The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

So much of our melee training is based around what the unit does, how it moves, what commands cause the unit to do what.  At most, the individual’s training comes to, essentially, how to be a good little cog: “When the line runs right, be right on the ass of the guy in front of you” or “when in a line fight, don’t lunge.”  With our huge number of new fighters we sometimes end up asking the question “Why do all these people on the melee field suck so hard?”  The rough analogy I can come up with, though, is that we’ve only taught a fencer how to stand in guard and now are wondering why they suck on the tourney field.  In both cases, the fighters know where to stand and the right way to stand there, but not what to do from there.  If only I were in a position to do something about it…  Oh, wait, that’s right, I’m Wistric.  So I’m thinking of putting together a class on it.  As is my wont, I’m going to braindump here, get feedback, and tweak it, then go forward.  I’m working hard to not do the “Everybody knows what that means…” so some of it will be entry-level, some of it hopefully less so.

Duties of an Individual

There are some basic duties of all fencers, beyond the usual “Show up to muster on time, armed, and mostly sober”:

• Listen for commands and know what those commands mean.  Familiarize yourself with the ARA’s list of commands.
• Communicate information vertically (up the chain of command) and laterally (to your fellow fighters)
• Know the plan, the maneuvers involved, and how to execute them
• Know your chain of command, who your unit commander is, but also who’s their second in case they die.  Know who’s the next level up (regional commander or some such), and who’s in charge of Atlantia.
• Ask questions of your chain of command to fill in any gaps in the above information

See also Wistric’s Rules

Traits of an Individual

Any given fencer’s capacities on a melee field are the result of a combination of traits.  This boils down to the “character sheet” in D&D, or whatever it is that fantasy football guys have (is it just those player stats on the backs of the Topps cards that came with the shitty stick of gum in the pack?).  I’m trying to think of anything not on this list, but I think it’s fairly comprehensive:
Mobility – How fast can the fencer move around on the field (not just how fast can they run forward, but laterally and whatnot)
Perception – How much of the field do they see, understand, and track at any given time
Intimidation – How big are they, how mean do they look, and how much of a reputation do they carry
Defense – How hard are they to hit
Offense – If they want to hit you, how likely are they to succeed?
Intelligence – Not book smarts, but the mental acuity and skills needed in a combat situation.

Different combinations of these traits make fighters suited to different roles.

Take a for instance: Armand is high offense, Mattheu is high defense, and both are mobile guys who can keep track of what’s going on (Unless it’s wearing a big shiny helmet and standing right next to them).  They work really well together in an engagement and can stand up entire units because Mattheu shuts down the opposing line and Armand snipes into the openings made by fighters attacking Mattheu.

Roles of an Individual

Varying combinations and levels in these traits make fighters better at some roles on the field, of which there are three:

Pike: Fighting in the middle of a line.  Those guys who are either advancing to take ground together, or maintaining ground.  From a heavy fighter perspective, these are the sword-and-board, the guys who don’t get a lot of kills and who succeed by holding the ground and surviving.

Skirmish: Area denial and zone defense.  Flank guards and flank attackers fall into this category, and of course skirmish lines.  Usually highly mobile.

Cav: Super aggro heavy hitters that move forward quickly.

I think if we taught more to these than “this is run-the-right, this is how you do it” everything else would come pretty easily.  Most field maneuvers and situations are combinations of these roles.  Charge is “everybody’s cav”, Run right/left is “lead guy is cav, everybody is pike on the move, except for the guy at the other end, he’s kinda skirmish”, a killing cup is a big ass line of pike. Larger plans are still combinations of these: Hammer and Anvil is “Skirmish/Cav on one side, Pike on the other”.

Small unit engagement orders can also be turned in to “You two pike, you three skirmish left and right” or “You three cav straight at ‘em, you two go skirmish on flanks” and the context of the terms carries almost all of the useful information.  As a commander, having a good understanding of these roles and the traits of your fencers makes planning smoother, faster, and more effective.

In general new fighters will be Pike until they have a clue.  I think, though, that new fighters could just as easily be Skirmish.  They won’t be quite as good at the Air Traffic Control needed, but if they’re against equal opponents on the flanks, they won’t really need to be.  And, if a scholar is put against a White Scarf in Skirmish or in Pike, they’re probably toast.  Improving the Skirmish skills of our low-level fighters might be the quickest way we can improve Atlantia as a whole.

Skills of an Individual

There are, then, a whole bunch of specific skills that individual fencers have, or should have.  Some are more essential than others, some are more advanced than others or have more advanced levels of application.  I’ll try to list them from most essential/basic on up.  Feel free to chime in.  Remember, these are INDIVIDUAL skills.

Dressing a Line – When you come up to a line, falling into place so that you are not over-exposed to attack from the enemy, are still in a position to protect those on either side of you, and do not get in the way of their action (I hate when people fall in beside me and jostle my elbow).  You do this by making sure you can see your teammates shoulders or heads out of the corner of your eye.  If you can’t, you’re too far forward.  If you can see them with more than just the corner of your eye, you’re too far back.

This gets more difficult when the line begins moving.  Actually, it doesn’t get more difficult.  The same rules still apply. But people stop doing it.  Why, I don’t know.  But you end up with wavy lines and, when they impact the enemy line, they splash instead of slamming through.

Dying Out of the Way – In a line fight, a doorway fight, or any other sort of limited front, you need to die so that you don’t disrupt your own unit or the enemy unit.  No walking through densely packed lines of fighters.  If you walk through your own line, you give your enemy a tempo to attack the fighters on either side of you and then they die and your whole line gets destroyed.  If you walk through the enemy line, you’re a douche.  So you need to be able to die out of the way.

Usually I do this by taking a knee down AND TO THE SIDE (not just dropping where you stood).  You also need to be able to do this quickly: The longer you spend dying, the more you disrupt your line.  So “GOOD” and hit the ground.  Stay there until the marshals call you out or the fighting moves on.

Occupying Another Fighter – This is absolutely necessary.  If I see somebody breaking off and know that there’s a scholar over there opposing them, I will call “Scholar, you got that?”  If the answer is not yes, then our entire local unit has to reorganize.  So the answer needs to be yes.

This is also pretty easy.  People need killing.  It may not be your day to do the killing, and that’s alright.  It may be your day to keep the people looking at you so they don’t see Death coming up behind them in all his raiment.  If you can do that, then they die.  If you die in the process, then both sides break even, and nothing is achieved.  So, you need to be able to keep another fighter looking at you and thinking about you.  You do this by making lots of contact with their swords, without providing openings or over-extending in their measure.

If necessary, you talk to them.  I’ve watched Mattheu come up against another fighter and say, “Man it’s hot,” and the other fighter agree, and they strike up a conversation, and Aedan DFBs the other fighter.  Mattheu just had to keep that other fighter thinking about Mattheu, not about whatever danger was lurking in his backfield.  And it doesn’t even have to be that suave: at the first Tourney of Friends, Miguel ran up to a couple of enemies that I was flanking and yelled “I’M A DISTRACTION!”  They focused on him immediately, ignoring me in their backfield, batted his blades around, and I DFB’d.  Miguel won that fight for us.

Once you can do it with one, do it with two.  Now, you’re not just breaking even until the killing is done.  You’re removing an additional enemy fighter from the fight until somebody kills them.  This requires better positioning so you can beat both blades, a little more mobility so you can feint at their faces so they don’t think of wandering off and still get out of measure quickly, also better mobility so that if they decide to press you and finish it you can back up, and better defense.  Talking also helps here.  This is when Connor starts talking to a line, he wants them all paying attention to him.  If Connor is talking to you, either stab him, or stab the person behind you.

If you can occupy two, then do it with three.  I find maniacal laughter behind a line will get you three people’s attentions no matter what.  After that, move quickly and surprise as many people as you can, and enjoy being the fox chased by the hounds.

Dying Slowly and Resisting Pressure – To be able to hold ground you have to be able to stand in a spot and not die.  You don’t necessarily have to be able to kill, just stand there and not die.  If the order of the day is to hold ground, then, you turtle up: Go completely defensive, knock down or aside any incoming shots, and don’t initiate any attacks that might get you killed or disrupt your line.  If your opponent happens to attack you, you parry, and they run onto your sword, well, they’re dead.  Groovy.

You also need to be able to resist pressure while slowly giving ground in good order.  Often times this might be done as a way to keep an enemy unit occupied: Engage it with fewer fighters, and then let them slowly push you back to take the ground you were standing on.  As long as you have their attention occupied but are not dying, they are at a numerical disadvantage somewhere else.

Goal Awareness – Every fighter needs to be aware of their immediate goal (e.g. Stay on this spot and defend myself).  If you aren’t, ask your commander ASAP.

The next level up is being aware of the goal of the action (Why are you running the right, why aren’t you charging, etc).  If you know this, you’re in a position to take command if your commander dies and still give correct orders.

At the top end of the difficulty scale is knowing the goal of the battle.  Partially this is the win conditions, but also how the plans are intended to achieve those win conditions.  A good grasp of this goal means if you find yourself in command of a sub-unit, you know how your unit is incorporated into the overall goal and can choose the best action to contribute to that goal.

Doubling Out – Up to this point the list hasn’t actually included directly killing anybody.  Take a look at it again.  To an extent in melee “Death just happens.”  If you are making sure it doesn’t happen to you and are not jeopardizing your goal while staying alive, then death will happen to somebody else.  Somebody else will get sloppy and lunge onto a blade.  If your entire side is not getting sloppy, then it’s the enemy, they start to die and disintegrate, and then it’s cuirassiers among broken infantry time.

But sometimes somebody just has to die.  Maybe it’s the big scary White Scarf across the line from you who’s drilling holes in your friends.  Maybe it’s just some guy in the enemy’s killing cup that you’re trying to break.  Maybe you’ve got a two-on-one and you’d like to turn it into a one-on-zero.  Sometimes you just gotta kill some people.  And in a lot of those situations, it doesn’t really matter if you make it out alive.

Go 100% offense, don’t worry about defense, lunge and kill somebody, and take all of the stop thrusts to your ribs as compliments from your enemy that you scared them.

In a killing cup situation, if you’ve got more rezzes than the defenders, doubling out as quickly as possible means they will lose.  If you take time and worry about staying alive after killing somebody, you are dumb.  Kill, die, rez, repeat.
If there is a White Scarf across the line from you who needs killing, well, KILL THEM.  Are they more of a threat to your team than you are to theirs?  Then it’s worth the trade.

Any fighter, ANY FIGHTER, can kill me with a single tempo lunge in a melee, so long as they are lunging in measure and are willing to eat a sword in the face.  It may take some extra setup (making sure I’m distracted enough, for instance).
And if your commander says your job is to die with your sword in an enemy’s face, then guess what you’re doing.

Applying Pressure – This is the reverse of the “Resisting Pressure” trait: The ability to apply pressure physically and mentally such that an enemy is forced into a purely defensive position and, often, a retreat.  This is essential to move opponents off of ground they’re holding, for collapsing enemy lines, and countering offenses.

The how-to relates to how you occupy another fighter: Lots of contact with their swords and thrusts at their face.  But instead of keeping their attention, you need to make them feel threatened.  So instead of just sword contact, you press their swords offline.  Their normal response will be step back so they can disengage and re-establish their control.  Instead of just a thrust, you make a real feint at their face that makes them react.  Their usual response will be to step back to make sure they’re out of measure.  In both cases, you’ve just gained a step.  Do it again.  If you’re intimidating, this is easier.  If you’re not, you still have to do it.

At the top end this becomes steering your opponent: If you need to turn them, then when they step back, you step forward and to one side or another.  They turn to face you head on.  Now you can push them in this new direction.  You can use it for good (Steer them away from a tree) or evil (Steer them into your teammates).

Field Awareness – This is a big complex mess of multiple traits that all contribute to, as you might guess, how aware you are of what’s happening on the field.

The first part of this is peripheral vision.  We’ve already talked about this a little bit with dressing the line.  Peripheral vision is everything you can see that’s not in your front 90 degrees or so (so, yeah, half the field is in your peripherals, and you can be attacked from there).

Peripheral vision lets you not just make sure you’re in line, but also watch all three opponents across from you.  You may be looking at the guy directly across from you, but if you’re defocused ever so slightly so you can pick up on the motion cues you can also be aware of what the other two guys are doing and react.  Also tracking these peripheral motion cues keeps you aware what your teammates are doing (If the guy next to you has just lunged, you know somebody’s going to counter-lunge and you can be hitting that person; or if he kills the person across from him and proceeds through the gap you can follow).  Peripheral vision, therefore, gives you awareness of the field within maybe ten feet of you, one person in each direction (not including your backside).

To extend beyond that, you need to start doing quick scans of your surroundings.  When you’re not immediately threatened (your opponent has just died or you have their weapons controlled) take a quick glance left and right.  This will build out to maybe three people down the line from you, fifteen feet or so.  It provides a snapshot of the local situation: Are you outnumbered or do you outnumber them?  Are we pushing forward or are we being pushed forward?

The more advanced version of these quick checks involves making sure you’re safe, leaning back a little, and looking all around you, including the backfield.  This expands your awareness out to twenty five feet or so.  But it also makes you really vulnerable (if a White Scarf is across from you and looking away, lunge).  So it must be done quickly, and when you’re protected.

We now have ways to take quick snapshots of our surroundings.  But what happens when we aren’t scanning?  Do we just hope things are staying the same?  Well, first we need to have a mental map of the field.  You develop this when you’re coming back from rez: Look at the entire field, where you are, where your line is, where the enemy line is, and what units are in motion (coming back from rez or changing position).  Every time you do a scan, you’re updating that mental map. But the scans and glances aren’t the only data that feeds into this mental map update.

Looking past your opponents to see what’s happening in their backfield will help you track the flow of the battle.  Are a lot of their fighters going back to rez?  We must be pressing at the point they’re coming from.  Are a lot of their fighters coming back from rez?  We’re going to get pressed wherever they’re headed.  Is a particular fighter coming back (I *always* track Benjamin when he’s coming back from rez, since he tends to immediately go into our backfield)?

Listen for commands being yelled in other parts of the battle.  If somebody’s yelling fall back on our side, things may be going poorly.  If somebody yells that somebody’s in our backfield, things are definitely going poorly.  If you hear somebody yelling “Step” then we’re pressing.  Even the orders yelled and fighters across from you can give away what’s happening elsewhere (If they start pulling back, then their line is getting pressed somewhere).

All of this becomes my Air Traffic Control display (or, if you’re an FPS player, this is the In-Game Map), a mess of dots on my mental map moving around each other in patterns inferred from what I can see and hear.  The quick scans check the inference against reality.

Now for how to think up how to train these…