The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

Saturday saw the return of one of my favorite events.  Last year it was cancelled, the year before that was a nearly pointless slug-fest in the rain, but the year before that was frickin’ awesome, and so, too, did this year set out to be awesome, with a single phrase: full day of woods melee.  That might actually be two phrases, with the prepositional phrase tacked on to an incomplete initial phrase (probably should read “a full day of woods melee”) but you get the gist.

Training Session

In follow-up to my thoughts after Defending the Gate, I planned out a quick training session for the scholars at the event.  For the first time in a long time there were actually more scholars at the event than Provosts and Free Scholars combined (probably somewhere around a 30/10/10 breakdown).  The MiC was very supportive, and basically ordered all scholars to attend.  So before all the fighting started, we all trotted over to the field and I did a quick “who’s fought in just one melee event?  Two?  Three?”  At three, there were 10 hands up, and I considered that a good dividing line.  Three melees doesn’t really even begin to get the brain clicking, so I put those ten against another ten, and the third ten were spectating.  Guys like Jean-Maurice and Armand really don’t need that training, but they hung out and listened.  Alric, Celric, and Ilaria were there and contributing as well.

I was using the Cheat Sheet, filtered to the situation (no killing cup discussion, none of the more advanced issues like Threat Assessment), and running through it at top Energetic Wistric speed.  We only had about 20 minutes, so I didn’t bother with masking up and getting weapons, but instead just did some quick fighter mime discussing each of the major topics to hit, how to not end up standing on each others’ codpieces, and so on.  It worked pretty well: On the field the scholars were not nearly as clumsy in their interactions as before, and I was able to chuck a unit of five scholars at a flank of our line and have them hold it pretty darn well. There was still an unfortunate level of “Scrum Deafness”, with fighters focusing in on their opponent so much they did not hear essential communications, like “Fall back!” and ended up dead. Not yet sure how to work that out of a fighter.

Back at my brother’s house, I had a bit of a think about ways to work unit cohesion, team awareness, and whatnot.  I’m going to test this out on Thursday, but I think doing footwork drills in line and in column, with a silent leader (meaning “Watch the guy next to you”), and rotating the leadership around, may produce good benefits.  To make it even more complicated, I think I’ll throw in a “When your right foot moves first, attack to the right and then the left, and vice versa” and then flip it (right foot moves first = attack left then right).  We shall see.

The Setup

The scenario for the day was to have 1/3rd of the fighters attempt to push through the other 2/3rds, to deliver “treasure” to the defenders’ backfield.  The attacking team would consist of 1/3rd of the provosts, 1/3rd of the Free Scholars, and 1/3rd of the scholars.  Then the roles would switch (the 1/3rd would defend while the 2/3rds attacked).  This would be run three times, with three different leaders picking the attacking team each time.  Connor commanded first, I went second, and Alric went third.

Conventions for the day were no DFB, no rezzes, the front 180 was defined by the ears, and armor was as worn.

The attacking team started at one end of the path through the woods.  This led along the top of a ridge before splitting into multiple paths, all of which travelled down hill through a series of level, relatively clear areas, until reaching a large flat area at the bottom where the treasure was to be delivered.  The gullies on either side of the entry path were off limits, but after the split there was very little terrain that was not free for the fighting over.

The First Run

Celric took the left flank of the defenders, Master Robert took the right, and we advanced to just below where the paths split.  Celric and Robert had mis-understood the terrain to the left of our position to be offlimits.  I anchored our far left, and watched as Dom, Dante, Armand, and a fourth fighter from the attacking team moved around our left flank.  “Oh lord marshal,” says Celric, “Are they out of bounds?”  “Yes,” says lord Marshal, “Don’t worry about them.”  So we didn’t.  Until we got jumped from behind by Dom, Dante, Armand, and The Fourth.  I learned a lesson, a little while ago, that the Marshal is Always Right.
My reaction to this sudden change in the rules, even after confirmation by the marshal, was one of mild annoyance.  This situation, of “oh wait the rules are not what the marshal just told you”, has in the past led to certain amounts of mask hang time.  Not so much this time, but it did result in Baby-Kicking Wistric mode as I walked off field.    I have a small rule for marshals: Don’t fucking change the rules mid-fight.  And if you’re MiC, make sure your marshals know the goddamn rules.

This level of ire, even two days later, surprises me.  There’s a very deep-seated insistence on fair play in my mind, that I’m not yet able to suppress.  I’m not sure I want to be able to do that.  Yes, “all’s fair in war”, but this isn’t war.  It’s just a goddamn game.  If I wanted the sheer unfairness of war, I’d go shave my beautiful hippie locks, join the Marines, find out all about DADT after hours in the barracks, and have panic attacks every time a car backfired around me.  This is a game, same rules for everybody.  Yes, I advocate a policy of “everything not prohibited by the rules is not prohibited,” but it’s still the same damn rules for everybody.

An additional element of stress was that the team Connor picked was fairly thoroughly stacked: Almost all the scholars who had armor and heaters came pouring down the hill at us at the head of their column.  A good 50% (not 35%) of the provosts were on the attacking team, and I believe 50% if not more of the Free Scholars.  The selection of the team was by no means random, either.  Connor’s no dummy, afterall.  Which meant that what we had the rest of what’s left to oppose them.  Kind of sucked.  Big time.

We switched roles, and the Now Defending team pretty thoroughly stopped us.  Not hard to see why.

The Second Run

This time I was to be the one picking the team.  And I really didn’t want to.  There was no reason for me to do anything other than say “All you fighters who were with Connor, you’re with me.  Connor, you are, too.”  I signed on to a bit of fun fighting, not to give the finger to half of the fighters at the event and bring back to mind all of their fondest memories of being picked last for kickball.  I really try not to be a total bastard to my fellow man, and did not feel very happy to be in the position of “Face humiliating defeat, or nard-kick half the scholars who you really want to have come back and fight again.”

I discussed my concerns with Connor, who discussed his concerns with the MiC, who came up and said “Don’t pick all the same people that Connor did.”  To which my knee-jerk thought was, “You’re asking me to save your ass from a stupidly thought out event setup?  Save your own ass.”  But I did not say this.  I picked slightly different provosts and free scholars, and then did a geographic divide of the scholars and took the 14 closest to me on up the trail.

Halfway up to the starting point the MiC said “Hey, let’s actually count the teams this time” and discovered that my numbers, being a Provost and a FS less than Connor’s, were still a Provost and an FS above the 35% mark, along with three scholars too many.  So I sent back a provost and FS, and then looked around for three scholars.  There were three standing right next to me, two that I would be glad to be rid of and one (Joe) that I wanted on my side.  But, again wishing to minimize the amount of blatant nard-kicking, I did a “you three, back down the hill”.  At that point I believe I put my mask down.  I was feeling awful damn grumpy.

We attacked and, now deprived of the numerical equality and skill surplus that Connor had, were not as successful.  Our runner got the treasure to about a foot away from the destination, but that was the high water mark.

In defending, I had thought of forming a killing cup at the end of the entry path, before the attackers could break off, thereby nullifying their numerical advantage.  But my team was pretty spent, and hiking back up the hill was not high on our list of priorities, so we stayed further down the trail and slugged it out as they came in.  The assault was a column charge, led by two ranks of armored fighters, which was really damn effective.  Our archers were lobbing arrows into the middle of the column and thinning it out, but the column charge itself managed to push forward and keep us busy long enough for their runner to break through a gap and deliver the treasure.

Overall

Despite my grumpiness, the actual fighting was pretty good.  I do love the woods.  Sweetums said “You run through the woods?  I can’t imagine that.  I’d run into a tree and kill myself.”  That’s pretty much why I like the woods: because I CAN run through them and not kill myself, which is a skill set more rare than I’d originally suspected.  My ankle and shins aren’t thanking me for it today, but damn I love the woods.

The armor-as-worn was a really interesting twist.  I wish I’d incorporated it in my tactics more.  Also, I let the goal slip out of my planning way too much, which cost us pretty bad (should have had a defender or two held back to intercept the runner).

It was the first test that I’ve seen of the new minimalist interpretation of the engagement and 180 rules, and it went fairly smoothly, except for one brother free scholar who thought he should have been able to see me before I could strike.  It’ll take time for this standard to soak in.  I’ll be taking Dante’s advice regarding WotW and advertising the hell out of the conventions well beforehand.

Pickups

During pickups, Joe sought out some teaching from Dante, and I worked with Adam, Joe’s friend down from Pennsylvania.  Dante and Joe played spectator, talking about my fighting style, and afterward Dante described it as “Percy from the waist up, Alejandro from the waist down”.  Maybe.  At the time I couldn’t put my finger on why I’ve set aside the plan of a permanently back-weighted stance.  But in the shower that evening I figured it out: I dislike the idea of being committed to an action from the start.  An evenly weighted stance can do anything, which, when initiating an action is where I prefer to be.
I am working, however, at incorporating weight distribution into my movement plan: having decided on a direct lunge attack, my advance into range should end back-weighted and lead to an immediate lunge.  Or, if passing instead, it should end front-weighted with an immediate pass to attack.

Leeeeeeeroyyyyyyyyyyyy

Sunday, though a day taken to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ by most of my friends and family, saw me sitting on my brother’s couch.  I’m a humanist at my most maudlin, more often a scientific determinist.  I watched a bit of an old sci-fi movie, and after the climactic showdown between Agent Cooper and that guy who didn’t want Roxeanne to put on the red dress, I was flipping through channels and saw what has the potential to be the most excellent show on television: Leroy Jenkins Ministries.  Rather than actually watch it, I have chosen to believe that it is basically a half hour of camera footage of a drunk frat boy leading an entire congregation in wild-ass charges into and out of various settings.  “This week on Leroy Jenkins Ministries, Carlsbad Caverns.”  “Leeeeroyyyyyy!  -oyyy -oyyy -oyy…”  “Next week, the Grand Canyon.”  “Leeeeeroooyyyyyyyyyy *thud*”