I will admit to a certain amount of merit badging. I was a Boy Scout, I have an ingrained desire to want that little circle to sew on my sash. In the SCA, that’s generally called “chasing the cookie”. And, depending on who you ask, it can be bad. But, from the moment you set foot on the melee field, the cookie is your world. In this case, the cookie is The Goal. Don’t let anybody get between you and the cookie. If somebody does, you kill ‘em. If somebody tries to distract you from your cookie, ignore them. You run that cookie down and you eat it, ‘cause it is yummy Tollhouse goodness straight out of the oven. And that’s enough of that metaphor.
Know the Goal
The first step is, of course, actually knowing what the goal is, either for your entire army, or your particular unit.
If everything’s gone right, then your commander has come over and told you exactly what the goal you are pursuing is. She’s been told by the person above her, and so on. Not only has she told you the goal, but your part in achieving it, and the steps you will take (this is generally referred to as “Orders”).
If your commander does not tell you the goal, ask. If he does not know, get a new commander. Probably it should be you.
Varieties of Goals
There are two types of goals: Unit goals, and victory conditions. You should know both for your melee, whether you’re the commander or a grunt.
Unit goals are going to be tasks assigned to your group of doughty warriors. “Crush that unit there” or “Stay that part of the line” are unit goals. And, if you obey them, you’ve done your job. If you stay that line, and don’t go chasing after every single fighter on the field, you get a gold star.
Of course, winning the battle also requires knowing how to win the battle (Did I blow your mind, dude? Probably not): Know the victory conditions. Is it a capture the flag? Is it a Kill ‘em All and Let Spike Sort ‘em Out? Is it a Keep Them Out of the Castle as Long as Possible?
And, of course, how does your unit goal support the overall victory? Are you holding a flag so the enemy can’t take it, or attacking the enemy’s flag so you can steal it back? Are you just standing in No Man’s Land dying slow and disrupting any concerted charge against the flag?
Use Your Judgment
So there are sometimes that your unit goal and your victory conditions might not jibe. You may have the opportunity to make a run on the flag, whereas your unit is back defending your flag. You may be coming back from rez point and see that, while your unit is headed for the flag, your team’s flag is getting pressed hard. So what do you do?
If nobody’s playing traffic cop (yelling “You, go there! You, go that way!”), you have to choose where you would be most useful. Be ready and able to say evaluate the situation, and have confidence in your own ability to decide. Choose based on the needs of your team, not your own glory, and your choice will be at the least understandable. If somebody disagrees with your choice and gets in your face, you can always fall back on “Well, I didn’t see you playing traffic cop”. Of course, if you really screw up, you may just have to clam up and apologize.
Examples of Victory Conditions
Castle/Gate Battles: Almost always, these are timed to see how long it takes the attacking team to capture the castle. The whole attacking army generally has a single goal that boils down to “Charge and die” if there’s rez, or “Don’t die” if there’s not. The defending army’s goal is, inevitably, “die slow”.
Seize the Flag: This shows up in field battles, woods battles, bridge battles, town battles, whatever. Seize the flag, surround it with your forces, and keep the enemy away.
Bring Back the Thingie: This can be a flag, a “bag of gold”, or any number of other things. You go out, you grab it, you bring it back to rez, you keep the other team from grabbing it and kill them if they get it.
Kill them all: Kill them all. Don’t die.
Kill specific person: Usually the enemy commander or some other “special person”. Why waste time on the peons?
Story Time with Wistric
The second time I went to Pennsic, the first battle of the war was the rapier town battle. The day before, the Provost General gave us the plan, as handed down from the East: Atlantia was going to take it up the ass while the East grabbed all the bags of gold in the town. What it boiled down to was Atlantia running like hell to form a line across the entire town to stand in the way of the Midrealm rushing into the town. Once formed in line, we would kill the Mid and prevent them from getting to the gold. Pretty simple, if painful to consider.
Well, we pulled it off beautifully. And lost. We killed them all, and the East totally failed to grab the gold. There was some discussion of whether dead Midrealmers were taking the gold back to rez (dead people heading back to rez and live people heading back to rez don’t look much different), but really, living Easterners should have had it. The Atlantians were doing their job, keeping the backfield mostly blocked off. Unfortunately, the entire East army forgot about the goal and wanted to go kill Midrealmers. *headdesk*
The breakdown in the execution of that plan happened well away from Windmasters Hill, yes, but the difference between the win and loss could have been a handful of Atlantians keeping an eye on the gold and, if it was getting snatched, acting to stop that directly. Next time… next time.
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