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.

Found a random bit, cross-posting 'cause I think it's useful

Here, go check this out - http://schiltslac.com/2016/09/22/identity-failure-humility-and-growth/

My own version of this breaks down into; seek death since that's when you're learning and fight often without reprimanding yourself for failure so that you can learn.  In any case, especially as fighters start improving, this advice becomes more and more relevant.  One of my old mantra's was "ego is the enemy" because it's what takes you down a dark path from the article.  I've fallen into it once or twice and I did not much care for the fighter I was at those moments.

Building drills

A post about building drills seemed particularly apt as folks in the area go about taking the time to learn the skills they do not yet posses especially when it comes to working with a group of people.  The reason being that unless you're focused on what you want to accomplish time spent training is often wasted.  In order to get to where you're going you need to focus and put the time in.  Drills are an excellent tool for isolating new skills but only when you make sure that the drill that you are doing is actually training you to develop the skill you want.  I know that's vague... we'll get into it.

Tell Me What You Want

The first part of making any kind of drill is being able to come up with an idealized end result of a drill.  Once a person has participated in your drill what specific thing, or mechanic do you want that person to have learned?  Try to get it down to as concrete an idea as you can.  As one example when teaching footwork, one of the goals in pursuit of mastery, is to teach a person to keep their legs the right width apart.  This is to avoid letting that person get flat footed or off balance.  As a sort of counterbalance I have a separate goal of making sure that the person I'm teaching doesn't cross their feet, by either having their feet be parallel (flat footed) or by putting their back foot directly behind their front foot (a common fencing technique which is bad for bel).  I start by knowing exactly what the outcome I'm trying for is when I start thinking about what the drill I'm working on needs to teach.

Keep It Simple Stupid

One of the mistakes that's common when trying to teach a person something new is information overload.  When a new fighter is trying to pick up the basics there is SO much to learn.  While it may be tempting to give a new person everything at once that likely means that they won't retain much of it.  The bits that they do manage to hold onto may have also been learned incorrectly because they were distracted by trying to hold onto too much information.  So, when teaching someone anything, it's important to make sure that in addition to isolating what you want an end outcome of your training to be, that you also make sure you have small, attainable goals.  If your end goal is to be the best florentine fighter you can be that's not something that can easily be cut down into a series of discrete drills.  If however your goal is to stop giving up the chicken wing, that's a much easier task to break down and is easier to build a drill for.  When I teach people I tend to do it in sections so for one day I do JUST footwork.  Another day is JUST upper body stuff (blocks, strikes, etc).  At each stage I check to make sure they retained the information from before and either move forward, or go back to bits that haven't stuck yet.

Just The Shiny Bits

Another common mistake when teaching/building drills is to build a drill in such a way that you don't actually have to learn the skill you are trying to impart to a person.  People will tend to do the things that they know how to do, or whatever comes naturally to them, so when you're trying to get a person to do something new you have to set up a scenario where it's the ONLY way to be successful.  If you set up a scenario where it's possible to do things the "wrong" way or to avoid learning the relevant skill you're trying to teach then you've reduced the effectiveness of your drill down to sparring.  Sure, a person may eventually learn the thing that you're trying to teach them but as far as building a drill you've pretty much failed.  As one example of this there's a closing drill that I built wherein one person gets a short blue weapon and the other person gets a long red weapon.  It's to first blood.  This means that if the person with the short weapon doesn't engage they'll eventually get hit by the red weapon.  If the person engages but fails to block then they'll get hit first and still lose.  The only way for them to win is to close the gap first, block their opponents attack second, and then when they are in range of their opponent swing.  While they can certainly experiment with other approaches they'll keep being punished by their opponent until they learn to do that particular thing.  As a person having been on the short sword side of this, it is a hard drill, but totally doable and totally valuable once mastered.

Setting Up The Right Scenario

As important as it is to make sure you don't teach the wrong things it's important to make sure you've set up a scenario that teaches the right things.  This tends to be more clear when talking about drills related to field work rather then when talking about drills where it's one on one.  If you fail to do a good job of setting up a scenario where a person will need to use the skills you're trying to impart on a 1v1 you basically get a spar.  In a field scenario if you don't manage to isolate the relevant skills then you wind up getting some version of a field battle.  Both of these scenarios have their place in order to hone an individuals or a groups skill, however if you're trying to teach something specific you need to be very careful in how you set it up.  Recently at a moot Norcalia was attempting to set up training for "kill squads".  The idea was to give us practice at beating groups that had effective groups of flankers with lower numbers.  The scenario that was set up had uneven teams (a good start) where the more veteran fighters were on one side (also an important component) and the newer fighters were on the other side.  Then the field was set up so that an objective was placed behind the newer but more numerous group (henceforth team noob) with the idea being that the smaller more veteran force (henceforth team vets) was supposed to make it back there in order to score.  If they were able to do the idea was (presumably) that someone from team vets (from the perspective of a field battle) would have been able to do significant damage to team noob.  As the field was set though an important piece of this battle wasn't implemented, which is to say that team vets didn't have an room to move.  Team noob was wide enough that they took up the entire width of the field, so rather then having to practice working together and avoiding giving up their flanks the drill wound up being about line tactics and teamwork for killing more veteran fighters.

While this is a valid skill to learn, from what I understood, it's not what the drill was designed to teach because part of the scenario that was needed was missing.  In order for this to work the field would have to be rotated so that even though team noob greatly outmassed team vets team noob would feel the press of being engaged from multiple angles and would have to try to find a way to be both cohesive, so they didn't get split up and then backed repeatedly but also in large enough numbers that they could win against superior opponents.  To do this effectively team noob would need to find a formation that's looser then a line but still packed close enough together to avoid losing their numbers advantage to angles.  Theoretically they'd eventually come up with small independent groups that moved near each other without actually being one single formation.  Additionally if they made the gaps between groups too big they'd get punished by having a cone in back which anyone from team vet could easily get to.  This is the difference between teaching a thing that's useful and the thing you actually wanted to teach.  Usually when designing drills it comes down to the minutiae about how and why a person can exploit the idea you've initially set up to help teach something new.

Have Fun With It

Assuming that you've - 1) identified the concrete skill you want to teach, 2) have limited the scope of what you're trying to teach to either a single concrete idea (like closing) or simple skill (like basic footwork) set 3) have set up the drill in such a way that a person can't complete the drill by doing something other then learning the skill set you're trying to teach and 4) you've managed to replicate that appropriate scenario in which that particular skill set is relevant - the last thing remaining is to try to make it fun.  One of the old fallbacks for learning any kind of new skill is simply working on a pel to try and perfect the body mechanics behind a set of strikes or footwork.  As you scale for number of people this becomes problematic but for most people it's also pretty boring.  If you can turn the drill into some form of game so that it's something that a person actually wants to do even when they aren't trying to learn the particular skill your drill will impart.  I've got a host of these if anyone is ever curious but for now I'll just do a few examples of silly drills and what they teach as some concrete examples of these theories in action.

No Soren Left Behind

Probably my favorite battle modifier of all time is the no Soren left behind drill.  In this scenario you play with small teams, once any member of your team dies, the entire team wipes.  Typically this is done with small numbers (because the more people you add the more confusing it can be).  The idea behind this drill is to teach teamwork, so that no member of the team runs off by themselves and gets killed (taking the team with them).  It encourages people on a team to block for each other and try to fight when they have advantage so that they can get kills without taking injury as anyone who takes 2 injuries then wipes their team.  It encourages people not to go for suicide kills in which they take out an enemy by throwing themselves at that individual because even if they get the kill their team still loses.  The drill came about when during training a guy named soren refused to work with his team.  He would run headfirst into the enemy and either win on his own or lose instantly after which point his team then also usually lost because they were now down a person.  This drill forced him to work with his team because if he ran into the enemy headfirst and died then his team wiped.  If he ran away from his team and one of his enemies was able to kill one of his teammates then he also died even if he was the better fighter.  Eventually he had to learn to fight with his teammates, trying to use them to avoid getting killed himself, while also protecting them from other fighters.  As I close it out going through those 4 tenants again.  1) At the end of the day the skill to impart is covering one's teammates and learning to work together 2) the scope of drill is limited only to teamwork without respect to positioning, skill, or gear 3) if a person doesn't work with their team and either dies or lets a teammate die then they immediately lose 4) the scenario is one in which you have a team fighting multiple other teams so that you can only win or lose together.  As for it being fun, you'll just have to try and it see if you like it as much as I do :-P.

Circle of Fire

The circle of fire is fun but also on the more brutal side of things.  It starts with between 1 and 3 people in the middle of a ring of fighters depending on how many people you have left over once you form the ring.    All of the participants are armed with whatever weapons they desire although projectiles are probably not a good idea.  The people in the circle get to weapons length from the people in the center of the ring.  Then they take two BIG steps back.  Lay on is then called by the people in the center of the circle.  At that point all of the people in the circle can start walking towards the combatants in the center.  The combatants in the center's goal is to get outside of the ring, or, kill a person who is closing in on them before they are eliminated.  If they simul with another fighter when the battle resets they go back into the middle.  If the combatants in the center don't immediately go for an engage after lay on is called they'll quickly be surrounded on all sides and killed because they'll have no way out.  What most people do is try to shoot the gaps between individuals in an effort to get out of the circle.  95% of the time this leads to them getting killed repeatedly as it means 2 people are swinging for their back.  The way to be successful is to hard engage DIRECTLY AT one of the people on the outside of the circle, either killing them outright or going through them.  If a fighter does manage to make it to the outside of the circle they then get to choose which person adjacent to where they exited takes their place in the center.  If they managed to kill someone outright before dying then that person takes their place.  1) The skill to impart is being able to win a hard engage 2) the scope of the drill is limited to breaking through a line 3) if a person fails to hard engage or fails to break through then they have to keep trying until they are successful 4) the scenario is one in which the only way they can move is by breaking through a line.  I happen to have a blast at this one, but it may well be because I'm just a masochist.  That having been said when you start on the inside and make it out there's a huge adrenaline rush for it.

FAD / Samurai

Ah... the Fucking/Fairly (depending on if there are kids nearby) Awful Drill which also became a tournament one year at Phoenix Rising.  Really made my event :D.  For those of you who weren't there here's how it works.  Everyone participating fights with a single blue sword or bat (no flails!).  The weapon may only be wielded with one hand on the handle.  The weapon is then held at a person's waist with their other hand as though being held in a sheathe.  When the weapon leaves their hip the individual is allowed to swing ONLY ONCE although they may block as normal.  Before the individual can swing again they must first return their weapon to their hip.  This simple modifier can be applied to any battle and we've been generically calling it "samurai style".  The point of this bit of the drill is to teach accuracy and the value of feints over throwing many shots or relying on shot combos.  To get all the way to the fucking awful drill two additional components are usually added.  The first being that instead of doing the fights with your dominant hand you fight with your off hand in order to increase it's dexterity without having to worry about putting as much strain on it from repeated swings and blocks.  Finally the fights are done to first blood (/first injury) so that if a person doesn't land their first swing their chances of dying are much higher.  Regardless of whether or not you use your off hand this drill requires you to be accurate because you can't use shot volume in order to win.  It also requires that you block or dodge successfully since you can't trade limbs, as any loss of limb is an instant loss.  Since this is simply a set of modifiers you can apply it whenever you want to to add some spice to whatever you're doing.  At phoenix rising we did it as a tournament in which people had to fight 1v1 but when it officially got its title we were doing it with ditch king battles (which we started calling shogunate battles instead :-P).  1) the concrete skills are; shot placement, shot speed, and effective blocking 2) the scope of the drill is limited to fighting with single blues so that everyone has approximately the same reach 3) if a person fails to block they die, if a person fails to land shots quickly they'll trade and simul, if a person fails to throw shots accurately they'll miss and then likely die due to retaliation 4) the scenario for this one is more nebulous as all that's really required is people to fight using the same rule set as you are.  I find that this set of modifiers tends to instantly up the intensity of fighting because it makes each swing so much more precious.

The Possibilities Are Infinite

In the end so long as your rule set for any particular drill revolves around the basic book of war rules for combat your only real limitation is your imagination.  There are more drills I have dreamt up then I can probably ever write down but if you're ever curious come talk to me about it and I'm sure I'll be able to either pull something out of my archives or come up with something new custom tailored to fit the situation at hand.  But until then feel free to try any of the above drills mentioned and let me know if you had fun with them.

Tactics: Putting It All Together

I've talked about lots of individual bits over different posts.  I may try to run down all the fragmented bits later for a deeper dive, but for now I'm just going to dive into things.  Tactics as I'll use it in this particular post refers to one of three things.  The first being the position of the people on your team.  The second being the equipment of the people on your team.  The third being the way that the people on your team move.  I'll dig into each one of those a bit later.  Doing a good job of tactics is what allows you to "win at math".  (Full post here).  The basic idea is that you kill them faster then they kill you.  This effect generally dominoes so that areas of local advantage (part of a line, say 5v5 out of a 50v50 person fight) is able to start cascading into largely regional and then global field advantage.  Tactics, if used effectively can also blunt the effect of having "lost at math".  Tactics help but aren't the solution to every problem.  If you don't have the right gear or the right people there may not be much you can do, no matter how well you move or position your fighters and strategic resources.

Strategic Resources

Everyone on the field represents some kind of strategic resource.  Some of those resources are much rarer then others and as a result need much better protection.  That having been said no resource is something you want to have to do entirely without.  Resources on the field generally break down into one of - commanders, flankers, counter-flankers, shield wall, polearms, archers.  You might argue that high skill cap vets are their own resource but typically they'll be one of those positions out on the field.

Commander

A commander is someone who uses their voice to help engage in the fight.  By keeping their eyes wide open and not directly engaging in combat they are able to protect the resources in front of them from picks by the opposing team, whether that's an archer taking out a support weapon, or a flanker getting into the side.  To re-iterate a commander must not engage in combat in order to remain effective.  I wrote more on command and some of these ideas in a post called "making your voice heard."  If they are looking all around them then they aren't focused on the person in front of them and will die in a fight.  If they are focused on the person in front of them so they aren't getting killed then they aren't looking all around them.  Commanders tend to be people who have a fair amount of experience at fighting but don't necessarily need to be a fighter with high individual skill.  If they can learn to do tactics well and stand in the right place it's the effectiveness of the fighters on their team that matter rather then what they themselves can accomplish.  While it's generally good to limit how many commanders you have so that people aren't shouting out different sets of orders you also need enough command to cover your entire line.  If it's small enough one commander will do, but if it stretches out long enough then it's a good idea to add voices along a line until the will of the main commander stretches across the entire group.  In my experience with a large army there tends to be a primary commander who is responsible for deciding where the unit moves and who it engages, 3 line commanders (right, left, center) who monitor their fights, trying to get a local advantage while also making sure that they don't break off or spread to thin relative to the rest of the line, and a commander for the rear of the unit, who manages reserve troops, watches for flankers, and generally makes sure that the group as a whole doesn't get pinned, side swiped or otherwise run over.

Flanker

Flankers are anyone whose goal is to fight not with the rest of the group.  A person who is flanking is by no means limited to a person who simply runs wide and goes for backs.  Flankers seek to use their positioning relative to their team to put the enemy team into a bind.  This can be done by creating 45 degree angles ("death triangles" if you've heard Bhak'dar's talks) or finding a weak point in a line to run through.  Standing behind the enemy team if you can get there also works, or just looking to pick of high priority targets like archers / polearms if you can find either an angle to get to them or have a javelin or other projectile to hit them.  Flankers tend to be high skill cap fighters because of the requisite skill involved in being able to fight outnumbered, move correctly in a hostile field, and generally work either alone or in small groups.  You do not NEED to be a high skill cap fighter to be an effective flanker.  Simply standing in the right place is often enough even if you never swing.  That having been said it's best to have at least one high level veteran in a squad of flankers.  Flankers, generally speaking are looking for any weak or vulnerable points in an enemies composition in order to, as quickly as possible, create a massive advantage for their side.  As such flankers need to be extremely fleet of foot as an extended engagement is almost always going to get them killed.

Counter Flankers

Counter-flankers do the reverse of what flankers do as far as positioning they're much closer to commanders then anything else.  In some cases people will also refer to counter flankers as reserves.  I think that reserves imply something different but I don't want to waste time arguing over terminology.  Counter flankers should not engage in combat unless they are forced to do so.  The goal of having people stay out of the fight is to get that wide area view of whats going on and then be able to respond intelligently to changing situations.  Similar to a commander they need to avoid combat and use their voice to communicate the state of the field around them unlike a commander, when they see that something is wrong they need to quickly act to correct the problem.  Generally speaking a counter flanker is going to be a good response to a person flanking and trying to get around the sides but they aren't limited to just watching for flankers.  A counter flanker can also step in any time they see that either a the enemy team is about to push to gain a local advantage (move defensively) or that by adding themselves to part of a line they can generate a local advantage (move offensively).  In the case where they move defensively this can either be to add people to a weak point so it doesn't get run over, it can be filling a gap in the line that a flanker or group of enemies may be angling for or it can be responding to a veteran or support weapon that threatens to crush part of the line.  A counter-flanker can move offensively as well either by urging teammates to exploit a local advantage and overrun a weaker line/opponent or they can stand in as a piece of the shield wall or as a support weapon if it looks like that additional defense or offense in a section of the line is enough to generate a local advantage.

Shield Wall

As a member of the shield wall there's a number of important tasks for a fighter of this type of strategic resource and contrary to popular belief all of the tasks are important.  As part of a shield wall a fighter needs to; absorb ALL incoming projectiles to make sure they don't hit support weapons, counter flankers, or commanders, protect the support weapons that are next to them by intercepting all stabs thrown within ranks, as well as slashes thrown in a v (opponents to the left or right of a fighter, rather then directly to the opponent in front of them), a shield wall is also responsible for the pacing at which the group moves as a whole and a veteran group of shield wall fighters will know both how to stick together so that they don't spread out and create free opportunities for the enemy but will also know when to retreat slowly or engage aggressively to keep pressure on the opposing team.  Veteran members of a shield wall should be able to do all of those tasks, newer members to a shield wall need to do all the bits except for pacing because they can simply mirror the people around them.  An added bonus as a skill is learning how to keep a shield from getting pelted by red weapons so that it breaks instantly.  This can be accomplished with clever maneuvering, keeping the shield out in front or otherwise blocking/deflecting incoming strikes.  It is dangerous to block red weapons with things that are not a shield.  If you are going to do so please exercise extreme caution and learn proper technique.  A shield wall is NOT responsible for racking up a kill count.  The shield wall gets kills if the people in front of them are in some way injured so that the shield wall rolls over them or they get a snipe in a v (target left or right, see above).

Polearms

Polearms are any weapon with enough reach to be able to hit an enemy without having to fear retaliation for the purposes of this discussion.  That is a distinct and different class of weapons from reds as a read weapon may not be able to reach a target without immediately getting a person murdered.  The recent fad of mid red swords, at least in my opinion, are not polearms and as such are better suited to a flanking position or at the end of a line rather then in the thick of it.  Polearms, in my eyes, generally include anything 6' and over, whether that's a glaive or a spear.

As a spear on the line your goal is to rack up as many shots per second as you can, while making sure you don't throw anything dangerous that could injure someone.  The ideal target for a spear is an opposing red weapons arms, as once the first arm is crippled they can no longer throw red shots.  After that eliminating opposing spears allow them the freedom to stab without fear of retaliation.  Once those two primary targets are taken care of it's time to stab with reckless abandon.  You only need 3 shots to be effective with a spear.  The first shot is to an opponents shin.  The target is large enough that you should be able to hit it even though it will skip to the side.  This deprives that shield of movement and means that the people they are fighting will run them over.  The second shot is to pop a shield open which is taken to a shields outer edge at the middle line of the shield.  A shot taken towards the edge on their shield side opens that opponent up to a shot from your teammates on their left, a shot to the edge of the shield towards their outside will open them up to a shot from your teammate directly in front of them or to their right.  Generally speaking, avoid crossing too many people when throwing spear shots as the further out you stab and the longer you are exposed the more likely it is that something will go wrong.  The final shot is any open gut shot that you see.  Typically when (new) people are fighting in a line their opponent will cause them to move their shield away from covering their torso creating an opportunity that someone with reach can exploit.

As a red on the line your goal is to destroy as many shields as fast as you can.  Legging opponents is fine if you can't get to shields, and trying to get body shots is alright if you are fast enough to land them.  That having been said, kill all the shields.  A person who is on the shield wall without a shield or cover from a person with a shield is going to get chewed up in seconds by other support weapons, other shields or even your own archers.  As a red your goal is to kill shields as fast as humanly possible while also making sure that you aren't doing something that will injure your opponents.  DO NOT take this comment as a suggestion that you should start throwing 12-6 as fast as you can.  That is undeniably reckless and leads to injury.

Archers

An archer will share attributes with many of the other types of resources on the field and may overlap with them some.  For instance you can have an archer who is also a commander or an archer that goes with the flanks, or even an archer that sits just behind the lines as a counter-flanker.  To that end there are 2 basic kinds of archers that exist which you could generally call mobile vs immobile archers but which I've started to call combat archers vs snipers.

A combat archer is a person who is extremely fleet of foot and uses their positioning and mobility to line up and take shots that would normally be impossible to get.  Generally speaking they don't have any kind of guard but rely on staying near teammates to avoid getting pinched or backed by the enemy.  If they choose to move with a flank this gives the flank the ability to hit remote targets without a hard engage.  If they stick to the line then they should be able to eliminate enemy polearms pretty quickly.  It's generally recommended that a person opting to fight in this way keeps a spare set of weapons on them and has a more limited number of arrows on hand.  Since they'll be moving around a lot they can easily scavenge arrows from the ground.  The caveat is that as this kind of archer you're more likely to get rushed, you have to shoot under pressure, no one is protecting you and you may get hit by stray projectiles like rocks and javelins.  Also cardio... all the damn cardio.

 As a sniper an archer is going to stand far back relative to the line meaning that they can mostly ignore projectiles and keep a wide view of combat.  As a sniper the goal is to have as large a quiver as possible and a small escort so that you can fire without being under pressure.  This should allow a person to make difficult or long range shots, allow them to head hunt commanders, flankers, and other archers.  If they have targets they can pick on the line (SAFELY) then of course they should hunt for those as well, but in the middle of a pitched melee they won't have much to shoot at on the line.  It is my opinion that an archer's primary job is to kill enemy leadership, to basically snipe anyone giving instructions so that the opposing team falls into disarray.  After that enemy archers are the priority so that they can shoot without being under pressure.  Then you get high priority targets like veterans (these can include polearms on the line) or flankers and finally you get to polearms on the line.  As a general rule of thumb archers shouldn't be aiming at sword and board fighters simply because arrow for arrow they're likely to do more damage firing at literally any other target.  It's not to say they can't, shouldn't, or never ought to, it's just to say they should really consider what targets they aren't shooting at to try and head shot that one fighter.

Whew.  moving on.

The Line / One Concrete Example

I touched on this briefly in a post on battle calls but positioning boils down to the speed at which you move and the formation that you take both for yourself (internal cohesion) and vs your enemy (posturing).  Internal cohesion is the process of creating or maintaining a shape relative to your yourself.  Posturing is about how you are positioned in response to your enemies formation.  Internal cohesion can take many forms, though the the most common of these is a line with a flank on one side, the archers in the back, and counter flankers/commanders staggered along but behind the line.  This is so common that most people don't even think about internal cohesion but simply adopt this by default.  There are many different shapes a group can take while maintaining internal cohesion but let's talk about a line first before moving on to other things.

In a line the main point of failure for internal cohesion is a failure of the shield wall as the rest of the group isn't in any particular formation.  Internal cohesion is lost when members of the shield wall do not keep pace with one another and instead of forming a line form something more like a squiggle.  This positioning causes members of the line to vulnerable to attack from the sides (the main thing the line is supposed to prevent).  A line is great anytime there are enclosed spaces that prevent a person from flanking.  A line is vulnerable to being manipulated over large spaces (stretched out, rotated, getting the people to have bad pacing/movement) as well as getting hit from multiple directions (as in a free for all) of getting attacked on it's sides.  A wall that stretches out loses the strength of it's formation as people next to each other can no longer cover each other and prevent projectiles from passing through.  A line that's facing not directly towards it's enemies is also in trouble because it has no strength anywhere other then the front of the line.  A line's position relative to the opposing force is the result of posturing regardless of how well (or poorly) that line maintains it's internal cohesion.

A line that has good internal cohesion will not have gaps between the shields that are part of the shield wall which will prevent projectiles from passing behind it.  Having a tightly knit front end of the wall will also provide adequate cover for the associated polearms while keeping projectiles out will provide cover to commanders/counter flankers.  Counter flankers in this scenario will read the relative strength and weakness of the line[defined/discussed as 'weight' later on] along it's length and posture offensively or defensively as is needed to gain a local advantage or negate the opposing team from gaining one.  In cases where the line stretches for most of the boundary of the field but not all of it, counter flankers will head out to the side where they do not have a flank and protect it from incoming fighters.  The side that has a flank will fan out and try to cause an opposing line to either fight at two angles, (directly in front and to their side) or will cause the enemy line to spread thin thereby creating local advantage for the part of the line facing the weakened enemy section.  Archers will add to the chaos by picking of VIP's further tilting areas for local (the people fighting in front of, next to and across from you), regional (left, center, right, some other subsection), or field (everyone) advantage.  Taking out a polearm in a fight between 4v4 might create a local advantage.  Taking out a commander or an enemy archer might create a regional advantage and taking out  the enemy's primary commander can create a field level advantage.  As the battle commences the side with better team mechanics will start to gain local advantages that then spill over into a large group advantage as regional part of the field collapses to either superior numbers, skill, gear or in some cases just bad luck (like getting backed by a flanker).  The first team to establish a regional advantage USUALLY wins though in some cases (like the right side of both teams winning utterly) the remaining bits of a team that won a regional advantage will now re-orient and fight for a final victory.  Teams then reset and the battle usually then continues without any real adjustments.  That's where posturing comes in.

Posturing / Weight Class / Pressure

For the sake of trying to avoid giving myself a headache I'm going to mostly talk about 2 team scenario's rather then something like a unit or realm battle with multiple teams.  The same general theories will apply it'll just be at multiple angles.  Multi team battles are  their own separate logistical nightmare although the rules of strategic resources and how to manage them still matter.  At the start of a battle when folks line up line to line you want to take into account the relative weight of forces in any particular area of the line.  The weight of the forces in an area is roughly speaking the fighting acumen of the fighters in that section (vets vs noobs) and the number of people in that area.  An area densely packed with nothing but noobs is going to be relatively light, an area packed with a bunch of average fighters is going to be of medium weight and an area with a few vets, densely packed vets, or vets and competent/average fighters will be relatively heavy.  The amount of weight in a given area is effectively the amount of force that a person can apply.  The amount of force a person can apply is effectively the same as the amount of pressure that a force can apply.  When talking about a group a heavy force applies a lot of pressure and causes a more realistic threat that people will respond to.  When talking about a single individual depending on their relative skill/ability will apply more or less pressure their pressure is also usually pretty proportionate to their 1 step range as unless a person is far away that is the threat of force that they can realistically apply so long as they are being watched.  Archers and flankers, even though they are individuals apply a disproportionate amount of pressure.  For an archer they can hit everyone so they are effectively threatening everyone they can see when they knock an arrow.  A flanker is someone that requires watching regardless of their 1 step threat range because should they happen to make it past the angle of the main line they can wipe out a large section, if not the entirety of the team.  Also, even if they are being watched if a flanker engage the person babysitting them and wins, even with one arm they can still do a spectacular amount of damage.

If you realize that one side of the field (usually a flank, though it can be part of the line) is stacked to be super heavy then if you are commanding it's something you'll need to respond to.  If the enemy line builds a super heavy flank and you leave a normal or light piece of line in front of them you're going to get wrecked.  You have to see that it's heavy and move people over to match that equivalent weight or at least get to a similar weight on that section of line.  Particularly skilled fighters can position in response to an overwhelming force by giving ground slowly rather then getting simply run over right away.  This is the result of defensive posturing in which your move relative to an enemy you will lose against is to give ground with a guarded rather then a fleeing retreat.  So long as your posturing is with the express purpose of staying alive or stalling while waiting for an advantage elsewhere on the field you are doing defensive posturing.  Sometimes an archer can do this on their own by simply not firing an arrow but keeping it knocked and pointed at an enemy line.  Many reds, if they aren't well protected or in confined quarters will respond to this pressure from an archer by cowering behind a shield or running away instead of actually swinging their weapon.  If you, as an archer, can stop a group of reds from attacking with a knocked arrow that may actually be better then trying to pick them off one at a time if your group is on defense rather then on offense.

Another option should you find yourself in a group where the odds are stacked against you is to try and manipulate your enemy to moving into a bad spot.  This is offensive posturing wherein you try to convince them to stand in some way that your defending force can hit them from multiple angles.  Probably the easiest example to visualize is a V defending a choke point.  As someone gets in far enough to hit the point of the V they've already had to run past a bunch of people on either side of them.  The people inside the choke point can't hit anything until the team attacking steps inside the choke point, but the second they do that attacker now has to defend themselves from two sides at extreme angles.  As far as using this tactic out on the field try to either stretch the enemy out to make the line that is attacking thin or try to pull them together and away from the edges of the field so that there are gaps to get around.  If the line is long and thin then it may expose their support weapons, opening them up to being rushed by a teammate or shot by an archer which may give the remaining defenders more time to hold.  Alternately if you can get them to bunch up so someone can get around their side then the attackers now have to fight at multiple angles which tends to be to their disadvantage.  Sometimes they will opt to run down the person who has gotten the flank or angle on them.  That isn't necessarily bad as the person who has the flank or angle can simple run away from the place the attackers are applying pressure.  If the attackers follow then they give up pressure on the defenders which is helpful even if your teammate dies.  If the attackers don't run down the newly created flanker then they must slow their advance in order to prevent themselves from getting hit from the side or behind because of the nearly overwhelming pressure having a flanker creates.

Creating Pressure

Pressure is generated in a number of different ways.  Pressure can be applied by as the attacker having higher weight then the defender (this accounts for a number, or veterancy advantage), pressure can be applied with angles,  pressure can also be applied by having the right gear in the right situation.  Having a higher weight then your opponent is pretty self explanatory (or just re-read the part where I define it) and attempts to mitigate this advantage are listed above.  To make use of having this advantage it's important to make sure that you just advance as quickly as you can without losing internal coherency.  This will eventually either allow you to make use of your advantage by turning advantage into kills or it will cause the enemy team to deform thereby forcing them to lose their internal coherency at which point your local advantage becomes a regional advantage.  In the best case scenario you get the enemy team fighting back to back with itself.  As it turns out a team that can't maneuver anymore usually dies.

Pressure applied from angles is about forcing people to defend themselves from multiple extreme angles I talk about this a little bit from the perspective of a single fighter in my bit on combos the same sort of idea applies here but instead of using extreme angles from one person you instead apply extreme angles with a 2v1 scenario or many vs many +1 scenario.  In this way you can force a person to leave themselves open to attack in at least one direction.  Once you've accomplished this a n vs n+1 scenario you've created a local advantage where you can do a 3v1 because you now have a n vs n + 2 fight.  The more effectively or more quickly you can get to that critical up on person number the more quickly you can then create a local and then a regional advantage.  When you get to even a 2 person advantage, if they're stacked on the same side of the regional group that can quickly turn into a steamroll or domino effect in which they run down that side of the region, becoming a proportionately larger force with each enemy they kill.  Fighting 2v1 is hard, fighting 3v1 when two people rush you from one side is a shit show.  To deny a team that is trying to work angles on you it's important to drive the fight to the edges of the field so they can no longer outmaneuver you.  You can also do something called denying the flank, where instead of retreating straight backwards you either skate out to the side or you move back and also sideways thereby creating a state where for the fighter directly across from you moving in to take advantage of the 2v1 they have on you involves stepping adjacent to your teammate conveniently also putting them into a 2v1.

Having the right gear, even when numbers match can also generate pressure.  As one example if you're on a bridge and both teams have a ton of shields, if one team has a live red fighter and the other does not then the team with the red fighter has the advantage and can create pressure using the red.  To do so they need only allow it to do work.  In that particular case it means standing next to the red fighter and moving up every time it stops having something to swing at.  Depending on the weapons configuration that generates the advantage you may wish to employ another strategy.  If your team has an archer and the enemy team does not (or at the local or regional level this is true) then your best bet is to prevent the enemy from engaging you while allowing your archer to score free kills as in that scenario that's how you win at math.  There is not a real good counter to this advantage as you're mostly just screwed.  In some cases you can still posture defensively, trying to keep the enemy from getting kills on you with their advantage while you wait for another section of your team to get advantage on your opponents but there won't be much you can do at a local level to turn a gear advantage in your favor.  Having the right veterans is also something that potentially might get you out of that particular bind but having the right strategic resources on your team is something that happens before the battle begins not after it's started.  In a large enough battle a field commander may also be able to send you the strategic resources you need to flip that disadvantage.  Also, if you have counter flankers who are doing their jobs you may also receive support that way.  There is not however, a clear tactical way to approach being generally outgunned however.

Alternate Formations

The are nearly infinite other possible ways that you can put a team together other then simply relying on a line formation.  They all still apply the basics outlined above of strategic resources, internal coherency, posturing and pressure however with the end goal of trying to win at math as swiftly as possible.  I am personally a fan of the V formation when trying to hold a point, or the wedge (reverse v) formation when trying to break through a point especially in the case of scenario or objective battles.  For field battles I tend to favor a line that's split into 3, a middle a left and a right flank, plus a small reserve group behind as the rearguard.  This alignment tends to be a bit more mobile then the a standard line, flank and backline configuration.  The slight gap between the sections of the line do allow flankers through more easily but with no exposed backline and a horde of defenders watching for flankers that tends to less often be a problem.  Also, with a flank effectively on the right AND the left side you rarely go down because your flank wasn't heavy enough to engage the enemies flank.  Also with the left and right side flanks if the enemy doesn't posture defensively relative to your engagement they're more likely to get sideswiped.  In this particular setup archers are attached to sections of the line (though they still stand behind each section) rather then all clustered together.  In addition to making your archers less vulnerable to all getting wiped out at the same time this gives you more diverse firing angles then if they're all clumped together.  Plus, since they're attached to each section of line they can spot flankers and potentially eliminate them prior to that entire section getting wiped out.  Historical setups of a non-line organization also include the phalanx (though in actual deployment they had cavalry), the horns (line + 2 flanks out in front), and the pincer movement (so that the front of the line in the center is a bit back from the left and right sides of the line with the intention of enveloping the enemy force from the sides when you get close).

This blog post is long...

But fortunately that's all I have to say on the matter of trying to weld all the things related to tactics together.  I do not have a witty end for this one, I simply hope that these terms and examples are helpful to you.  Rift out.

Asking for help

I feel like when dealing with new people they are often overwhelmed at everything going on but for whatever reason they get caught up in not wanting to bother people.  This post is about that stuff.

Step 1: Ask

Regardless of your actual level of skill the people around you may often have things that they can teach you if you take the time to ask.  So the answer is yes.  This becomes doubly so true if you're new to the game.  When in doubt about anything just ask the nearest vet to try to have them clarify for you.  When it comes to teaching/training you should still ask for whatever they can offer you.  Many vets aren't at their prime any more and as a result enjoy teaching new people even more then they used to.  There are some vets who still just want to fight, so if someone tells you they aren't interested in training you make sure you respect their wishes and move on.

Step 2: Learning the approach

Even the most well meaning teacher is going to be vexed if you approach them the wrong way.  So there are certain things to avoid when trying to get a person to teach you new things.  The first thing to do is make sure that they have both the time and the energy to teach you something.  If the person is in the middle of fighting or is otherwise occupied by doing a fighting related thing, that's probably not the best time to ask them to teach you something.  If a person has also just stepped off the field due to fatigue, injury, or just needing to stop and breath for a while that's also not a great time to try to get them immediately back on their feet to teach you something.  That having been said approaching a person who is off to the side of the field to let them know that you're interested in learning something is probably the best chance you'll get so you can do that so long as you don't expect them to train you right at that second.

Step 3: Picking a subject

There's also something to be said for knowing what you want to learn.  I have 13 years of fighting in my head that covers everything from basic footwork to the particular angle and height you hold your weapon in order to best block or strike.  If you just show up and ask me to teach you something I'm going to be at a loss of what to do with you.  Watching me flail at trying to figure out how to teach someone florentine is already sufficiently entertaining because of the amount of knowledge I have of that thing.  Asking me to teach someone either everything or anything just means I stand there looking confused.  Now, you don't have to have all the answers, or know exactly what you want to learn, you just need to give your teacher some place to start.  If you're brand new, that's probably footwork, blocking, and basic swings.  Getting those down right is time consuming.

Step 4: Hey, LISTEN

If you're going to take the time to ask them to teach you then make sure that you're actually going to listen.  As a person who has spent a ton of time training people nothing gets me more aggravated then having someone ask to be taught but then who isn't actually willing to learn.  Getting as good as I am took me years and it's because of the time that I put in to getting better that I've reached the degree of skill that I have attained.  There's no single trick or magic that will allow a person to suddenly get good overnight.  You don't need to spend all day every day training to see improvement that will come from fighting at least once a week but you do need to be willing to practice the skills that you learn.  I've seen this in the form of people who are too busy talking to actually listen, I've seen this in the form of people who don't want to learn fundamentals because they think they're boring, I've seen this in the form of people arguing with me over the things I'm trying to teach.  If you want to wander off and talk to people then by all means do that... but not while you're trying to learn.  Socialize or train but not both.  You may not want to learn fundamentals because you just want to learn that one sweet move, but if you're new, chances are that you aren't yet skilled enough to pull that move off and need to spend time honing your skills before you can execute that shot.  Questions related to a teacher's instructions are fine and welcome but telling a person who you asked to teach you that they're wrong should make you question why you asked to learn from them in the first place.  If you think that what they have to say is invalid then why bother asking them for their opinion in the first place?

Step 5: Practice makes perfect

Most skills are not taught in one session.  If you really want to get better it helps to have a dedicated teacher.  Once you've got one of those it's then up to you to make sure you follow through.  There are plenty of people who I've taught one thing to one time.  The number of actual students I've had is a much lower number.  All of the things above that are good to do, keep doing.  Find your teacher when they aren't in the midst of fighting or exhausted.  Ask questions about what they're teaching you so that you get to understand it better.  Take the time to listen to what they tell you and practice the skills that they impart to you.  When you see that they have free time remind them that you want to learn more.  As an added bonus try to recall the last thing you learned so that they don't have to.  As the student you only have to remember what you learned, as the teacher they have to remember everything they taught to all of their students.  You have the easier job in this particular exchange :-P.

When All Else Fails... Any Vet Will Do

While having a dedicated teacher is nice because they can help you along the way you don't actually need that to get better.  When in doubt and wanting to learn new things, find someone who has beaten you in a fight and ask to spar them.  At the end of the spar talk to them about it, ask them if they see anything you can work on.  What shots were they throwing that managed to get past your guard?  Ask them to show you those shots.  What part of their defense was giving you trouble so that you couldn't bypass it?  Ask them to show you how they'd deal with that particular strategy.

Arsenal Time

I am now working on putting together my 3rd arsenal to date.  Pro tip kids, don't have your weapons bag stolen.  Now that I'm putting together my 3rd arsenal to date I thought I'd take a minute and explain that process for anyone who was curious about it.

What's an arsenal?

An arsenal, alternately your or a realms armory is the stuff you need in order to fight.  It includes all of your weapons/shields/polearms but also the equipment that you need to fight with.  Your arsenal needs to include any and all safety gear that you need when stepping out onto the field.  In most cases it includes the garb and any armor that you'll want to wear.  I also tend to include things that I'd want to have on hand at an event like sunscreen and a water bottle.  If you're a veteran or running a realm I also recommend having a med kit on hand to take care of the usual scrapes and bruises.  Certain items are more important then others when putting together an arsenal.  So, let's get to it.

First things first

More important than any other piece of gear is the stuff that you need in order to keep yourself safe.  If you get injured fighting the other stuff won't matter much.  For that reason the first thing to get into your arsenal is your safety gear.

Starting with gloves.  The most important feature of a set of gloves is that it protects your knuckles.  You can do this pretty cheaply with a set of heavy bag gloves or MMA gloves.  Those usually run around $30.  This gives your knuckles soft protection and padding.  For slightly better protection you can get something with hard knuckles.  Ideally you'll get something that also covers your second finger joint as this is nearly as prone to injury as your knuckles.  Motorcycle/BMX gloves often provide this additional protection to your hands.  After years of trying different sets of gloves my personal favorite for hand protection thus far is modified lacrosse gloves.  Lacrosse gloves provide a good grip on a weapon while also providing each joint of your hand good protection.  I say modified because normally lacrosse gloves cover your wrists.  A glove which covers your wrist (which is a valid target area) will often cause a person to sluff shots to that target location.  My personal favorite presently is the brine lacrosse gloves.  I got a set off amazon here.  I remove the strap with a pair of scissors and then clip off the outer flaps to expose my wrist.

Next up is knee protection.  While you may not always need knee protection it's often a good idea.  In addition to protecting you when you drop to a knee hard knee pads can increase your mobility when legged.  The basic split for knee pads is between having something that offers a ton of protection but has a lot of bulk or is heavy and between a more minimalist knee pad that offers up less protection but is lighter.  You can also get a hard or a soft knee pad.  Heavier knee pads tend to work better if you're a slower moving fighter.  In addition to providing plenty of protection to move around and rotate on your  legs, if you do have to take a leg suddenly you don't have to worry about the drop to a knee.  If you tend to prefer being fleet of foot then you may want a lighter set of knee pads as heavy knee pads tend to slip when you start sprinting.  For a heavier set of knee pads you can often find a set of workman's knee pads from a place like home depot.  These tend to be soft rather then hard.  For a hard set a set of catcher's knee pads tends to work well.  These are particularly favored by amt fighters.  For minimalist knee pads people commonly pick up either paintball knee pads or volleyball knee pads.

Minimal weapons kit

A basic weapon set is going to be whatever your primary weapon is and a backup.  For most people (and this is also what I'd just personally recommend) start with 2 blues and a shield.  This setup will allow you to fight florentine if you'd like or fight sword and board.  Should one weapon fail you'll still be able to fight sword and board which means that you'll be ready to go to an event so long as you keep your weapons in decent repair.  If you fight exclusively with polearms then have 2 polearms so if your main weapon fails you'll have a backup.  When fighting with a polearm I recommend having a secondary weapon as well so that if someone closes you can still defend yourself.  After you've got this set up then you'll be able to move on to additional weapon sets (a second florentine set) or branch off into other weapons.  If you're primarily an archer then I recommend having at LEAST 6 arrows up and running at all times.  You can probably get by with 3-4 in a quiver but having more on hand will allow you to be more effective.

Main hand

When it comes to your primary weapon there's a lot of variables to consider for its construction.  The first variable is the weight of the weapon.  A lighter weapon will cause less fatigue when used and will allow you to throw more shots then a heavier weapon.  However, a lighter weapon will do a poor job of blocking incoming shots.  In addition to being easier to blow through if your blocking technique is poor you are more likely to injure yourself.  A heavier weapon will make it harder to swing quickly and after a long period of time it'll certainly cause more more strain then a lighter weapon.  The advantage being that even with poor body mechanics a heavier weapon will absorb the force of another swing much easier then a lighter one.  Additionally so long as you can aim your shots well having a bit more weight behind the weapon means it will deliver more force making it more likely to get through a block and be considered a good swing.  That's sort of the cliff notes version of a discussion over weight, a longer discussion can be found here.

The next important piece when picking weight is to make sure that the weapon fits you.  Never get a weapon that's heavier then you have the ability to wield effectively even if you think it's in your best interest.  The next thing to figure out is the length of your weapon.  A longer weapon gives you more reach but means that the closer you get to a person the less effective you become.  A shorter weapon means you can swing and block faster but have to be very efficient with your footwork in order to actually get anything done.  A longer weapon also tends to be heavier, so as before make sure that you get a weapon you can handle.  A longer discussion of long vs short can be found here.

The final bit of the weapon to determine is its balance point, that is to say whether the weapon is tip vs pommel heavy.  A weapon can also be neutral, which is to say that it's neither tip nor pommel heavy.  People who favor tip heavy weapons tend to throw lots of stabs and slashes.  Having the weapon's weight be towards the tip makes the weapon's initial swing and bounce back go faster.  However having the weight of the weapon towards the tip means that wrap shots are a bit more awkward.  A weapon that is back weighted (balanced towards the pommel) puts the rotational point of the weapon towards the center of it.  This causes the weapon to more adeptly rotate allowing for faster and deeper wrap shots.  However because the weight is towards the back of the weapon the initial weapon swings won't have the same acceleration as a weapon that's tip weighted.

While the above discussion has been about a single blue weapon the general physics and concerns apply to any wielded melee weapon.  Assuming you've gotten all that figured out you can move onto secondary weapons/gear.  For the sake of the above example let's talk shields briefly.

Shield

I favor two particular kinds of shields (though to each their own).  The first kind of shield is a punch shield that's square.  Having a square shield gives you corners that you can work with.  Having those corners allows you to quickly manipulate another person's shield.  I tend to build a square punch of this shape to cover my "box" (the area bounded by my shoulders to my hips).  This allows you to not only protect your own body but it also allows you to open up another person's body.  The other kind of shield that I favor is a round strap shield.  Since a strap shield isn't as maneuverable a a punch shield you want the extra area around the edges to be able to swing around.  Similar to the configuration of a punch shield a round shield should have enough diameter to cover from my shoulder to my hip plus probably an inch or two to absorb wrap shields.

Garb/Armor

For most places you'll go you can get by with pretty minimal garb.  A pair of wrap pants, a tabard and a belt.  You can wear this over pretty much anything else.  So long as you've got a neutral colored t-shirt underneath the tabard and are wearing a pair of shorts you'll be good to go about anywhere.  If you're a new fighter just starting out I absolutely recommend staying away from armor.  Learning to take hits is something that is time consuming in it's own right.  Learning the intricacies of if you were hit, when you were hit, how hard you were hit and by what you were hit is all sufficiently difficult BEFORE you start trying to figure out whether that shot landed on armor or not and if the armor at that hit location was still intact.  Armor is useful, but make sure you get your hit taking on point first.

Etc

In addition to everything above I also keep some generally useful things in my bag.  To keep myself hydrated I keep a water bottle on hand.  I eventually also got a camelbak so that I could keep water with me on the field at events.  That's probably overkill for most people.  If you spend any time fighting outdoors having sunscreen in your bag is often useful as it can prevent you from getting burned.  Keeping some snack food in your bag may also be helpful so that after heavy fighting you can avoid the crash that comes when adrenaline flows back out of your system.

Fin

Assuming you manage to get all of that into a bag you should be in pretty good shape to show up anywhere and fight.

The benefits (and perils) of cross gaming

I won't belabor that I've been around for a while anyone who reads this regularly already knows that.  For those who don't it's been 13 years.  I've pretty happily given myself to Belegarth as my primary sport.  But, in the interim I've played LARP (using the ragdoll system), as well as a few specific variants underneath that.  I've played some amtgard both at local parks and at more intense things like events/tournaments.  I've spent some time doing lightsaber combat, I've done some sparring with wooden shinai as well.  I haven't done any fencing, saber or armored combat like SCA or ARMA... although I've participated in some ARMA classes related to the proper use of German long sword.  I have also spent some time doing all sorts of random martial arts from karate to jiu jitsu for short periods of time.  It's always been my perception that a varied background better prepares you to be a good fighter.

Step 1: don't be a dick

It's important to remember that when you approach a new combat system that you treat it with the respect that it's due.  You are coming onto THEIR turf to try out THEIR thing.  If you want to do YOUR thing on YOUR time, you can do so.  Don't try to change THEIR thing and make it YOUR thing.  That's just being shitty.  Explain to the people running the thing that you are new to the system and try to make sure that you ask when you don't understand things.  Generally speaking if you fight well and are courteous most places will be happy to have you.  When adapting to their rules don't tell them that their rules are stupid (even if it's true).  Take the time to learn their rule system in its entirety and ask questions to clarify any grey areas (because there are always grey areas).  When you think you've got the system well in hand spend some time sparring with another person who knows the system well to get used to the new rules.

Not too hot

Additionally their hit threshold may vary from the sport you are used to.  Belegarth, in general, expects more force behind their hits then does Amtgard.  In Belegarth hits from Amtgard that would be perfectly fine in Amtgard are going to be called lite.  If you don't understand that higher hit threshold then you'll think all of your opponents are cheating.  To be fair, some of them may be, as with anything there are going to be people who are less then honorable.  But it's important to start with charity and assume the best then to immediately feel victimized and assume that you're being singled out.  When in doubt, ask questions and people will tell you, you just need to swing harder.  Ask them to demonstrate what a valid hit would be and then calibrate appropriately.  Also realize that things that aren't legal in your sport might be legal in their sport.  If you switch from amt to bel you'd be very surprised to suddenly be either shield kicked while prone or shot directly in the face.  But both of those things are legal in belegarth and very much a part of the game.  Understanding these distinctions is what allows you to adapt to the transition easily rather then becoming extremely offended about how the opponent is either angry at you or trying to harm you.

Not too cold

The reverse case is also equally valid.  You want to make sure that you aren't throwing shots with too much force, or to target zones are illegal.  Head shots when fighting with shinai are totally legal, but you're also required to wear a facemask to prevent anyone from being stabbed directly in the eye as getting a wooden sword to that target location could easily kill you.  Throwing the equivalent shot in belegarth is not only a dick move but also dangerous for the other person.  Head shots happen and the weapons are padded enough that theoretically this should be fine, but, put enough force behind a swing and you can still give opponents concussions.

You also don't want to come off as inherently angry or over aggressive.  If a bel fighter throws bel hits at an amt event they may very well leave bruises on their targets even if they aren't intending to throw any particularly vicious swings.  (Don't get me wrong we do this to each other, it's just that in bel we know what we're getting into).  If you do that on an amt field you may injure people as they haven't been fighting in such a way as to take those hits, and generally speaking they're just going to have a really shitty opinion of you.  This goes back to sparring with someone beforehand.  Have them demonstrate what a good hit is and then tone your hit taking and the force of your own throws down (or up) to that level.

Safety First

In each fighting system the rules are there for a reason.  It's important to make sure that you follow the rules as written in order to make sure that everyone stays safe.  As one example of this in larp systems arrows are often made out of nerf rockets or other similarly bored things like a roll of cardboard on the backside.  If this comes back at someone because it bounced off a target it's not really a big deal.  On the other hand in bel we use real arrows with a modified padded head.  If the rear end of that arrow strikes someone there's a very good chance they'll get impaled because we haven't done anything to the knock.  Since it's made form plastic it's not a danger to most of the time but if someone swings at it to knock it out of the air it means you've got a knock spinning through the air at eye height and that's just bad news for everyone.  So understand and follow the rules, if not for your own sake then for the sake of those around you.

Friends with Benefits

Forcing yourself to have to tune your hit taking threshold up and down is a really useful skill set to learn.  Being able to be in tune with your body and feel the feedback from all your fights will improve your hit taking overall not just in any specific system.  Fighting with a different hit threshold will also force you to develop more control over your swings so that you can add or remove force while still throwing the shots you're used to throwing.  The ability to modulate how much force is behind your swing is incredibly useful.  The musculature that this builds in your arms means that pulling head shots is easier and it also means you can provide additional force for a thicker opponent without having to resort to swinging wildly.  As different systems make different assumptions about how to fight you'll also likely learn new skill sets or new shots.  Not all of them may transfer but some of them will.  Transferring from bel to amt taught me a lot of holes in my guard that are only really present when you move fast enough.  Learning to block at those locations meant that when I went back to bel I was harder to hit.  When going from amt to bel I notice that many fighters in amt do not attempt to block for their legs, so leg shots, as well as hip wraps disguised as leg shots become super easy.  The first person to figure out that I'm taking those swings in amt is going to suddenly have a much easier time killing me :-P.

That guy...

Assuming you've followed all the stuff I've said above there shouldn't be any.  The downsides of cross gaming come when someone has done it poorly.  If you do it poorly then you develop a poor reputation for yourself in that particular sport.  If you aren't taking hits because you haven't adapted to a new hit threshold then you're a cheater.  If you haven't toned up your hits to the required force then you're bad.  If you haven't toned down your shots to the right threshold then you can also be an asshole, a brute, etc.  If you don't follow their rules then you're rude and disrespectful.  If you don't clarify and work to understand their system then they'll assume you don't care.  All of this is bad reputation and makes you look bad.  But what makes it worse is that if you are the first person from your fighting system to interact with them they're going to assume everyone else is like you.  So not only do you ruin it for yourself but you ruin it for anyone who comes after you, by leaving it up to them to have to fix the bad perceptions you've not placed on your system.

So go out, have fun and see what all is out there.  You may discover in your travels that you've been in the wrong family all along :-P.