everyone was very worn down.  So the answer to a lot of questions like, "Why didn't you throw more shots?  We didn't she charge?  Why were you just standing there," is, "Because we were tired!"


The Fighters

Its important to note that while tactics will often beat skill, skill can also beat tactics.  There's not much 5 brand new fighters are going to be able to do against 4 dukes, regardless of their tactics.  So who is fighting with what is a very important factor when looking at the layout of a battle.  "Why didn't the shield run down the spear?"  Maybe the spear is really fast and the shieldman really slow.  Maybe it wasn't a winnable matchup.  Etc. 

For the purposes of relative anonymity, I'll simply label them as part of the Red Team (right side of the field) or Green Team (left side of the field).

Red Team:

R1 - Axe and Shield, 3 years of experience, but relatively new to using a shield
R2 - (Me)  Spear with 15+ years of experience
R3 - Spear with 15+ years of experience
R4 - Sword and Shield, 15+ years of experience, but only a few years using a shield

Green Team:

G1 - Sword and Shield, just graduated high school.  Some heavy experience, and a few years of youth
G2 - Spear, 1 year, but very well practiced
G3 - Sword and Sheild, took 18 years off to raise kids.  Knocking the rust off.
G4 - Spear, 15+ years fighting Darkon spear.  Been transitioning to SCA for about a year
G5 - Sword and Shield, two years experience.  Very little experience with Sword and Shield.

Weapon Choices

At the end of the day, we generally fight with what weapons we feel like working on.  Getting better is more important than winning the fight.  People need to remember that, in both practice and at events, if we're doing everything correctly, you should win about half of the battles regardless of what you do.  If you are winning more than that, then someone needs to adjust the scenarios or rebalance the sides.

Having said that, we will often make small adjustments to make the battles worth fighting.  Had we had three spears on our team, for example, then a I likely would have swapped mine out for a pole arm or even a shield.

In general, however, the Bog Celts tend to fight with ~50% shields.  This tends to give us a disadvantage in single death battles, especially in small quarters, or attacking a gate or flag with a time limit.  It does, however, seem to give us the advantage in resurrection scenarios or in larger battles where we can play off of other units.


Lining Up

So there are a couple of fundamentals I like to follow in what I consider to be a skirmish position;  secure the flanks, and balance your talent.  What this means is that I generally like to see my strongest shields on the flanks, and then have the rest of the weapon types balanced throughout the middle.  Notice how the green team have their spears separated by a shield in between them.

As always, there are times when you can deviate from this system, but when you do, you need to realize that you are leaving weaknesses in your line and should have a plan to account for them.

Also of note, in all the years I've been fighting with this group, the battles almost always split up into two extreme flanks with a gap in the middle.  This is because neither side ever wants to give up the flanking position.



Now in a battle like this, there is a bit of a chess match that occurs before everything turns into chaos.  In this case, with the red team having the more experienced fighters, but fewer of them, they are either looking for a glaring tactical weakness to exploit, trying to find an easily winnable one on one matchup, or trying to snipe at an opening on an unsuspecting fighter.  In this case, R2 was hoping to either beat G2 straight up, or to land a face shot on G1 or G3.  R4 approached G5 hoping to win a one on one engagement.  R3 floated between G3 and G4 hoping to snipe at one of them.

The green team, OTOH, is looking to neutralize the one on one matchups and find a two on one to exploit.  They did this well by doubling up on R4 and eventually winning that engagement for the first kill, giving them a 3 to 5 advantage.


Green Cleans Up the Right.  Fighters Adjust.

As the fight begins, R4 Shield walks down the far left flank hoping to engage G5 Shield in a one on one engagement.  This draws the G4 Spear onto him, placing him at a 2v1 disadvantage.  At this point he withdraws hoping to stall the engagement and give the rest of his team a chance to get an early kill.  As he backs out of the fight, he stays relatively close to the boundary forcing the G4 Spear expose his side to the R3 spear who begins to float toward him.

Seeing the advantage that they have, G4 and G5 press hard to get the kill, hopefully before they lose the stalemate on the other side of the field.

G3 Shield moves to join her right flank, causing R3 Spear to commit to his left, leaving a 2v2 on Red's right flank.






Green Turns Corner.  Chain Reaction.

After G4 and G5 take out R4, they turn immediately onto R3 with G3 joining them.  This effectively creates a 3v1 on Green's right flank with a 2v2 continuing on the other side of the field.

Once it becomes clear that G5 is going to get the kill on R3, G3 Shield and G4 Spear turn to try to take out R2 Spear.  If they can manage this, the battle will be effectively won by getting the first 3 kills before the Red team can get their first kill.

What happens is that R3 dies, but effectively pulls G2 Spear and G5 Shield out of the fight.  Seeing the action forming in the backfield, R1 Shield floats back and gets a kill on G3 Shield.  Had R1 been just a little quicker, he could have spun out of the fight and defended himself from the counter attack from G1 Shield.  Either way, he got a kill, and drew three fighters on him the process, allowing R2 Spear to escape.

Green Tries to Cleanup.  R4 Rejoins Fight.

After taking out R1 Shield, G1 Shield and G4 Spear both turn on R2 Spear.  R2 bails to get out of a bad situation, while R4 Shield returns from rez point and immediately fouls up G4 Spear and attempts getting a kill.

This draws the remaining two fighters, G2 Spear and G5 Shield onto him.  After R2 Spear successfully avoids G1 Shield, he (me) rejoins the fight and gets a kill on G5 Shield's open side while he was occupied with R1 Shield.

Shields Take Out Spears

At this point there are two shields and three spears left on the field, with another shield joining quickly.  Knowing that at this point in the fight spears have a big advantage, especially at range, all three shields expediently close.

One of the compliments given to the spears earlier that day by another fighter is that they are all very wily and more difficult to kill when charging than one would normally expect. 

Having said that, I made the same mistake in the upper corner that I pointed out on R1 earlier.  I had forgotten that there was an enemy shielman right behind me when I went for my kill, and he was able to take advantage of that and take me out.

Also of note, yes, G4 made an illegal grapple.  Probably a hold over from Darkon rules.

Red Team Adds a Few More Kills

The longer a fight goes on, typically the advantage starts leaning toward the team with more skirmish experience. 

The three shields took out the three spears in the above clip, and then R3 Spear returned to the field and took out Green's remaining fighter.  Two more Green fighters (both shields) returned to the field one at a time and got caught in a kill pocket right around the rez point.

The Scouring of the Red Team

After having pressed Green back to their rez point, there was some confusion about who was still alive.  It turned out that Green had three people left with one life each, as did Red.  So we reset in the middle of the field.

What happened next was pretty simple.  Green outfought us. 

R1 Shield made the initial move, which I think was good.  The Green spears reacted well with G4 Spear getting a kill on R1 Shield's open side while G2 Spear backed away defensively.  The maneuvering of both spears was good.  G4 pulled back while keeping a lot of pressure on the face.  G2 turned and took the shot while stepping just outside of my range, causing me to miss the counter.  I then got sucked into a 2 on 1 and got sniped by G2 as I was trying to take out G4.

Their two shots landed.  Ours missed.  Game over.






Some Thoughts on Skirmishing

Whether you are impressed with the skills displayed or not, what sticks out to me in these clips compared a lot of practices that I've been to is the team work.  People are either running in and trying to gain 2 on 1 advantages, or shields are trying to close on spears to give them a close range advantage.

What I often see by groups who don't train for skirmishing is either a lot of 1v1 fighting, or blind charges into groups of people that they can't beat.  Additionally, spears tend to get run over by shieldman easily, and their teammates don't normally come to bail them out.  Also, you'll see a lot of fighters simply unengaged in the fight, waiting for the fight to come to them.


What I Liked

Spears were wily and hard to run down.
Shields were quick and aggressive when they saw spears with no support.
People were helping their teammates.
Bothe sides were good about controlling their flanks.
Both sides were good about moving to the next fight after getting a kill.


What Could Improve

A couple of us got lazy right after scoring a kill. 
Some fighters walked out of rez point and right into bad situations.


Resurrecting Together vs Individually

Had the Red Team waited at rez and come in together, we wouldn't have stood a chance.  The fighters needed to get back into the fight ASAP to bail out their undermanned teammates.

Having said that, the Green Team lost two fighters because they came out of rez by themselves and walked right into a bad situation. They also saved the remaining three fighters by waiting until the rez point was clear and then coming in as a team.

In a nutshell, my advice is to come in from rez with a clear understanding of what you are about to get yourself into.  If you see your friends in a 5v3 advantage, then run right up there immediately and make it a 6v3.  But don't come out of rez and just walk into an immediate death.  If you know what to do, then do it.  If you don't, then it is probably best to wait for someone who does, and follow that person, or at least wait for a small number of fighters and then return safely.


No Reforms?

Skirmishers don't reform. 

Every now and then, you'll see your friends getting themselves into a bad situation, and you call them over to join you in a better situation, but overall, a well trained skirmisher should be able to fluidly adapt to whatever situation is in front of them.  Where as a traditional unit of 20 fighters sees the fight as a cohesive team of 20 versus the enemy, skirmishers see it as a whole lot of smaller fights of 2-5 people. 

And think about it this way.  If we're trained to thrive in the skirmish, and you're not, why would we want to call a reform and give you a chance to call your own?


Why Not a Shield Wall?

This is something that has probably evolved over the last 30 years.  In short, we found ourselves to be more effective skirmishing.  I think it also lends itself more to our personality types, and our ability to train.

Ultimately we got really good at beating shield walls with a skirmish approach (at least during peak years with our better trained fighters).  That's not to say that we've beaten every shield wall ever thrown at us.  As I said above, we are better suited for some circumstances than others, but we'd gotten really good and stringing out shield walls and enveloping them, and then poking them apart on the reform. 

That being said, some units are better built to operate as a cohesive shield wall.  I'm not suggesting that you don't use them.  I'm just telling you how the other side fights. 

What Happens When They Have the Shields AND the Spears

I fight with a spear about 90% of the time.  Of that, my team often will have the range advantage.  As I've said many times in this blog, one of the most fundamental tactical decisions you need to make is to determine which team has the range advantage.  If its the other team, then you need to press them hard or charge.  Recently I had some experience where the other team had both the range advantage as well as the shield advantage, and it challenged us on a tactical level.

In a couple of series of 4v4 battles in a small field, one team would have three shields and one spear, while the other team had no spears and either all poles, or a mix of poles and spears.  Normally you wouldn't want to charge a line (all else being equal) that had more shields than you, but in a situation where the other team has a good spear and you have none, you really have little choice but to neutralize and/or take out that spear. 

In one of our sessions, we kept sending our best shieldman straight at the spear, and he was never successful.

What was happening was that the pole to the left of the spear had the surprising situational awareness (he was a very new fighter) to take a passing shot at the sheildman's back as he'd run by.  The spear was also able to withdraw just a bit and put up a defense as the charge was coming directly in.

We were never able to figure out how to win this scenario during the practice. 

At this point I'd like to step in and point out two big errors that I often see at SCA practices.  One is that they often would rebalance the teams to make sure that each side has the same ability levels and weapon types in order to make the fight "fair."  The other that I see (less common) is that they will leave two sides unbalanced and just let one team slaughter the other over and over again throughout the day.  There is, of course, a happy medium.

In this case, we were struggling, but not getting slaughtered in an un-winnable fight, and just needed to figure out how to beat this scenario.

A few more weeks passed and we found the opportunity to run the scenario again.  This time it was 3 shields and a spear versus 4 poles, and the pole team actually managed to win about half of the scenarios.  Now, winning a scenario often comes down to ability level, and we did have the more experienced fighter, but we were still able to figure out some tactics to improve our chances. 

This time the poles were coming in from the flanks and using the other team members as "picks," or rather, using them to block each other.

From the right flank, I was using a very inexperienced shieldman on the inside to pick a more experienced flanker.  On the left, our left pole used a large flanker to hide behind.  Positioning and timing in each case is essential.  Also, making a move at the fighter that you intend to use as a pick is helpful as it will often discourage them from making a passing shot.

It also appeared that the kills on the spear were a little easier as we were coming in from steep angles rather than from directly in front of him.

One thing to note, when making a charge into a group of fighters like this, you need to make sure you go all the way through, out the back side, and reestablish your front to the fight (and your back away from your enemies).

FWIW, this is one reason why I like to fight with the spear out in front.  One might think that it just makes it easier to get to the spear, but what ends up happening is the spear will take one or two steps back to safely avoid the charge while the rest of the line collapses on whomever is going after the spear.  I've been doing this for decades, but every now and then we'll experiment with it and verify that it is still a very effective tactic.


Other Related Thoughts

Triangulate the Spears

In a few of our fights each side had two spears.  I almost always prefer to have the spears split so that you can effectively triangulate the attacks.  I definitely noticed the benefits in this series of battles. 




In the above picture, red spears had really good angles on the green spears.  Each red spear only has to worry about guarding one side of their body, while the green spears have to worry about shots coming from both sides.

Caveat:  I don't usually like having spears protecting the flanks,  I was a bit surprised the the green shield was not able to exploit the weakened flank, but I was not on that side to see what was happening.


Don't Turtle Up

In one of our series of fights, our flanking shieldman was employing a very common tactic, one that is actually taught in a lot of SCA groups and its one that I don't think is very effective.  In fact, one of our friendly knights was teaching this at an Atlantian practice, and the Anglesey fighters told him that they disagreed with the approach.

"Turtling Up," is when the flanking shieldman stays tight against the group, allows the opponent to out flank him, and then turns his back toward his own line.

In this specific example, the shields were able to approach our line without exposing their open side, and it was preventing our spear (me) from even throwing shots in their direction because I'd have to turn my side to the opposing spears.



If that sheildman can extend the flank, it opens up angles on the open sides of those shields, and pushes their line back a bit so that I don't have to expose myself as much to the opposing spears.




Know When You are Out Gunned

The final thought here is that we had a fight last week where each side had two spears.  I'm about as experienced as any spearman out there, but the other team had TWO spearman who had been fighting since the 80s.   My team often relies on me to take the lead in the attacks, but I just could not hold these two off.  We had to adjust our tactics and start pressing them.

Highland River Melees (organization on a bridge and other topics)

We fought at the Northern Atlatian event Highland River Melees last weekend and had a lot of fun despite the hot conditions.  In a nutshell, the northern region of Atlantia of the past couple of decades has developed a really laid back culture at their melee events, while also bringing a reasonably good level of competition.  At the end of the day, there is no prize for winning, and the individuals will be judged subjectively on their merit and their comportment rather than counting kills and deaths.  If a melee is run well, sides will be chosen so that most of the fights are competitive, so why not just keep everything relaxed and fun?  Its a sparring session or a pickup game, not the finals of crown.

I recently noted to someone after observing the great attitude of an East Kingdom Knight, "When you're the best tourney fighter in the land, there's two ways to protect your ego in a melee.  You can blow off everything or you can take everything.  Either way, people won't REALLY know how good you were that day.  One way will make you enemies while the other makes you friends."


Heat

Sir Tash runs a great event and is a shining example of what a knight should be (full disclosure, Tash is a friend of mine BUT resides in a different kingdom, so I get no brownie points for sucking up).  We had given him some constructive feedback about the scenarios and he let us know that his first priority was everyone's safety in the heat, and reminded us that we did have a fighter have to leave the field as a result, so points were well taken.

In general, however, the Bog Celts prefer repeating scenarios a few times before moving on.  It seems like a more efficient way to cram in some fighting with less standing around in the heat.  Again, the heat was a wild card that day.

I'd also like to add that there are ways that you can mitigate the heat.  I've worked on this a lot over the last 5 years, in particular, and here's what has worked for me:

- Cardio;  The better you're cardio, the better you will handle the hot weather fighting.
- Heat acclimation;  Get outside as much as possible and make yourself sweat.
- Hot weather tunic;  My upper arms breathe.  This alone may make the biggest difference.
- Water:  I try to drink 1-2 liters of water before the fighting begins, plus regular hydration during the fighting.

Hot weather vs cold weather tunics
(photos by Korrin Villman & Ursus)

Bridge Battle
We fought two bridge battles.  In the first one we got our butts kicked, while we won the second one fairly decisively.  Each battle had two ballistas pointed at one team (teams changed sides) giving that team a disadvantage.  It was, IMO, only a small disadvantage and drove the expediency of the tactics.  Either team could have lost or won from either side depending on the tactical decisions made by both sides.

So what happened?

First of all, our team was made up of a mix of Bog Celts and Atlantians.  Most of our shields were Atlantians while most of the spears and poles were Celts.  Having a mixed group tends to create a level of disorganization as neither group is used to working with each other.  The other side was 100% Atlantians.  Though they are less experienced working with each other (due to a mix of houses) than the Bog is with itself, they are more experienced than the mix of Bog and Atlantians.  They also had King Christoph as their leader, which gives them a well defined command structure.

So, what did we do wrong?  No commander.  No organization.  We began with a shieldwall on the front line who stood there and never pressed (they were given no command to do so).  We had a plethora or spears sitting in the back not doing anything.  We never had more than one spear on the front line, often not throwing any shots.  What did I do?  I started off on the wrong side of the bridge.  By the time I moved to the other side, I got shot by an archer, possibly the best thing that could have happened to me as I got to watch us die horribly (a good learning experience).

The Atlantians did the right thing.  They treated themselves like gate defenders and put up a shield wall and stalled the fight, allowing the ballistas to whittle us down.

Note:  Only one spear up front (photo by Ursus)

The Fix

So there's really only two ways to win a battle like this when you need to attack a gate and get through it before other elements beat you.  Most scadians would look at this situation and say that we should have charged.  I don't believe that would have been very effective.  The Atlantian team was built better for a close range battle as they had more shields with a handful of high level talent (King Christoph and Sir Felix coming to mind).

The other method is to attack aggressively with spears.  This means, for the width of this bridge, four on the front line.  And if you are on the front line, you are throwing shots fast and aggressively!  We may still have lost the battle, but we would have gone down swinging, and we likely would have taken some of them with us.


Bridge 2 Results

I surveyed our group to see who would be the most fit for command and, well, it appeared that I would have been as good as anyone.  I spoke to the warlord of Galatia to get some thoughts from him, and then decided to give the group a little pep talk and get them organized.

Every bridge needs to begin either ready to charge, or ready to repel a charge.  This means shields to the front, so we did that and got our shield wall established.  Then I got the spears to move to the sides to clear out the crowding in the middle.  This allows you to charge and repel charges a little more effectively, and also sets up a natural queue so that spears know who will be up next to fight.

Another issue I've noticed with fights like this is that the shields on the front can't see what's behind them, and most spears don't feel comfortable telling a fighter they don't know to move so that they can take their spot.  This meant that someone would have to do that for them, which fell on me.  As much as I wanted to fight, I thought it best to stay out of the fight and facilitate and let the others do the killing.  Often times the fight will come to me, anyway.

Once we got set up and lay on was called, the Atlantian team immediately charged to avoid the ballista bolts.  A few years ago I preferred to have more spears up in the front, but have since noticed that it really weakens the line against charges.  So I've since gone with more of a mix on the front line.  If this results in us facing more spears than we are willing to put up on the line, then WE need to charge.

We successfully repelled the charge.  The spears sank back into the ranks, shields took their places, and the poles moved into the second rank.  Keeping the rest of the spears to the sides allowed for this to happen very naturally. 

There were a couple of elements that I found interesting.  King Christoph thought that they may have called the charge too soon.  He wanted to avoid attrition due to the ballista fire, but thinks that he may have pushed his army right into a kill pocket off the end of the bridge.  He would have preferred drawing us into the middle of the bridge first.  Duke Vladimir (on our team) thought that the Bog just did what the Bog does, and that we are really good at repelling charges, which I don't disagree with.  Though our mix of weapons makes us ill equipped to initiate charges, we do seem to have the experience and the weapons mix to repel them (and if that sounds crazy, then maybe I'm crazy and we should have charged in the first battle).

I actually felt that the Atlantian team was really close to winning the battle due to a weakness on our left corner.  I wrote a blog once citing this as a potential Achilles heal in gate defenses and was told in the comments section that it would never happen.  Oh, yes it does.  I see it happen all of the time, and it very nearly happened this time.

Essentially, if the defending team does not secure the far left corner, a right handed shieldman can push through it and get into the backfield.  As they pressed, I managed to kill the first fighter to come up by stabbing him in the belly.  The second one made it through and very nearly killed me.  I was saved by a decent spear defense (I blocked the first shot and then pressed my spear tip against his sword) and having Arundoor (a very experienced and highly talented melee fighter) come up and save me.  Had that corner fallen, the Atlantians may have been able to surround us, and considering that we had a lot of spears in the backfield, they may have been able to chop them down.

Left Picture:  4 spears up front.  Shields mixed in.  Spears in columns on the side
Right Picture:  Left most red shield threatens to break through corner.  White spear and shield deny.

Field Skirmish Maneuver

There was one maneuver that stood out in my mind.  I was part of a single death field skirmish that was about 7 on 7.  On my right was Sir Felix, who was probably the best 1v1 fighter on the field.  Across from him was Arundoor, who is an excellent melee fighter and though his 1v1 skills are quite good, he felt that the odds were not in his favor against Felix.  He even called out, "Okay, you guys are going to have to win this one.  I won't be able to help."

As I moved up, my initial thought was that Sir Felix may jump Arundoor, and I'd either stab him in the gut, or would threaten the stab allowing Felix easier attacks.  Arundoor saw this and countered by moving out to his left and getting to the outside of Felix.  This meant that if I moved in, it would pull me completely out of the main fight and I'd have to turn my back to the battle.  So, instead, I turned toward the rest of the fight hoping that Felix could at least keep Arundoor occupied.

After that, Treason, a newer fighter, yet a very fit, young, former marine, saw an opportunity to jump me and my wingman.  He came in so fast that my only chance to survive was to let him pass by, and then circle around him and turn back toward the battle front from the other side.  I'm usually very successful with this maneuver, but Arundoor was able to see it quickly and respond.  He made a move at Felix, threw a "safe shot," and then carried his momentum toward me and killed me before I could reestablish myself in the fight.  Maneuvers like this, as well as my maneuver, are mostly instinctual built from years and years of relatively unstructured melee practice.

See the pictures below for a play by play (all photos by Ursus):

Drexel Fight Practice: 3v5 restricted

Last night we had another great fight practice on the Drexel University campus in Philly.  We did two main battle types, both were 3v5 with the three most experienced fighters on the same team.  The team of 5 had four well trained melee fighters with 1-3 years of experienced each (consisting of 20-30 melee practices or events per year) and a fighter in his 3rd practice (with a bit of hema and fencing background). 


Fighting System

There are many different organizations that do some form of reenactment fighting.  Our main system is the SCA (rattan weapons & armor) but we've also done some Markland (rattan and foam weapons & some armor) as well as Daggorhir (foam weapons, no armor required).  When we created this practice last year, we ultimately chose to go with the Markland system because the lower armoring requirements made it easier to get new fighters suited up on the spot.  I currently have 5 spare helmets and enough hockey gloves, pads, etc. to get people into gear pretty fast (I even just finished making the Dick Flap of Shame for those who don't bring a cup).  Our original intention was to also have a foam only group, but we found that the skills did not transfer to the armored fighting very well, and that very few foam fighters were interested in armored fighting.

This year we made some significant changes.  Though we still use the Markland armoring and weapons system, we've changed to using SCA rules as we found that the Markland rules were creating some bad habits (different rules for engagement and hands are legal targets in Markland). 


Training Philosophy
We use a very different philosophy than most of what I have seen in the SCA.  We focus a lot of effort on making practices fun and give people the freedom and flexibility to try different things.  We do almost no drilling, but rather just run scenarios over and over again and let people experiment with different tactics, and then we discuss what worked, what didn't work, and why. 


Challenges of the 3v5

Again, we put all of the veterans on one team, and the least experienced fighters on the other team.  Normally when we do this, we'll shift fighters back and forth as needed.  Because of the low numbers in this scenario, we left ourselves the option to sit a fighter out if need be.  So if the 5 are overwhelming the 3, one of the 5 could sit out a fight to make it a 3v4.  Also of note, the field size was restricted (due mainly to out lighting situation) which prevents the three from being able to out maneuver the 5.  We may open the field a bit in future variations.

The red team figured out that they would be in bad shape if one of the veteran shields got into the backfield, so they did a good job of securing the flanks.  Spears on both teams tried to control the middle of the field.  The red spear's main job was not trying to get kills, but rather to neutralize the green spear (me).  Occasionally I'd try to make an attack against one of his teammates, and he was really good at countering getting quick kills on me on multiple occasions.  The red team also knew that if their spear died, they had no choice but to charge as they would be facing a veteran spear with no one to neutralize him.  Charging against 3 veterans may feel risky, but at least they'd have a chance.  If they did't charge, they had no chance.

In order for green to win, it is critical to get an early kill.  Usually the early kill would come from the spear, but occasionally one of the shields would find a weakness in the line to exploit. 

Red definitely won most of the battles (more than 2/3 if I remember correctly).  Whenever green won, it was generally because they were able to react more quickly than red once the fight broke down.  In those fights, often red would mount a charge and the green fighters would find a way to rotate out of the fight and to drag red into 1v1 fights. 

Hypothetical:  Green right flanker pivots to outside.  Green left flanker shoots
straight for the spear.  Green spear gets past red spear tip and
only has to defend against pole before reposting in the backfield.

In one case, green was down to a 1v3 and managed to pull out a win by pivoting off of a legged red fighter.

One thing I would have liked to have seen would be for red to charge immediately to overwhelm green.


3v5 Broken Field Battle

The other scenario we ran was a 3v5 broken field resurrection battle.  Those battles tend to play out similarly to the single death field battles, except that the pace slows down a bit, and instead of a straight up 3v5, it often gets broken down into a 1v2 and a 2v3.  Fighters on both teams of to constantly make small adjustments and implement small team tactics on the fly. 

The two most valuable lessons that come from these fights are:

1)  If you are down a fighter or two, you can always back up toward your rez point to reinforce more quickly.

2)  If they are down a fighter or two, you'd better jump on the opportunity, because it won't be long before they reinforce.


The Long View

The biggest benefit we get from these battles is simply a constant reinforcement of sound tactics.  Every time we do one of these scenarios, the team of new people start off losing, and then they get to the point where they are unbeatable.  This is a good thing, because it means that they are figuring out tactics on their own, and that they will take that knowledge to the battle field with them.  If they are constantly told what to do, where to stand, when to charge, etc. they only learn to do what they are told and nothing more.

As I said earlier, the biggest difference between the veterans and the newer fighters, is that the veterans can think more quickly on their feet.  That comes from years and years of experience of doing these kinds of battles.  If we can keep these battles fun, and keep fighters coming out, then the new fighters will gain that kind of experience as well.

Pell, Singles, and Melee Training - Finding the Right Balance

Before I started my blog on melee tactics I had a fairly popular "blog" (actually a location on a web forum with links) on run training for triathletes (I was a D1 collegiate distance runner and competed as a triathlete as an adult some time later in the early 00's).  While everyone understood that there needed to be a balance between swim, bike, and run training, they had the hardest time wrapping their head around the fact that there also needed to be a balance between different types of training, specifically fast and slow training.

The best analogy I had heard utilized a recipe for tomato sauce.

You begin with tomatoes and notice that it tastes a little bland, so you add some garlic and notice that garlic improves the taste.  Most athletes then assume that garlic is the best ingredient, get rid of the tomatoes, and dump a pile of garlic on their pasta.  When it doesn't taste very good, they simply add more garlic.

Likewise, if training specifically for the purposes of melee fighting, one must balance pell work to work on fundamental shot mechanics, singles fighting to learn how to put an opponent down quickly and effectively while also developing a solid defense, and melee fighting to learn how to work with other fighters.

I've heard more than a few people say that one needs only to work on singles (and/or pell work) and that it will all transfer into melee.  To those that firmly believe this, I have to ask what percentage of soccer, lacrosse, basketball, and hockey practices are spent working on singles skills?

Part of the inspiration for this post was noticing how quickly some of the fighters I've been working with have developed a great understanding of team work and the ability to think and react quickly, but then realizing that a couple of our fighters have done very little singles work and almost no pell work.  I found ourselves in situations where I couldn't leave a wingman for fear that he couldn't survive if a 1v1 engagement was thrust upon him against a good fighter, or that even in a 2v1 there were certain shots that were not available making it difficult to take down a high level fighter.

These are all in relative terms.  All of the fighters are doing great and have improved quite a bit, but I like to think about what the shortest pole in the tent is, currently.  As I once told a varsity basketball team I coached, "Today we will work on rebounding, not because you are bad at it, but because you have improved everywhere else such that this is now the weakest skill." 

The difficult part comes with figuring out how to get in the right balance.  If 10 people show up to the next practice, there is no way in hell I'm going to want to spend the day working on singles.  ;)



EDIT:  for those who may be curious, google The BarryP Plan and you will find a number of links to my running plans for triathletes.  Or you can probably just go to this one I found:

http://www.jasonmcgee.me/barryp/running.html