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.

A Short Drill on Training Up Your Spears (with video)

 Hey all,

Here's a short video on a 3V3 spear practice that we did twice recently.  I'll keep my comments here short, but in a nutshell, units with well trained spears tend to be very deadly units in most scenarios.  Any chance you get to fight 3v3 with only spears is a great opportunity to improve your game.  The biggest complaint I have with spear fighters is that the vast majority of them only fight with a spear at war.

Anyway, enjoy!

P.S.  If interested in doing more with a spear, see my SCA Spear Tutorial playlist on Youtube LINK

Fighting When You've Lost a Limb

Hey all,

It's been a while.  I've been working out and doing my pell work, but no practices nor melees during the pandemic, so not much to blog about.  However, I recently read a few melee documents from various sources and one thing jumped out at me that I wanted to comment on.

I recently read a suggestion that said if you lose your sword arm to attempt to block shots for other fighters.

Okay.......where to begin?  This is kind of a complicated topic because it isn't so much about what the correct strategy is, but rather about a larger philosophy about what it means to be a melee fighter.

If you view fighters, in general.......no, strike that.  If you view fighters, even the ones who have taken the time to read large text documents and watch videos on how to fight in a melee as nothing more than fodder for commanders to push in a given direction while keeping them motivated enough to pass their morale check, then sure, tell them that they can still be useful fighters once they've lost an arm by blocking shots targeted at other fighters.  That will keep them in the front line a little bit longer, and then once they die they'll feel like they were useful in some manner.

It's my opinion, however, that if a fighter is taking the time to read a document about melee fighting, then they are actually looking for information that will help them graduate past the fodder stage (at least that's always been the intention of my blog posts).

With that said, if I have people in the back ranks with swords, the last thing I want is a weaponless fighter hogging a spot on the front line (exceptions, of course, given to fighters that are so good that they are more useful without a weapon than your typical non-wounded fighter is with a weapon).

So what should you do if you lose an arm?

- Get out of the way of someone who is more useful than you.  If you are in a spot where a killer can kill, then let the killer have your spot.

- You can stay in the back and stay alive.  Large units are intimidating.  The enemy doesn't need to know that you can't kill them.  Be another body on the field.  Who knows, you might be the last person alive at the end of the fight.  Or maybe you were just one person too many for the other team to decide to charge at the flag.

- Be a distraction.  If there is some space in an open field, make yourself bait.  Make people think about coming after you to attack instead of killing your archers or spears.

- Be an extra pair of eyes and a voice on the flanks or in the back.  Watch and make sure the enemy isn't getting into your backfield.  If they are, announce it to your troops and your commanders.  Worst case scenario, you get some useful experience learning how troops move and what constitutes a weakness.

- Be an obstacle or a body shield provided you aren't getting into an ally's way.  Don't try to "block a shot" aimed at your friend.  Slam into the person who is throwing the shot and knock them off balance.

- Lead a charge.  Most charges result in lots of chargers dying.  Volunteer to be in the front of this charge.  You may not be able to swing a weapon, but you can throw your body at the enemy, and if the enemy is going to respond by hacking apart all of the people deep in their ranks, better they attack you than an un-wounded friend.

- Sacrifice yourself by throwing your body at another fighter, making both of you fly over a straw bale and off the side of a bridge.

One of my most useful moments after losing an arm was in a fight in a corn maze.  We were getting picked apart by archers and spears.  I lost an arm as did my buddy.  We looked at each other and said, "are you ready?  Lets do this."  We both yelled, "Charge!!!" and the two of us were the first people into the fray.  He threw his body into two shieldmen and pushed them into the corn.  I cut off two spears and held one in the corn.  We both died, but our un-wounded fighters wiped out the rest of the enemy.

All of those options are better than "blocking shots aimed at a friend."  More often than not, you are just getting in their way.  Yes, there are times when this works, but those tend to be rare.

Hey, I get it, sometimes the best strategy is to just send a large mass of untrained troops at the enemy, and everyone needs to do their job.  But lets be honest and tell the adults that have signed up to fight with you that that is what they are doing to help our side win, while also giving them the tools to graduate toward more effective roles in the army.

My two cents, your milage may vary.  Can't wait to hit someone soon!!!





Bari of Anglesey is a tool who only craves attention, but he doesn't take himself too seriously and sometimes has something useful to say, so he's not so bad.

Estrella Bridge Battle - Integrating Different Weapon Types into a Static Line

Hi all,

I came across a video that I thought was the perfect illustration of what is commonly seen in static line battles.  I'm going under the assumption that it would be okay to use this video as it was made public on social media, and my apologies if I assumed incorrectly.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=300333730939038

Note:  sometimes parts of this video get fuzzy when I watch it, but usually the entire video is pretty clear.

What Can You Learn From a Video of a Battle You Didn't Witness?

Not a whole lot, actually. 

There are a lot of things that can happen in a battle that determine how the tactics play out.  Is the commander dead or alive?  What is the objective?  Are you there merely to serve as a distraction?  Are you taking it easy on the other side because they haven't won a battle yet?  Are you letting ineffective fighters on the front line because they need to have fun as well?  Is it hot?  Are you using a cohesive unit of well trained fighters, or is it the rabble that was left over from the attrition?  Etc.


Then Why Talk About the Video?

Even though we don't really know what is going on, we can still use the video to illustrate some hypotheticals.  Use it as a thought experiment for what you would do in similar situations and what kinds of decisions you would make.  You might even draw different conclusions than I would, and that's perfectly okay.  No one has all of the answers, but we can all work toward more informed decision making.


Initial Impressions

Let's begin with a screen shot.

So there are a few things I noticed, not just from this screenshot, but from the footage of the video. 

- People seem to care about winning the battle based on the yelling I hear and the intensity of the fighting

- It appears to be a single death battle based on the fact that the lines look like they are thinned out and the fact that calibration seems to be above average.  There are also a lot of people standing around on the perimeter who are not fighting, so I assume they have been killed.

- It appears to be late in the battle as the lines look thin, there are lots of dead people on the sides, and there seems to be a below average level of unit cohesion.


Weapons Mix

The front line of the unit on the left appears to have 7 spears, 2 shields, and one pole axe.  It looks like at this point in the battle that they have thinned out enough that they don't have much choice in what they are fighting with as the second rank looks fairly sparse.  If they wanted to, for example, set up a shield wall on the front line, I don't think they'd have enough shields to do so.

The unit on the right appears to have a couple more shields in the front line and maybe one or two fewer spears.  They also seem to have enough fighters in the second and third ranks to fight with whatever they'd like.

There does not appear to be any archery, throwing weapons, or artillery.


Do You Want More or Less Shields on the Front Line?

Answer:  That entirely depends....

So in a nutshell, all else being equal, the more spears you have on the front line, the better you are going to fight a static battle.  The more shields you have on the front line, the more prepared you will be at executing a charge and repelling a charge.  A line with more shields will also be better at a slow advance as a line with more spears needs to maintain a gap of 10-11 feet, so every step forward from the former results in a step back from the latter.

In this example, it actually looks like the unit on the right is more interested in taking ground than killing, so they have a few more shields in the mix and are pushing toward the end of the bridge.  If they can break through the end of the bridge, they can possibly wipe out this thin line with their higher numbers and get into the backfield of another bridge, giving their side a big advantage on that bridge.

The unit on the left, by contrast, has little choice but to try to kill more fighters on the opposing side to try to nullify the numbers advantage. 

In battles like these, I used to be a huge advocate for having only spears on the front line.  A few things have happened in the last decade or so in the East and Atlantian kingdoms that has changed my mind.  One is that they have moved away from a front of mostly shields to more of a mix, which gives them a good balance of charging power while also fending off spears.  The other is that a lot of the bridge battles have moved toward timed control point battles rather than attrition battles, which takes some of the advantages away of a front line full of spears.  The reason being that a line full of spears may kill more, especially if adept in collapsing into a kill pocket when absorbing a charge, but they are not very good at holding or gaining ground.


Weaknesses in the Line

Another screen shot later in the battle:




At this point in the battle, it appears the left unit had realized that they were not strong enough to hold their position on the bridge, so they pulled back off the end of the bridge.  This is often what we call "capping the bridge."  Essentially that means to create an arc from one corner to the other on the end of the bridge, forcing the other side to fight in a kill pocket where the left unit can get more spears into the fight with better angles of attack. 

This is not the prettiest of kill pockets, again probably because it is a collection of whatever fighters were still alive near the end of this battle, but they do appear to have the most critical pieces covered.

The blue arrow at the top points to the most critical potential weakness in a capped bridge.  The smallest of gaps in that position can allow a line of right handed shields push through the gap and into the back field.  Placing a shieldman in this spot (like they have) shores up that critical corner.  A spear or a pole can also stand in that position, giving them a good angle to stab into the open side of a charging shield, but they must be backed up by a strong shieldman so that they don't get run over.

The blue arrow on the bottom of the picture shows the next most critical weakness.  In this case they have a spearman in that position, which can be dangerous if the right team wishes to punch through, but the left team has that spot solidly backed up by at least two shields.

The middle blue arrow shows the third most critical spot, which is a potential weakness in the middle of the line.  The key here is to make sure that after you've shored up both corners, that you don't leave the middle so thin and without shields and poles backing it up, that a group of shields can punch right through it and into the backfield.


Why Were There No Shield Charges?

From the perspective of the unit on the left, they didn't really have the shields to spare.  Keep in mind, a charge doesn't win the engagement, rather it resolves the engagement more quickly.  Sometimes the resolution is to the advantage of the unit that initiates the charge, but sometimes it isn't.  It is possible that the unit on the left could have quickly brought all of its shields to the front and mounted a charge.  It's even possible that due to the greater proportion of spears in the front rank of the unit on the right (once the left brings its shields up) that the left would have killed more fighters than they would have taken in casualties, but it is my belief that the casualties that they would have taken would have left them with too few fighters to hold the bridge, thereby leading to a fallen bridge more quickly.

From the perspective of the unit on the right, they may have been able to mount a charge and might even have been in a good position to do so.  There are a few factors that may have prevented it:

- No single coordinated unit to pull it off
- They are tired
- There is a risk that it won't work
- They look to be winning the bridge anyway, so why take a risk
- No one thought it was a good enough idea to take the initiative to call the charge knowing that they could be responsible for a failed charge and the loss of the bridge
- A lack of leadership (maybe the commanders were dead)


Final Thoughts

The whole goal of this post was not to give tactical answers to a situation on a bridge, but rather to understand why bridge battles often play out the way that they do.  I find that often times commanders and tacticians in the SCA view fighters like they view miniatures in a table top game.  By that I mean that they imagine that they can send a command down to the fighters, and that the fighters will all implement the command as intended. 

In reality, fighters are going to have natural tendencies that they'll follow, and as a commander one needs to understand what those tendencies are and how much those tendencies can be overcome.  Truth be told, a lot of what I wrote above only applied to a portion of the fighters in the video.  There were likely a number of fighters who did what they did purely because they wanted to fight and managed to work their way to the front line, regardless of whether or not taking a spot on that line was to the benefit of their side.

Black Lance Melee Practice - Some Thoughts...

We had a great melee practice in NJ this weekend hosted by Sir Klaus and his house, Carpathia.  We did a lot of drills on the day that helped build aggression and quick decision making on the field, which I'll list below, but I wanted to speak specifically to how the tactics played out in out 10v10 field battles and some of the benefits of the scattered fighters battles.

Drills/Scenarios on the Day

- Marching in a block and following basic commands
- 10v10 single death field battles
- 5v5 single death field battles with pairs of units joining into the fights at random times
- Hold the objective unlimited rez battle (warnings called at 30s and at 5s)
- Single death field battles with scattered fighters

Field Battles

We split up into our normal units and fought five 10v10 (plus or minus) single death field battles.  One side contained a more typical mix of fighters which was, I believe, fairly shield heavy, while our side contained four shields, four spears, and two poles.  We won all five battles pretty decisively.  (Note, I got my butt kicked a lot that day, but we did well in these battles).

I had asked all of the knights who watched the battles what they thought the deciding factors were, and their answers bogged down to simply our side had more experience and were more decisive in our movements.

So what does that mean?

Well, for starters, I would never want to go into a field battle of this size with only four shields.  In general, the smaller the battle and the more quickly it resolves, the more and more shields have an advantage.  The larger the battle and the longer it takes to resolve, the more and more spears have an advantage.  Spears also tend to have an advantage in static battles, where shields have the advantage in mobile battles.  Now this doesn't mean that you should ever have only shields in one situation and only spears in another, but that the mix of weapons will move in one direction or another.  So having said that, I think we won the battles despite having what would generally be considered an inferior weapons mix.

What did the spear team do?

Fan out, move quickly, and attack with ferocity.  A team full of shields in this context is a hammer looking for a nail to hit.  A unit full of spears isn't even a nail.  Its a grape, easily splattered by a hammer of just about any ability level.  So the spear team needs to move fast and lose, and use their feet to avoid getting run over by shields.  The battle can only be won if multiple fighters team up on smaller groups of fighters, get a quick kill, and then move on to the next fighter.

The best play that the shield team probably had would have been to pick a collection of fighters and commit to running right through them.  I believe they did this on the fifth battle, and it was their best showing.  Its certainly not the only way to win with shields, but given the experience levels of both sides, it would likely give them their best chance.

On an interesting note, 6 of us on the winning team were in very similar situations just a few years ago where we were on the losing team and lost in similar fashion.  The biggest piece, in my opinion, is less tactical and more about gaining good experience to be able to make decisions quickly on the field.

Scattered Fighters Battles

This was a drill that was put together by Sir Ryu of Ironskies.  These were fun, and I think an excellent way to train fighters to win battles like shown above.  We had two teams and were individually scattered around the field in a giant circle facing outward.  When lay on was called, we had to figure out how to join up with our teammates and win the battle.





The key to these battles was finding teammates quickly, finding advantages quickly, finding people to hit quickly, and getting out of bad situations quickly.  I really liked this drill and I think it teaches all of the right melee instincts that I think get lost in a lot of kingdom practices.

I do want to incorporate this into some of the practices that we run.  However, I think we accomplish a lot of the same goals with two other scenarios that we consistently run:

Limited rez broken field battles - this allows people to make the same kinds of decisions, but at a slower pace which allows some of the newer fighters to wrap their heads around the kinds of tactical decisions that they are making.

2v2 endless rez battle - We do these when we have 5-6 fighters.  We begin with a 2v2 and a person waiting at the rez point.  As soon as someone dies, they go to the rez point and form a new team of 2 and immediately enter the battle.  This continues continuously until people are too tired to fight.  It teaches you to work with another person, think quickly, and fight tired.

Anyway, that's all.  Looking forward to the next fight!