The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

Atlantia rallied for the field battle at 2pm on Monday.  I, still sporting a wave in my hair from my recent use as a model in a headdress class (lots of pictures available, if you know where to look), headed out to the field with Her Excellency to see…

The Armored Forces of the Knowne World waiting for the cannon to go off so they could charge across the field and fight through three small gates.  Yeah, turns out there was a 2.5 hour delay in the armored battles that day, a pattern repeated through the rest of the war.

The armored battle wrapped, and the rapier field battle prepped to get ready just an hour and a half late.  The delay in the heavy fighting meant that the long line of hay bales down the center of the field with the three “gates” in the middle was still there, running from the fort to the opposite side of the field, and was to be treated as a long line of hay bales, to be jumped, fought over, fought on, but not tripped over.

Field Battle I

Atlantia set up facing the fort, on the right side of the hay bale line, then shifted left to the other side of the hay bales, with Ansteorra to our right, mostly to screw with the opposition.  We had formed into columns by unit for the move across the field.  Giacomo, taking point for the entire army, said “At lay on, we’re going to run across the field, jump the hay bales, and hit that unit over the enemy left in their flank”.  Wistric, being a smartass, says, “When you say ‘run’, do you mean ‘run’?”  Giacomo confirms that, of course he does, and Alric chimes in that the Dragoons only have two speeds, “Run” and “DFB”.  Clever boy, that one.  So at lay on, Wistric and Windmasters Hill run.  We leap the hay bales at a full trot, and about that point Wistric realizes he doesn’t see Giacomo.  He turns around to jog backwards.  Windmasters Hill, it turns out, has a different calibration for “run”, and so had about ten steps on the rest of Atlantia.  We slowed down, reformed the columns, and advanced on the enemy.  The enemy advanced out towards us, and left a gap about five people wide between the end of their line and the hay bales.  The charge was called and the Dragoons and Gardiner’s rushed through the gap while Windmasters hit the very end of the line, with other Atlantian units piling on next to us, and Ansteorra occupying the rest of the enemy left.

I got four or five kills as I rolled the line.  A reserve unit coming in to counter our attack ended up killing me, but also got crunched by Atlantia, and so I headed for the sidelines.

Turning back to watch, I saw that Atlantia had significantly outpaced the East, and the Mid had responded by mobbing Atlantia after it struck the Mid’s left.  This, though, had drained the Mid so that when the East finally did arrive it could overrun the remaining Middies.   This war basically added a new order to the Atlantian repertoire: “Prepare to take it like a sailor”.

Field Battle II

The East and the Mid switched ends, and starting against the fort, formed up on the left.  The instruction now came down: “We’re going to go a bit slower this time” (only a few people said “Yeah, Wistric!”), “And the East is going to go faster”.  This seemed all well and good, because we didn’t want to have to die slowly, again, for the East’s glory.  Also, because the Mid had stacked up its units facing us, we thought not having to charge that mass might be a good way to enjoy the sunshine a little longer.

So, at Lay On, Giacomo charged off at Wistric Speed.

We called him back, and all proceeded to advance slowly.  We looked over to the right, to see the New and Improved, Much Faster East Kingdom… trailing behind us.  And the enemy?  Yeah, they were charging us.  I sent Windmasters in to die in style, and sergeanted the rest of Atlantia into the fight, before noticing that we were really and truly screwed, BUT that the East had finally gotten on the good foot, swept the right side of the field, and was coming up behind our enemy.  So I called for Atlantia to fall back.  After starting the call with about twenty Atlantians still standing, by the time we had fallen back there were four of us.  Yeah, Atlantia really doesn’t retreat.  I know Giacomo was one of the four, I think Master Kit (aka Thjora) was the another.  There were about twenty-five of the enemy facing us, and the East slowly advancing down the field behind them.  So, our job was to die slow and delay, so I took a run around their flank into their backfield, drew three of them off, and died quickly.  Giacomo reported later that 8 of the enemy were chasing after him.  Eventually the East came down, finished the Mid, and took all the glory.  Yep, take it like sailors.

Interkingdom Anthropology on the Rapier Field

As is almost always the case with interkingdom anything, I ran into certain differences of opinion.  For instance, when a fighter outside of my 180 waggled her tip in the vicinity of my left nipple, and thought I should therefore be dead, she seemed put out when I indicated that I actually felt the need to be touched to consider myself dead.  Such is the Atlantian “rhino hiding” reputation.

Also, when I ran around the enemy flank in the second field battle, an Aethelmercian Don just about shat himself because I “ran through his engagement”.  Apparently, and this is to my understanding, the Aethelmercian interpretation of “no running engagement” means “If I’m looking at you and/or have my swords pointed near you, you have to stop moving”.  I took it to mean “Don’t throw shots while running”, and stayed the hell out of range of him throwing shots at me.  But whatevs… 

More Interkingdom  Anthropology came up with the 5-man, but that’s another story.  If it hadn’t been for Sirs Johann and Roland, it could have been an “Oh my god, did you hear what Wistric did?” sort of story.  Instead, it’s a “Hey, guess what Wistric totally failed to throw?” sort of story.  You’ll see.

The real lesson of this war, learned from stories of marshals’ courts and 5-man tourneys, is fight like Atlantians known how to fight.  Fight exactly how you were taught and you will be unimpeachably in the right, and you will be the best damn army on the field.