On strategy, decision making and design decisions

 I got into a conversation yesterday that about blew my mind.  I started with a simple premise, which is that the value of a formation depends on the assumptions that you've made about the field that formation is fighting in.  That a formation is only good or bad based on the context it's used in.  Then I spent about 3 hours defending that statement from a person who said "I agree with you" and then talked for 20 minutes about how I was wrong.  So rather than run circles in my own head trying to parse their logic, let me just lay this out instead for everyone else's benefit.  Perhaps you'll benefit from that discussion more than they did.

Strategy

The lead in to the whole conversation was a course on small unit tactics taught by the venerable Sir Kyrian Hawksword.  Everything he said I pretty much agreed with though I often phrase the same concepts differently.  But the main sticking point in the conversation I got into afterwards was a fundamental concept of what is strategy?  From my own perspective, and especially if you've read my post on Doing Math, then you know it's about finding ways to respond appropriately to your situation.  If you have a local advantage because you have better numbers, more experience or advantageous gear then you aggressively push your advantage.  If you have a disadvantage then you find ways to mitigate it by doing things like giving up ground as slowly as possible or trying to take actions that make your situation better.  That might mean legging a fast opponent, it might mean sacrificing a person to take out a polearm, there are all sorts of examples.  There isn't really a "right" strategy because it all hinges on context.  While being inactive and waiting for your opponent to come to you is generally not something I'd advise because it's usually better to be proactive, if your context is that you're defending a point that's walled in then that's exactly what you SHOULD do.  So even thoughts about strategy that apply pretty generally are not absolute.

Decision Making

Over the course of the fight you do have to make some decisions which means that whether or not you're choosing to you're actively exercising SOME strategy.  Even the decision to sit in one place and wait to do something is a strategy that has some benefits and some drawbacks.  In web development we call decisions that you've made design decisions.  It means that knowing that you can't optimize for every conceivable case with one design layout so you choose what audience or what case you've designed your experience for to make it the best possible experience for that audience/case.  Fighting works the same way.  No serious strategy is universally applicable which means you're choosing to optimize for some specific case.  When you're able to cause that case to happen then your strategy (usually) works and when you can't cause that case to happen then you've placed yourself at disadvantage.  

As two sides of one example, say you have 2 shields and a spear working together.  That group can make one of two primary design decisions if they're in the center of the line.  They can either, be aggressive, having the shields and the spear make coordinated attacks against front line targets to try and clear them quickly OR the shields can be largely defensive while the spear attempts to work over the people it out ranges.  Being aggressive is a high risk, high reward strategy.  If you're successful you'll punch through the enemy line quickly because of the aggression.  However if you're unsuccessful then you'll collapse your OWN line because once your shields fall that polearm becomes easy pickings.  The defensive option is good because it is LOW risk.  While you may not clear people very fast, the shields are in little danger from anyone except other polearms, and the fact that they're focused on defense gives the spear they're protecting a high degree of cover to operate as well.  There are other considerations like the skill level of your fighters, high risk high reward scenarios tend to be better executed with more experienced fighters since they tend to have a better chance of pulling it off.  Meanwhile low risk tactics tend to be good for newer fighters because reducing their risk while operating makes it less likely that they get exterminated.

 

Design Decisions

The relevant point here is that you can't take BOTH stances.  You have to EITHER choose to be taking an aggressive stance or a defensive stance.  If you're saying that you're doing both, and especially within the context of training people in a unit, and training for both then you've effectively undone the process of making a choice.  I am of the opinion that one generally useful bit of advice about tactics is to be proactive.  If you make people respond to you rather then having to respond to them you tend to find yourself in a better spot.  So it's my opinion that making a design decisions, ANY design decision, is better than not making a design decision in much the same way that making any strategical move is better than sitting and waiting for someone to act on you instead.  Even if it's the wrong design decision or the wrong strategy I think it favors you to make a conscious choice.

So when I got into this conversation yesterday that was the thing I kept running into. 

ME: "You've just told me you prefer [a low risk strategy] to better leverage your fighters, what happens in a scenario where they are subjected to aggressive flanking?"  

THEM: "Well when they're subjected to aggressive flanking they instead employ [a high risk strategy] with the same group of people.  I've found that we tend to keep our more experienced fighters on the flank."

This is the same as saying you're attempting to optimize for both a high risk and low risk scenario.  It's saying that you're optimizing for both low skilled and highly skilled fighters.  Now it's worth noting we were talking about a 3 man team composed of 2 shields and a polearm.  It's also worth noting that the aggressive flanking I was talking about tends to happen at the edges of the field.  There's also nothing wrong with having your group of people operate differently based on context, or having different people in different areas of the field.  But if that's the case you have to differentiate how one group is different from the other group and you have to say how your strategy on the outside is different from your strategy in the center of the line.  To say that you operate the same strategy but then have both close ranks and loose ranks, both high and low end fighters, both aggressive independent shields and shields focused on the defense of their polearm is ridiculous. 

I could say, for instance, that in the middle of the line my unit mates are going to stack our slow moving, larger fighters, with our less mobile polearms.  In this configuration it's more likely that the people with the largest shields and polearms with the longest reach will be clustered in one defensible area that doesn't require them to move around too much to be effective.  I could then say that I'd move my fleet of foot fighters, boards, florentines, etc to the outside edges to be aggressive.  This makes two clear design decisions.  In the middle I'm optimizing for safety and I'm trying to cover the weakness of a lack of mobility by leveraging the strengths of high defense and good reach.  On the outside edges I'm making a different design decision to be very aggressive by placing people who are going to move fast and push hard.  My bet in the middle falls apart if the line blows open and those people have to suddenly fight at awkward angles.  My bet on the outside edges falls apart if the enemy team is very dense there and full of support weapons.  But no plan survives a battle so you've got to adapt on the fly.

In my scenario if I find out that the edges are going to be tough I'm going to keep my configuration the same BUT I'm going to have my outside edge change to playing defense instead of offense.  By having highly skilled fighters distract or harass a denser group of enemies and support weapons I'm going to be trading numbers so that they commit a large number of resources to a fighting force that refuses to engage them.  This SHOULD create an advantage somewhere else on the field.  Conversely if the middle of the enemy line is full of soft, fleet of foot targets I'm going to change my teams strategy to absorb a few people from my flanks and then push EXTREMELY aggressively through the center in an effort to take advantage of the numbers disparity set up by one flank babysitting a larger force.

Closing Remarks

A lot of theory crafting around strategy is based on a certain set of assumption (which I feel like Doing Math outlined pretty well...) because you have to start somewhere.  There are a few foundational principles here.  The first is that you have finite resources, that is to say you don't have unlimited veterancy, unlimited gear, or unlimited bodies (if so then the conversation REALLY changes).  Based on having finite resources it means if you spend resources in one area you by necessity take them away from all other parts of the field.  (IE, your one super vet can't simultaneously run the right and left flank).  As a result spending your resources wisely means finding ways to create advantages out of things that look like disadvantages.  Sure, that fight over there is a 2 v 8 but that group of two is a super experienced melee fighter and a very good spear (say myself and shamus the mystical, or peter the quick and batman).  Sure... that group is outnumbered but, they're probably going to murder those 8 randos.  Making these decisions then is more about knowing how to manipulate things in your favor so that even with a starting set of similar resources you get more out of your troops then your opponent does out of their troops.  As an example, even if the numbers for 2 forces are the same if one has reach and the other doesn't that's an advantage you can employ.  If one team has polearms but is slow moving then you can counter by moving quickly, (subject to having the space to move at all). 

So the next time you hear someone say they've got the ultimate/best/universal tactic and they aren't joking, you can rest assured they're full of it.  Strategy is about making contextual decisions and adapting on the fly.  If someone thinks they can win using the same strategy every time then what that tells you is that they aren't actually very good at strategy :-P.

Sizing up your opponent.

Pre-amble

After a certain level of experience you begin to be pretty adept at identifying exactly how long someone has been fighting or at the very least their relative level of skill to yours.  Being able to eyeball an opponent and quickly identify what they can and can't do is pretty important.  This tactical analysis is also necessary in order to identify what shots you think you can actually land on your opponent.  Having a wide variety of shots doesn't mean you need to throw all of them all of the time.  Certain shots work better on certain targets but having a ton of shots to choose from means you'll usually find at least one you think will hit.  Being able to tell a person's skill at a glance will also stop your from getting chumped by someone you've never seen before.

A good fighter has a good foundation (build from the ground up)

The first thing I notice for an opponent is where they've placed their feet.  When I teach a new person how to fight I always start from the ground up because if a person isn't standing in the right place then it doesn't matter if they know how to swing or block.  Your feet are the first piece of range control which makes sure that when you swing you're in range to hit your target, and also makes sure that if you have a reasonable guard you don't just give up free targets like your back.  So when I look at a fighter I want to get a sense of how well their weight is distributed. 

A new person won't have stance of any kind.  Their legs will usually cross planes (you can draw a straight line from one leg to the other).  This means that either they're totally flat footed (left foot is parallel to their right foot) or they're stacked front foot directly in front of their back foot, which means they have no lateral movement.  In the case where they're flat footed I know that if I step in and swing I'm almost guaranteed to land a shot anywhere their guard isn't.  If the person has their feet stacked then it's likely that if I step sideways or in a 45 degree angle towards them I'll have ample access to shots that bypass their guard (break their line, if you know that terminology) because even though there forward and backwards movement may be quick they have no guard to their sides.

Assuming they aren't incompetent most fighters stack their weight either forward or backwards depending on their tendencies as fighters.  A person who has their weight and usually their weapons forward is more likely to aggress.  A person who has their weight towards their back foot is more likely a defensive fighter and I can expect that they're waiting for counterblows, or are look for an opportunity to try and bullrush me.  In either case the fighter in a back stance tends to be very susceptible to 45 degree angle footwork.  A person who is super aggressive by contrast is more likely to die by careful forward movement because they'll overextend, all things being equal (if your opponent is better then you are these details may not matter, conversely if they're worse you may still win with poor form or poor strategy).

Chickenwings are delicious

Anyone who has spent almost any amount of time fighting me knows that my favorite shot is "the chicken wing" it's a shot to the area between the elbow and the wrist thrown to the top of the arm.  If you know how to cheese that opening it can make for a great feint, especially if someone thinks that you're new.  The reason why is because most new fighters haven't learned a guard that actually protects their arm.  They simply hold the weapon in front of them, unaware of whatever angles they cover or defend with their arm.  Sometimes a new fighter will pick up a shield before learning to correct this error so you'll see sword and board fighter, often who aren't that new, who still display the chicken wing target area. 

The difference between that as a bait and an actual error tends to be degree.  If a person is just barely showing the chicken wing, then likely it's deliberate.  On the other hand... if both arms have chicken wing targets that are wide open then your opponent probably has no idea that they're so exposed.  A quick double tap to the sword arm and they're finished.  Conversely a more veteran fighter is likely to have that area either completely covered or just uncovered enough to make it juicy.  If a person looks like they have that area covered... then don't swing for that area.  Find a way to aim to the opposite side first to bait out a shot or move their guard.  Alternately aim higher or lower then their standard guard to try and open up some shots.

CON-FIDENCE

A more veteran fighter has a sort of quiet confidence about how they handle themselves on the field.  They know how to stand, where to stand, what they're doing and who they want and don't want to get into a fight with.  A new person... has none of that.  They either run recklessly towards the enemy with no semblance of strategy or restraint OR they're very nervous and tend to shy away from a direct confrontation.  If a person is running headlong at you with no thought of defense then they're probably vulnerable to a strike to their torso.  If a person is hesitant to fight you then you can just press into them.  If you move forward faster then they move backwards they'll tend to seize up and stop moving.  Alternately if you want to just break through a line, keep walking them backwards until they aren't protecting their teammates and then run the line.  Chances are good they won't chase after you.

Conversely if a veteran gives ground they tend to do so very deliberately and they only give as much ground as they need to.  If you try to simply run past them, even if they've retreated, they will almost certainly back you (unless you just run much faster then they do).  Also a veteran who engages very aggressively tends to do so with their guard up, rather then just flailing.  If you panic and start throwing shots before they've made it to the range they're closing to chances are good that you've opened yourself up which plays into their hands.  When dealing with an aggressive vet try and counter their motion by taking steps in the opposite direction.  If I move in at 45 degrees to my right, then you should step away at 45 degrees to my left.  If I step straight in, you step straight back, etc, etc.  Just make sure that you keep resetting the fight so that you deny the vet whatever angle they wanted to get on you.  (Re-read the section on guard for why that matters).

Fighting by the numbers

A new fighter (a few months in) tends to approach awkwardly, they have usually just one or two swords and have their back arched forward so that their shoulders and back are visible from the front.  As they go to swing they telegraph their strike by having a huge windup and by looking at exactly where they're going to swing.  ...So I hit them twice in the arm before they even begin to swing and then block to the area they were looking at.

At a year or two of experience they may have a board but still haven't learned to guard for their arm or their back because, even though their footwork has improved some and their guard now exists, they haven't fixed some of the underlying problems with their body mechanics.  They still look at where they're going to swing, they still telegraph the swing with a giant windup.  Also, for reasons I still don't understand, they highly prefer swinging at the front leg.  ..So, I block the shot that they were going to throw, step to within range, and then hit them in the back or shoulders by going up and over their shield.  At this stage in their development a full wrap is usually unnecessary and an angled slash or a half wrap is sufficient to pick the shoulder.

When they hit about 3 years of experience they've finally learned to not lean over and though their list of available targets to swing at hasn't changed much they no longer stare at their target nor do they have as much of a windup.  But they still have some windup, and they still do look at the target they're swinging at they just don't make it quite as obvious.  Additionally while may have learned to aim at the arm and the back those shots are slow so they still tend to prefer throwing for the leg first they just now follow up with a shot to your back.  I can either block the leg and return to the back, this time with a half/flat wrap or a full wrap, or I can change my engagement range ever so slightly so they reach for the leg and then hit them in their sword arm. 

By the time they hit 5 years of experience they've stopped being an easy target (even at my own now 14 years of fighting).  By now that person has developed a proper guard.  They have a variety of different shots that they can throw, and they do so at a reasonable speed.  They do still tend to have a moment of windup and they also look, at least in the general vicinity of their target.  Unlike the 3 year fighter though having additional shot selection means that although I know what general area they're throwing to, I don't actually know what shot they're throwing.  Still, this fighter tends to have some slop.  Their shots aren't as accurate or fast as my own, and they have a second of delay between their shots and their blocks.  Combos at this point usually work pretty well, as does punishing their sword arm when they swing because they leave themselves exposed briefly.  Also, the fact that they telegraph where they're swinging first tends to give me a moment to react and re-position.  If a person has learned footwork correctly than it's likely that by this point there are no holes in it.  However if a person HASN'T learned proper footwork by now, it's likely to never be fixed, and this leads me to the exploits listed in the footwork section.

At 10 years of fighting my opponent is usually indistinguishable from myself unless they haven't been fighting actively for that period of time.  The shot selection they had at 5 years has grown and almost all of the slop that's been on their shots is gone as they've had years to hone each one of them.  Additionally, where they look is no longer a good indicator of where their shots will land because by now they've likely learned how to chain shots and put them together.  Typically by now their footwork is pretty damn good, meaning that there is no longer an easy exploit, and I also have to be wary of their aggressive footwork on me.  However, at this stage I tend to have more shots than they do still, and my - now a triple tap - also tends to give me more shots than they have.  I tend to win those exchanges by simply having a higher shot volume than my opponent.  They are ready to block the first few shots but then get overwhelmed when the last 3 come in and their guard degrades.  These fighters also tend to be more susceptible to feints since they now know what most shots look like, so trying to juke them out often ends in my favor.

At something like 30 years of fighting you get another breed of fighter.  These are your 40-50 year olds who have managed to stay in good enough shape to continue to melee instead of retiring to archery.  They know every shot I know and than an entire order of magnitude more shots than that.  They also tend not to be susceptible to feints to the point where they punish me for trying to throw a feint.  Baits also don't work on a fighter of this caliber.  Typically, when I score a kill on such an individual it's one of 3 things.  1) overwhelming offense.  I manage to tie up their weapon and get all up in their grill where I throw a barrage of shots until I manage to break their line and bypass their guard.  2) I catch them trying to do something fancy.  As vets get older and have more and more shots at their disposal they'll pick up some ones for flare that they do to feel cool.  Every so often they'll think they have your number and you can catch them when they try a particularly cool looking trick shot.  3) I badly outfootwork them.  Fighting as you get older takes a hell of a toll on your body and if you don't learn to go at 80% instead of 110% you'll grind your body down in no time.  Some of the older fighters have long ago destroyed their legs over the course of fighting and as a result are susceptible to footwork.  By moving quickly into and out of range you can either score a lucky shot, or catch them out when they go to swing at you.  In either case... it's rough.

There's more to it then numbers...

All of these are generic fighters at a certain level of years.  There are also plenty of all stars for their particular time in fighting.  Many fighters who started when they were 16 and are something like late 20's or early 30's have the level of fitness of a young person but with the level of skill of an older fighter.  That having been said you can still use the metrics above to try and figure out where their level of skill lies.  If a person has clean swings and good footwork but has only been fighting for a year... treat them like a 5 year fighter, just in case.  If a person has been fighting 30 years but doesn't display any footwork and has a bad guard, it's likely that you can treat them like a 3 year fighter because they've haven't been consistent about practice.

Proactive

As part of being asked to run a group of people at a higher skill level so that folks who want to become better fighters have a place to go the very first thing that occurred to me was the idea of being proactive rather then being reactive.  I think that Bogun's first comment about the group is he wanted the name to evoke an idea that those fighters were the ones that would be able to weather any storm and be the badasses that did not yield no matter what was thrown at them.  And I thought to myself... that's already starting on the wrong foot.  So let me explain.

Proactive vs Reactive

This is just my own particular opinion on the thing (but you're reading my blog so presumably you know that) but it is always better to be proactive rather then being reactive while on a fighting field.  (This certainly doesn't translate to all areas of your life).  Being proactive whether that's in a 1v1 fight or if it's just in actively choosing where to stand is about making sure that YOU are the one making decisions at the moment where you have the most options available to you for making decisions.  At the start of a 1v1 fight neither fighter has started swinging, or is even in range to START swinging and so you've got a space between when you get close enough that you could possibly engage and when you actually start the engagement.  Being proactive starts in this space and then cascades forward to every further moment of your interaction with your opponent.  You can be proactive by choosing, at the very first moment, to either take the engagement by closing the distance between you and your opponent or you can choose to disengage by pulling away so they can't close the distance and force an engage.  Either decision is still one that you've CHOSEN to make rather then one that you're FORCED to make.  Being proactive doesn't mean being wildly aggressive, it just means that you're choosing to act first rather then respond to something else acting on you, whether that's an opponent or the field itself.  Being reactive means that you started to disengage because your opponent aggressed, or you started to move because if you didn't your unit/group/realm/whatever was about to be sandwhiched between multiple armies.  If you find yourself in that state it means you're already on the back foot and your available list of tactical options has already started to shrink.

A Duel, In Slow Motion

Assuming that you take an engagement then as the fight starts you get to decide the range at which the fight will be taken.  Assuming that your opponent doesn't run away immediately this means that you get to fight at whatever range you feel competent.  (For more on ranges you can check out Rock, Paper, Scissors).  Once you've done at least that much it means that your opponent is already at a disadvantage and all the things that they can do from that point on in the fight will be done with a slight handicap.  As the fight progresses, if you choose to be the aggressive fighter and swing (or feint/bait/footwork yourself into an advantageous position) then you force your opponent to now respond to your aggression meaning that in addition to playing at your range they're now also playing at your speed, or at the very least are busy blocking the initial shot you throw rather then throwing their own shot.  If you're throwing feints then it's even better because you get all the defensive posturing and reactions you'd get from actually going on the offensive except that now you aren't actually in any risk from shots not landing.  The thing is that most guards don't cover EVERY target area that you can swing at.  Even big boards have their weaknesses, so if you can manipulate your opponent onto the defensive then usually you'll convince them to make a mistake by leaving one (or more) of the areas that you can swing at unguarded.  In that moment you've now won the fight.  If they attempt to counter-aggress you that's still a response to the pressure that you've applied.  If you've lined yourself up you've also (ideally) taken a fight that you think you can win either because you've stacked skill, gear, or numbers to be at your advantage.  But more on that in a minute.

Small Groups

In small groups the same basic principles apply, by choosing when to engage and at what range you can get the most out of whatever gear you've brought to the fight.  In a group of 4 sword and boards vs 4 sword and boards this doesn't seem like it matters that much.  But that's not true.  Even in a matchup where numbers, gear and skill level are roughly equivalent you still have to factor in positioning.  Where a person stands during a fight dictates both the swing arcs that they enter and can get hit by, and also the cone of threat that they can apply to the people in front of them.  If both teams line up across from each other and simply swing an opportunity has been lost to create useful angles.  (More on that under Flanking).  Even if all else is equal if the guy on the end of one line A has to turn slightly because the person across from them on line B has started to go around them then it opens up shots for the rest of line B on line A.  If the person previously next to the guy flanking on line B also shifts ever so slightly to the left/right (depending on which end of the line) then the person across from the second line B team member must also shift to not have their defenses broken (more on that in box, line, lane) and in so doing expose themselves to more bad angles from line B.  Now you have 2 people working with shitty angles and even though everything else is roughly equivalent line A is in a really rough spot.  But this problem gets to be even more extreme if for instance line A has a polearm.  By having the wings from line B flank and having the remaining fighters deny a target for the polearm from line A then line A is now wasting an entire person plus the people guarding them in order to accomplish absolutely nothing AND in the interim their line is being folded which creates good angles for line B and bad angles for line A.

In The Mess Of A Grand Melee

On a larger field all of these other principles are still at play but whoever is leading the group on a larger field isn't so worried about their direct engagement but is probably worrying about not getting sandwhiched between larger units.  Being proactive in this sense is all about choosing who to engage or disengage from at a point where you've got space to move, because once a larger team has your people boxed in you're all mostly gonna die.  Even if you're fighting one group and just weren't aware of a different group falling onto your backs it's still game over man, game over.  So the point of maneuvering on a large field is to determine what space you want to control and then use whatever forces you have at your disposal to push other groups around.  Now, if you're a very small group you can move pretty quickly and escape from bigger groups with very little space.  You probably won't be engaging too many groups head on, but you can punish the mistakes of other larger groups that don't maneuver as well.  If you're a mid sized group then your goal is basically to annoy larger groups into running into each other by positioning yourself adjacent to other similarly sized groups so that a larger group going in to crush you is likely going to be hit from the side or back as they do so.  Your group will be relatively mobile but will also not be able to escape from a pinch easily and is probably better of choosing to find a corner to fortify in if you feel like I can't outmaneuver your aggressors.  Still, even choosing to find ground to occupy and hold is preferable to simply standing your ground when a larger group starts barreling into you.  If you're a larger group you absolutely do not fit into small gaps or escape and probably have to worry about being hit from multiple sides.  This makes it EXTREMELY important that the group is proactive and throws their weight around so that when they DO get engaged they've thinned the rest of the field down some to make their own lives easier.  As a larger group you can concentrate on driving medium sized groups either into one another, causing them to wipe each other out, or by driving smaller then you sized groups into other larger groups causing the larger group to get smaller.  In either case this involves moving proactively and screening out space so that a smaller group has no where to run to thereby forcing them to fight.

The Cost Of Failure

As ANY sized group, on a large battlefield, holding still almost always gets you killed unless no one at all is moving.  In that case, you can be proactive so go out and seize that advantage.  As a small group, standing still as teams move means that eventually you get stuck between much larger groups with no out to run to, which in turn means you get wiped out.  As a mid-sized group it means getting hit by a larger group and getting wiped out because you haven't given yourself either backup in the form of creating good angles for other opportunistic groups against the people engaging you, or you've failed to find good ground to fight on and get hit from more then one direction.  As a larger group being passive is the most catastrophic thing you can do as, having those kinds of numbers tends to make you target numero uno on the field which means that not only will you get hit by a group when you don't have a good field position but you're likely to get hit from multiple sides by multiple groups.

This is why some people are cut out to be field commanders and some just aren't.  If you can't decide what you need to do at any given moment because you can't think fast enough, or you're too scared to make decisions because it may get everyone killed then it means you'll be largely reactive to whatever is happening to you, and more likely then not that WILL get everyone killed.  From my own experience learning what to do in a battle will take a little while, and like all skills the more experience you have at it the better you'll become in time.  Also, sometimes, even when you make good tactical decisions you can be unlucky where a fighter you were relying on died because someone hit them with a lucky shot or a stray projectile.  No plan survives a battle, but to go into a battle without a plan is also foolish.

So, while I like the idea of a fighting core that can weather any storm, with utmost respect to Bogun for all he's done, I think that any elite combat group should BRING the storm and not simply survive it :-P.

I'm back ... ish?

I took a long hiatus from writing things because it was absolutely murdering the rest of my time/life.  Writing a post takes anywhere on the order of 45 minutes to about 3 hours depending on the length of the thing.  That includes at the outset just the time to write, proof-read and format each thing.  Posts that involve posting images, especially if I have to first create them can take even more then that.

So, as you might imagine, while I was trying to get any number of things sorted out having that kind of time to just sit down and spew thought wasn't really in the cards.  However, I've volunteered myself to start heading up a try-hard group of Dunedain and rather then try to re-invent the wheel as far as a training regimen and just general theory I think would be helpful I've already leaned rather heavily on the things that I've already written.  However, even as I did that I realized that there's lots of things that are important from the perspective of both individual fighting and the teamwork of small groups that I have from from even touched on, so I might as well go back and do those things.

Which brings me back to my blog which has sat unused and forgotten for all this time as the rest of my life has rolled on.  Rather then build a new thing to contain that knowledge I find myself wanting to write for the sake of writing and build up the missing bits of knowledge I've not yet extracted from my head.  There were some things that I'd meant to write already that have sat as a to-do item on a notepad for something like the last 6 months and since is the first thing you're seeing, you know quite well that I may have never gotten to it.

So, I'm back... sort of.  When I write the things I want to write, I'll see if I still have more energy to keep going.  I may also turn over to doing that florentine manual thing I said I would do ages ago and then started in on poorly.  But with a million other things to do let me end this one here, so I can perhaps write something more useful :-P.

hello again old friends.

Flanking

And here you'd probably thought I was done writing.  Nope! Life just got hectic for a while.  Anyhow. On with it.

I thought I'd write a post on what flanking means since it's near and dear to my heart.  What I found was though that writing the diagrams and descriptions together was actually much easier for keeping myself focused and together then the previous method of simply drawing diagrams and explaining them.  As a result I'm just going to post the pages that I've written verbatim.  If you'd like to skip scrolling, or want a copy of those images for yourself they should be available for you here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BySPGwBzcCcdYmpQYnF4clNIOFk?usp=sharing

Otherwise, you can find them organized in order below:

3 Basic Breaches

Last post covered a generic fight set 3v3 with polearms to generally talk about where they should stand and how to prioritize targets so as to stay alive.  This post is about vaguely being on the other side of the line without polearms and figuring out how to get through.  After all, if you have polearms your job should be to support them so they wipe out the line in front of you, not run off yourself to do heroics.  But, every so often it'll be a line of shields vs a line of shields (or other similar melee weapons) where no side has a clear advantage.  But as the general law of the battlefield dictates, if you do not make decisions quickly then your enemy will make those decisions for you (like where, how and when an engagement takes place) and that will always be to your detriment.  So!  Assuming that you're lined up one line across from the other and it seems like a stalemate because no one has poles to win that fight the best thing you can do is try to punch a hole in the enemy line.  Once a line begins to fold the aggressor gains an advantage because a line only works when someone is covering your left and right, and no one is behind you.  As soon as someone gets behind the line and is a credible threat that line is screwed.  This will be another diagram post since working with images certainly seems to make things easier for me.

The Dead Man Breach

The first breach is probably the hardest that's part of why I cheekily call it a dead man breach.  It's ALSO called that because in order to pull it off successfully you need a person who has just recently become a corpse to pull it off.  I've tried to outline the person doing the breach in blue in each case to make it a bit more obvious.  I've tried to mark team aggression with blue lines and enemy aggression with red lines.  The enemy team has a slash through the center of the circle to designate them as such, similar to how I did it the last time.  Right then, onward.  In the first diagram there's a small gap so it's possible to get through to the other side of their line.  However, with 2 combatants actively covering that space going through at this moment is suicide.  In order to get through that gap you need to first apply pressure to your right or left, to help your teammate take out the person they were fighting.  Once that person drops you step into the gap and rotate so that your back is facing the now dead enemy.  In the period of time it takes for them to clear they represent an obstacle for their teammate one more person down the line to swing through.  This allows you to turn into the live teammate (in the diagram the one to your left) with your defenses and immediately aggress on that person.  You mostly want to block, but if you can get a free kill, that's just a bonus.  

(2nd diagram below) Your real goal is to get BEHIND that person QUICKLY so that you can run down the line (on the diagram that's to the left).  That final bit is in the second diagram.  Once you've cleared a person on the right the teammate standing next to you can now apply pressure to the next guy down the line, setting up a 2v1.  If they then win this fight, they too can now run down the line, and for each person they kill the N people vs 1 will increase.  So initially it's a 2v1 then a 3v1 then a 4v1... etc until the entire enemy line is destroyed.  The person who runs to the left, if they are able to get the kill on the first opponent to their left gives the teammate to their left options.  That person can either help you run that gap all the way along the line, or, once that first person drops immediately turn and shoot for the right side of the line, instantly gaining access to their back lines without any interference at all.  If the enemy team has a back line with archers, they can also opt to immediately ditch in that direction for ranged weapons.

The Barrel Roll Breach

The first half of the diagram covers the second chunk of the above paragraph.  I've split them up to clarify.  The second maneuver looks a like like the first maneuver but instead of using a corpse to cover your back you use a teammate.  If you find a gap that's big enough for two people (perhaps after a partially successful 1 man breach?) then you can do the same footwork as a 1 man breach but with two people.  Getting the timing for this right is difficult, so if you're going to try and pull it off it's best to have some practice with whoever you're executing it with.  In the figure above you're person A and your teammate is person B.  When you go, signaling your teammate by giving them a shove on the back you 45 degree angle toward the center of the gap, taking you away from your opponent and then a 45 degree angle back towards them turning your body toward the opponent on your left.  Your teammate does the same thing, but mirrored.  They take a 45 degree step in towards the center of the gap and then take a 45 degree step back toward the opponent on the right, turning to face them.  If this has been executed directly person A and person B are now fighting back to back, so even though this breach would normally get a person hit from the left and right, because 2 people fill the space simultaneously, person A blocks person B's back and person B blocks for person A's back.  In this case you apply a little bit less pressure initially but you've also got 2 opportunities to run the line.  If either person succeeds you can inflict massive damage.  If instead person A or B get legged, then they're still fighting their immediate opponent at an angle, so that if their opponent turns to face them they expose their side to the front of the allied line.  If they DON'T turn to face them then person A and B get to engage a person's side instead of their front where all their defenses are in place.  Timing on this one is pretty difficult, but if you execute it properly it's almost impossible to counter.  While the dead man breach can be done with any set of gear, so long as you can block in melee effectively, I've found that the 2 man breach works best with 2 shields as this allows for slightly slower moving fighters to execute on it effectively.  Specifically parts of the shield wall can execute the maneuver and then simply kill their way down the line, rather then relying on cardio to hit backs.  ...Although, speaking of cardio.

The Hammer Breach

Ah the hammer breach, a little bit of breach 1 and a little bit of breach 2.  There's a modified version of this called a Trojan Horse for the end of the line but I didn't make the diagram for it, so perhaps another post to follow is END of the line maneuvers instead of middle of the line maneuvers.  Anyways.  The hammer breach starts with a third person behind the line looking for a gap.  Once a person finds a gap in the line they recruit a person A and a person B to do the 2 man breach.  Person A rolls into the opponent on the left as they did before and person B rolls into the person on the right as they did before.  This time however neither of them need to survive the engage they just need to block for the person doing the full dive, you.  Once person A and B are in position engaging the people covering the gap you are able to loop out behind them and ignore the people who were watching you breach.  You can either dive the back line and take out archers or simple sweep back into the opposing line to the left or right a person down and start racking up kills.  Once the people in the immediate vicinity have fallen person A and person B will have plenty of cover if they're still alive.  If the line can master the second breach then it makes the third breach very easy.  If your person A and person B are not in sync with you then you'll either dive first, and be instantly executed, or you'll dive AFTER they've already gone, which may mean that your opponents on the left and right have the opportunity to actually swing at you.  In either case it's bad news.  The reason to do a 3 man breach over a 2 man breach is that at least in theory it protects the third person so that when they dive they have all their limbs to inflict damage with, whereas in a one man and a two man breach there's a high likelihood of failure in the case of the 1 man breach and a high likelihood of injury in the second case, making running the line less probable.

That's it for this post.  Trying to keep it shorter and sweeter with more diagrams :-P.  As a final aside, for those who are interested the library of diagrams I've been generating can be found here - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BySPGwBzcCcdM1dtNnlJRmdtYmM?usp=sharing

Polearm Positioning / Diagrams

Got a new toy in this thing called a rocketbook which let's you draw then upload easily.  So, going to start using it more and generating my diagrams that way rather then trying to use google paint.  Not that there's anything wrong with google paint... I'm just slow with it.  Anyways, onwards.

I wanted to make a quick post about polearm positioning.  We spend a lot of time telling polearms where they OUGHT to be standing but not a whole lot of time explaining to them why that's the case.  So I made some diagrams to show what happens with a polearm sitting in one of 3 positions within a 3 man group.  This covers both how to engage if you're the team with a polearm and how to disengage if you're the team without one.  For this description the team with the polearm is unmarked (we'll call them team pole) and the team without a polearm is marked with 1's.  Diagram is as follows:

First piece of the diagram is just some terminology for the rest of it.  Moments in time are separated by each set of horizontal lines.  In the first diagram the polearm is lined up in the middle of the 3 man team.  This means that they can pretty easily reach the opponent in front of them as well as to that person's left and right without having to significantly inconvenience either of the boards protecting them.  From here the polearm gets free reign to smash shields or take side angle shots when the shields protecting them cause their opponents to open up.  If the enemy team should happen to have someone rush the polearm (second section) the polearm can just step back.  This denies the person rushing them the engage and puts that person between the polearms two shieldman making them effectively dead.  This is the ideal situation for the polearm wherein a direct engagement is unsafe for team 1 but the polearm still gets to reach and swing at all of team 1.

The way that you deal with a polearm is to try to avoid giving it something to swing at (in much the same way that the best way to fight outnumbered is to fight 1v1 very quickly).  If the person across from the polearm takes a step back so that they aren't immediately a good target and the people to the right and the left of center both move to flanking positions the polearm suddenly has no good targets.  To engage the person they are across from they have to run away from their supports.  If they move to engage the flankers on their right or left they now are stuck putting their back to the person behind them.

From where it last left off (flankers coming in) the flankers go behind the polearm and attempt to engage the shieldman supporting them.  If the shieldman turn to fight these flankers then it creates a bad situation as the last guy on team 1 who wasn't flanking now gets to rush an unprotected polearm.  It's sort of a catch 22 though as either shieldman who doesn't engage the flanker immediately gets backed by that flanker and lets the polearm die to boot.  In this situation I've often seen the polearm try to go out and 1v1 the shieldman on team 1.  This is a terrible idea as a sword and board always has advantage against polearms.  That having been said at least it's doing something.  The worst thing the polearm can do is stand there and do nothing.  If team 1 rushes them team 1 gets to kill the two boards supporting the polearm even if they don't immediately get that kill.  After that it's curtains for the polearm.

Instead what the polearm should do is step out to engage one of the flankers, putting their back to their teammate and their side to the flanker.  This allows them to threaten both flankers pretty quickly and let's them take the engagement they want onto the weaker (rather then the stronger) flanker.  If the polearm goes super aggro and can win their 2v1 fight against the weaker flanker, (or even just leg them) then they have advantage again.  They can them immediately turn to the other flanker while the board they just supported now turns to cover their back.  Now their team mate gets a 1v1 and team 1's flanker gets a 2v1 against a polearm which usually ends badly for them, especially now that the polearm has time to work.

The reason I highlight going for the weaker of the two flanking opponents is that if the polearm and board take too long to engage the first flanker it means that the last person from team 1 will likely rush in on one or both of the pole teams boards.  If this happens and the polearm hasn't managed to do any damage to team 1 then it's likely one or both teammates supporting them die instantly as they get pinched in a 2v1.  As team 1 in this scenario the flanker who gets the polearm wants to disengage, staying just out of range while their last teammate rushes in.  Their last teammate wants to target the pole team's board that is engaging the OTHER flanker (right side of the diagram) so that it's a 2v1 and hopefully just a back.  The third person from team 1 then goes for a back on the other board from team pole while their teammate goes for the polearm.  If either the second board or the polearm turn around then the flanker on the left can now go for their backs instead.

But all of these scenarios are assuming that things have been handled sanely.  In many cases folks will line up the polearm on the left or right side of the 3 man with disastrous consequences.

The top section of this diagram just finishes describing what's in the last few paragraphs.  Moving on from there we have what happens with bad positioning, or more accurately why it's bad positioning.  By putting the polearm on the outside you make it so that in order to hit the 3rd person from team 1 they have to block off movement and swing targets for their adjacent teammate.  Also, once a person from team 1 flanks to the outside they have to turn to fight them or get taken out immediately.  Assuming they do turn to fight team 1's flanker they're still likely to lose as they no longer have support from anyone on their team.  Once they've lost the rest of the team dominoes a second later, as their adjacent teammate now fights a 2v1 at 90 degree angles and once they fall their next teammate fights a 3v1 with a person engaging from their front, rear and side angles.  So don't do that.

There is exactly 1 exception to this rule of not putting the polearm on the outside and that's when you have a hard edge on the side where the polearm is.  If the polearm cannot be flanked and is still adjacent to a board then that's an acceptable setup.

More of these are likely to follow now that I can do diagrams.  If you've got any particular requests drop them in the comments below or put it on Facebook / PM me.