The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

This is the last of the core skillsets for melee fighters within my framework. There’s plenty more to melee, of course, but as with tournament fencing, a lot of it is simply refining these basics.

This section is also on the shakiest ground, as I’ve mostly moved beyond the hard truths contained in measure, tempo, and line (simplified as Range/Readiness/Opening) and now focus on unit- and battlefield-level Awareness. But whatever flaws you may find, I believe it’s worth thinking about. Improve it if you can.

As always, this framework is for focusing Attention, and improving it by giving fencers some solid heuristics to guide their decision-making and reveal what’s most important.

Aggression and Defensiveness

The usual disposition for fencers is a defensive one. It comes naturally from 1v1 fights – make sure you’re safe, then work on killing the other guy. It applies doubly so to melee, where we must have closed out multiple opponents’ Range, Readiness, Opening, or Awareness before we can be safe. But being too defensive risks not taking opportunities when they arise. Fencers must be comfortable both with defensive play, where we mostly wait for opponents to make mistakes and look to our own safety, and aggressive play, where we capitalize on mistakes and force them to make more. The latter is more risky, but vital for effective combat.

Consider a sterile 2v1 situation. As we discussed previously, the status quo here benefits the pair, so the solo fighter has to make up for it with maneuver or better application of the basic principles (i.e. being more skilled). He cannot afford to be conservative or static; the longer the fight remains a 2v1, the worse off he is. At a minimum, he will almost certainly have to expend more energy just to stay alive, and will fatigue before the pair. The pair, on the other hand, have every reason to check their aggression. If they keep their cohesion, they will remain safe, but if one of the pair overextends, he puts himself or his partner at risk.

Now consider the same 2v1, but as a subset of a much larger battlefield. The solo fighter here is in exactly the opposite position; the longer he can draw out the fight, the greater his chances of being reinforced. Furthermore, if the teams are of even numbers, the longer he occupies two fighters by himself, the better the situation for his teammates elsewhere. The pair, meanwhile, must kill the solo fighter as quickly as possible.

This is easily observed in a split 3v2. Consider a situation where A and X split off, leaving B & C to fight Y.

A is in a 1v1 with X, but his friends are in a favorable 2v1. His friends have an advantage where he does not, so he’ll (generally) want to be defensive. B & C, of course, should aggressively finish off their target and then move to assist A.

X is in a 1v1, without advantage, but his buddy Y is at a significant disadvantage; all else equal, it is far more likely that X will be able to safely kill A than Y will be able to safely kill either B or C. Therefore, X must be aggressive and try to kill A fast so as to even the score before Y falls. Y, of course, is defensive.

A 3v3 asymmetrical split is the same: A & B are aggressive against X, who is defensive; Y & Z are aggressively hunting down C, who is trying to draw out the fight as long as possible.

Because most fencers naturally take a defensive stance, they must be taught when to be aggressive and when to be defensive. The more quickly they are able to recognize and react to these situations, the better they will be able to seize opportunities and mitigate threats, acting effectively as part of a unit without direct orders.

Using Aggression

Interaction between two units should fall into one of three categories. Without direct orders or a compelling reason to do otherwise, by default, fencers should:

Kill – In general, when we have some advantage over our opponent, it is best to crush them immediately, before they can run away or maneuver to make the fight fair.
Run – In general, when we are at a disadvantage, we should move – either maneuver, to create an advantage and even the score, or else to retreat and reorganize. Continuing to fight at a disadvantage is usually a good way to end up dead.
Stand – In general, when neither team has an advantage, a conservative light engagement is the default. Without some advantage, an aggressive attack is as likely to be detrimental as successful. We need to slowly seek the advantage and look for a good maneuver.

There is a final possibility – that one unit has one kind of advantage (say, numbers), and the other has some other kind of advantage (say, greater skill). This is a complex situation and only experience can tell you how best to deal with it.

Types of Advantage

I mentioned three already in my last post:

Numerical – the most obvious, and frequently the most telling.
Skill – less direct than simple numbers, skill is also important.
Positional – a broad category covering cohesion and maneuver – whose fighters are in the best position to be effective. Terrain is also important here.

And since we’re building back up to the battlefield level, I’d like to introduce one more:

Strategic – simply put, if one team has the flag, and nothing changes, they will win. Because the other team must take it, they are at a disadvantage.

All fighters should be able to recognize numerical advantage. Skill advantages require more nuanced evaluation of “the other guy”, but regalia (white scarves), quality of garb, and confidence of posture are good hints. Positional advantages are easily recognized too, particularly if fighters scan the battlefield ahead of time for difficult ground or know what maneuvers their opponents might attempt.

Strategic advantages are mostly the responsibility of the commander to track and react to, but intermediate fencers should try to maintain a general idea of where they stand and what the tactical implications might be. Strategic disadvantages frequently have special consequences – the default is no longer “run away”. If you need to capture the flag in the next fifteen seconds, it doesn’t matter that the opponent outnumbers you two to one – you have to charge in there aggressively and try your best, or else resign yourself to defeat.

Again, the goal is that fencers recognize these things immediately and react immediately, without being told – even though (or especially because) they change rapidly from moment to moment on the battlefield. This is not a thing for the commanders alone.

Communication

We’ve seen that cohesion is important. We’ve also seen that Awareness is limited (abstractly by Attention, but absolutely by the limits of our senses). Communication addresses both of these.

Aggression on the part of an individual line fighter will likely get him killed. Likewise, if a single line fighter steps out of line to flee a bad situation, his comrades are at great immediate risk. Fighters who recognize moments of advantage or disadvantage must also communicate these to their teammates – as efficiently and directly as possible – to leverage the opportunity while keeping cohesion.

Everyone must be comfortable with giving (and following) these commands. If only the commander talks, then the unit’s reactions depend solely on his Attention and Awareness. And even were the commander to spot an ideal opportunity, orders cannot always be communicated in due time.

A hierarchy of command is not a bad idea, of course, particularly when orders must be countermanded. But advantages appear and disappear rapidly, particularly in line combat. Everyone must be ready to alert the unit.

Especially People Not Fighting

If you’re engaged with an opponent, you can’t spare much thought for the battlefield as a whole. If you’re returning from rez, you most certainly can. Take a moment, look around, and communicate anything important to your teammates (up to and including maneuvers!). Incoming flankers, etc, are obvious candidates, but one that goes too frequently ignored is telling your friends to fall back from a losing fight. There’s rarely any point in dying to a man.

This is why, when we can afford the manpower, we have commanders stay off the line.

A Dynamic Battlefield

Lines are fragile. Much like the proverbial chain, once one link breaks (whether a fighter dies, steps back, or simply loses his main hand and takes awhile to switch), the entire line is exposed. Fighters must be ready to capitalize.

I’m in a line fight. Three people threaten me: A, off to my left; B, across from me; and C, off to my right. Next to me, on either side, are X and Y. (Of course there are other members of the alphabet down the line, but they are out of Range, and I pay them no Attention for now.)

I move my dagger forward into the space between A’s sword and my body. Now he has no Opening. At that very instant, C makes a wide parry, an overreaction to an attempted hand-pick from Y. He lacks Readiness.

I lunge, keeping B’s sword locked out as I do so, and strike him in the chest. A attacks me with a quick stab, but my dagger is already moving to parry.

I could recover from here, but there is an opportunity now – we outnumber the opposition. We have a 2v1, and it’s time to be aggressive. Before B can even call “dead!”, before his friends can react to the hole in their line, I am widening it. I step towards C, taking A out of Range as I call for my team to press. I bind C’s blade, and he dies quickly to Y, victim of a 2v1 he barely had time to recognize. We turn to A, but he, and the rest of his line, has already crumpled before the coordinated aggression of my teammates. X has died in the press, unfortunately, but the other unit has lost its cohesion and does not have the presence of mind to retreat. I run to the fight with Y; the foe will soon be dispatched.

In a singles fight, a five-minute “dance” can come down to a single decisive instant, seized and acted upon with resolution. Line fights, among skilled fencers, are no different.

This takes practice. That, we will address in the next and final installment.

We’re starting to push up against the limits of these simplified principles, but we can go a little further.

In a melee, units form into lines precisely because it is a very safe formation (at least, at first glance). It’s hard for anyone, on either side, to attack effectively, so everyone is pretty safe.

Cohesion

This is largely a result of the line’s cohesiveness – it’s ability to position fighters effectively and to maintain that position. If a dispersed line meets a well-ordered line, the dispersed line is subject to lots of unilateral 2v1s, because of Range.

This might encourage us to pack in as many fighters as possible. But recall that a line fight is, really, just a lot of 2v1s. In a 2v1, remember, the pair does not want to be too close together – that makes it easy for their opponent to take away Opening. Additionally, as we saw in the 2v2 example, if fighters cannot move freely or are moving up against one another, they risk surrendering Awareness or Readiness (by bumping into one another, fouling each others’ blades, etc). They have to be more finely Aware of one another’s movements to maintain Readiness.

We might reason that packing fighters in tightly works well for shield walls or pike blocks. Perhaps shield walls work because they deny their opponents any Openings? Perhaps pike blocks just out-Range their opponents?

Nah. These historical formations require drilling to maintain cohesion – one guy out of step, or one guy who panics, can throw off the whole unit. And all drill goes back to Attention and Awareness.

In theory, we could pack more tightly than our usual units, but we’d need to practice a lot more and make most of our movements – even our attacks and defenses – essentially rote and standardized. This perhaps explains the prevalence of shields, which can defend the body passively without requiring any Attention, in medieval and ancient combat.

The point: cohesion is a factor of Awareness – knowing where your friends and enemies are, and what they’re doing, well enough to optimally position yourself.

Advantage and Disadvantage

So if a line is standing against another line, each with good cohesion, how does one side gain the advantage and win?

Let us consider a few scenarios.

First, a 1v1: a skilled fighter (Provost) against a relatively unskilled fighter (Scholar). Who is likely to win? The Provost, obviously; he’s better able to use Range/Readiness/Opening to win. Greater skill is an advantage.

Second, two Scholars against one Scholar. Who is likely to win? The pair, of course; the single Scholar is no more able to use the principles to assist him, so he is not likely ever to be safe. Greater numbers are an advantage.

(The astute reader may remember that skill and numbers were factors of Mass.)

Third, two Scholars who cannot move their feet against two Scholars who can. Who is likely to win? The mobile team, naturally; they are better able to create unilateral 2v1s by controlling Range and Opening in a coordinated way. Maneuver can create an advantage.

Of course, each of these situations can be ameliorated if we heap more advantage on the beleaguered party. A Provost fighting two Scholars instead of one is much less assured of victory; an immobile team of three has better odds against a mobile team of two; etc. Skill, numbers, and maneuver can also mitigate the other team’s advantages.

Let’s go back to the previous post. Consider that 3v3. It can break up in many different ways – but there’s no reason it has to stay, say, a 1v1 & 2v2 until someone’s dead. Indeed, if a fighter in the 1v1 can make his opponent flinch or retreat (losing Readiness or Range), he may be able to sprint back to the 2v2 and turn it into a momentary 3v2 – which will, of course, break down into a favorable 2v1 somewhere.

Smart fencers will use skill, numbers, and maneuver to their advantage, if they have the requisite Awareness and Attention. We’ll see how in the next few posts.

Static vs Dynamic

When numbers and skill are equal, or difficult or impossible to change, the team that’s best able to change the battlefield dynamically, and react to those changes, has a significant advantage. Interpreting the battlefield and reacting accordingly are facets of Attention and Awareness.

This is what maneuver is – an attempt to change the odds in our favor, to make a unilateral 2v1, momentarily, out of a 2v2 or 3v3 (or to make a 1v1 out of our opponents’ 2v1).

If one team is at a disadvantage (in numbers or skill), then, all else equal, the only way to make up the difference is maneuver. Static fights play to the hands of the team with an advantage.

So if the fight is even, we maneuver to create an advantage.

If we’re losing, we maneuver to get back on even ground.

If we’re winning and the other team maneuvers, we need to maneuver to keep our advantage.

The only time we’re static is if we’re winning and our foes are too dumb to know it – or if maneuver is impossible, such as in a limited-front engagement.

Maneuver and Cohesion

The problem, of course, is that maneuver and cohesion seem diametrically opposed. How can we keep good order when everyone’s moving about? If we try to gain an advantage via maneuver, but lose cohesion, haven’t we just shot ourselves in the foot?

Yes, provided our opponents take advantage of our poor cohesion (many untrained fighters won’t, because maneuver strains Attention and Awareness; it takes them too long to recognize and react to the vulnerability).

But we need not surrender cohesion to maneuver. A unit can successfully maneuver while maintaining its cohesion.

Because the problems of cohesion are mostly about communicating where we are and what we’re doing (problems of Awareness), a simple strategy is to reduce the size of the unit. If fewer minds and bodies need to be moving in sync, it’s easier to do. This is where the other common formation, skirmishers, comes from.

Lines are large but generally static, usually using simple numbers to win; Skirmishers are dynamic but relatively few, so they must use skill and maneuver to win.

But larger units – even lines – can still maneuver while maintaining cohesion (otherwise medieval warfare would look very different). It just takes practice to make it all automatic, to keep everyone on the same page, to free up Attention and Awareness for actually fighting at the same time. Static lines don’t place particularly large demands on Attention and thus do not require drilling to effectively maintain.

Of course, our practice time is limited. So what should we drill? We’ll tackle this soon.

Addendum: Unit-level Principles

We’re just about done with Range, Readiness, and Opening at this point – most everything else will focus on higher-level phenomena. Awareness, also, is going to be considered as the broader acquisition and movement of information rather than simply knowing where people are. But before we leave these dear concepts behind, I want to pose a question for the reader: can they be applied to units, rather than just individuals? Can we speak intelligibly of a unit’s Readiness or Openings?

These simplified Italian principles give junior-level fighters a way to process the chaos of melee, to focus their limited Attention in the right places, and to interpret the fight from the sidelines. However, to build up from individual swords and individual actions to a full melee, we’re going to have to add more people.

Principles in 2v1

Everyone who has practiced 2v1s (that’s everybody, right? If not, why haven’t you?) will recognize the basics here. Let’s view a few maxims through the lens of the above principles. A and B shall be our allied fighters, opposed by X.

The 1 wants to turn it into a 1v1 – If A and B both have Range, Readiness, and Opening, X will need to look solely to his own defense (so he can respond to an attack). It is impossible for X to attack safely – as he attacks one, he’ll be stabbed by the other. X needs to deprive one or both of them of Range, Readiness, or Opening (while keeping these things for himself on the opponent).

Approach from 45 degrees – also sometimes called “60 degrees”. If A and B are too close in space, it is easy for X to take away Opening (because they are on the same line, or near it). When X maneuvers to put his opponents in a line, this is what he is doing – reducing their angle to him.

If A and B are too far apart (or much wider than 60 degrees), it is easy for X to take away Range, simply by stepping laterally.

Move Together – This applies, obviously, to Range, but is more central to Readiness. If A and B are not coordinated – they are moving in different directions, one is stopped and ready while the other is still running, etc – X can exploit the lapse in Readiness. If X feints at A, and A flinches, X can attack B safely (and if the feint is small enough, he’ll still be ready to counter B’s simultaneous attack).

There is also an application to Awareness here. A and B have an advantage in numbers. They lose that advantage if they do not maintain Awareness of each others’ positions, or if one is too aggressive, etc. This is the first time we see the value of communication (talking) for maintaining Awareness.

Sweep/Stab – “Shut down your opponent’s Readiness and Opening/Exploit your opponent’s lack of Readiness and Opening”.

Attrition Is Okay – again, if A dies but takes away X’s threat to B in the same moment (most probably because X is not Ready), then B has an easy kill, and the pair wins.

Kill Him Fast – this segues into the next step up. You’ll see in my next post.

It’s important to remember that these principles are absolute. No matter how skilled X is, he does not get to cheat the laws of Range, Readiness, and Opening (particularly once they are fully realized as measure, tempo, and line).

Now there’s lots to talk about for the 1 as well:

Maneuver – take away Range by moving laterally (moving backwards just makes your opponents safe). Take away Opening by forcing them to “cross” (the line of attack of one is blocked by the line of attack of the other), most easily done by lining them up. Take away Readiness by staying balanced and ready to change direction quickly if your opponents commit too hard.

Use the Off Hand – whatever’s in it can frustrate Opening for A while you kill B. In the worst of circumstances, you have another tool to parry with.

Move While Parrying And Attacking – whether it’s a simple parry or a parry-riposte or an attack, you lack Readiness on A while dealing with B – so you have to take away something from him, or you’ll die. Ideally he’s already been closed out via Range/Readiness/Opening; if not, you have to close him out at the same time. Range is the obvious candidate (make a passing attack to take you out of range of A, or step away from A as you parry B). Opening can also be done, particularly with an offhand.

In its advanced form, this means that a right-handed X will be more defensive when moving to the right (his dagger hand is forward, the foible of his sword can be used to parry but not to attack) and more offensive when moving to the left (a passing attack with the sword withdrawn can close one opponent’s line while attacking the other, possibly as a compound attack including the offhand).

Take Advantage of Lapses in Cohesion – Although this reduces down to Range/Readiness/Opening, it’s really about exploiting poor Awareness.

All of this stuff will arise naturally in 2v1 free-sparring, particularly if X is the most skilled by a significant margin. It just takes a little bit of guidance to interpret it.

2v2 is 2v1

Now we get to the hard part. This requires a very different way of thinking about things, but it is consistent with the principles. Bear with me.

Consider A and B vs X and Y, all at standard line-fight range:

X is still in a 2v1 against A and B – there are two people wanting to kill him, and he has to take Range/Readiness/Opening/Awareness away from them before he can be safe.

But A is ALSO in a 2v1 against X and Y for the same reasons. Which means that X and Y are in a 2v1 against A.

Yep. Everyone is simultaneously on both ends of the 2v1. And all the rules still apply.

If Y binds B’s blades, hey, X is safe from B (and A is probably safe from Y). If Y and B split off from the main fight, then X is safe from B because of Range. (B’s attention and Awareness might also get focused on Y.)

And, of course, if Y flinches (loses Readiness), or retreats (loses Range), or has his blades bound (loses Opening) – X is in a momentary 2v1 (provided B still has Range, Readiness, and Opening on X), and all the stuff above applies – if only for a moment.

As an aside, 2v2 provides an excellent chance – the first really good one – to illustrate how to use Awareness. If A and B each step out to the flank, and X and Y stay together, then A can see (be Aware of) X and Y. B can also see X and Y. But X can only see A, and Y can only see B. This gap in Awareness, if not very carefully controlled, will spell doom for X and Y. If X, nervous about backing into his partner, takes a moment to glance at Y, he has taken away his Awareness of A – and should be stabbed for it.

Everything Else Is Also 2v1

Or 1v1, I suppose.

2v2 – if they split, it’s effectively two 1v1 fights (A vs X, B vs Y; A lacks Range and possibly Awareness to Y, as does X to B, etc). If they stay together, it’s a Crazy Mutual 2v1 for everyone until someone dies. Then it’s a standard 2v1.

3v2 – A, B, and C are fighting X and Y. This might break down into three 2v1s: A & B vs X; B & C vs Y; and X & Y vs B. If they split, it will be one 2v1 and one 1v1. When someone dies, it will break down to a 2v2 or a 3v1.

3v3 – are we starting to see a pattern here? It can break down into three 1v1s, a 1v1 and a 2v2, or 2v1 and a 1v2 (A & B vs X, C vs Y & Z) – which is the same as two 2v1s. It could also stay as a simple line fight, in which case everyone’s on both sides of a 3v1 or a 2v1, depending on position.

When someone dies, it becomes a 3v2.

What about 3v1?

This is the other mind screw of this framework: 3v1 is the same as 2v1.

No principles change – life just gets harder for X. If he takes Range/Readiness/Opening from one of his opponents, then he’s in a 2v1. And A, B, and C are always in a 2v1 situation – even after one of them dies.

4v1, 5v1, etc all follow the same rules. 2v1 is really just shorthand for “multiple opponents”.

Celric asked this question at Sergeants & Scholars and didn’t seem to like my answer. Eh.

And Line Fights?

Line fights are just Crazy Mutual 2v1 (or 3v1, if you insist) situations for everyone. It’s worth noting that line fights greatly limit your ability to control Range as a means of defending yourself – if you step backwards, some people on your line get stuck on the wrong side of a Unilateral 2v1 and probably die. (If you could get everyone in your line to step backwards at once, you’d be fine. But good luck training up that level of Awareness.)

When you’re in a 2v1 and unable to take away Range, it is very difficult to find a moment to safely attack. In a typical line fight, several (probably three) other people must each be missing one of Awareness/Range/Readiness/Opening, all at the same time, before you can safely go for a kill. That’s tough to process, although it can be done. Some useful heuristics (some of which will sound familiar):

Lacks Awareness – an opponent who is far away, or whose head is turning, or who is getting “tunnel vision”, usually focusing only on the person across from him/her; an opponent whose Attention is overwhelmed.
Lacks Range – a short opponent, or one who has stepped backwards, or is far down the line, or is attacking across his/her body (a righty attacking to his left, etc).
Lacks Readiness – typically, an opponent who is in the process of parrying or attacking elsewhere, or attacking you but without an Opening or Range.
Lacks Opening – an opponent whose blade is bound or covered by your own, especially a secondary, or an opponent behind an obstacle (tree, flag, marshal …)

(We typically tell new fighters not to lunge in a line. Fact is, if every opponent lacks one of these things, you can lunge and be perfectly safe. It’s just hard for new fighters to make that judgement, for reasons I discussed in the previous post.)

Even so, this is a rare situation. So most of the fight should be waiting for a great opportunity, either from your buddies or gift-wrapped to you from the opponent (say, he lunges at the guy next to you while your sword is free). Stay ready, stay vigilant, stay safe, and perhaps bind blades to help your friends with Readiness and Opening, or make very conservative attacks at the opponents’ hands or feet; when an opportunity arises, capitalize.

Incidentally, our foes at Pennsic probably don’t think like this … I wonder how well we’d do, as an army, if we focused on simple “don’t attack unless you’re 100% safe” teachings and wore down our foe that way.

I’m teaching a class at Sergeants & Scholars next week. Might as well lay it out here, for my benefit and yours. This will also allow me to expound on a few tangential topics and theoretical underpinnings, while I’ll have to keep things relatively short and simple at S&S.

We have a certain way of teaching melee in Atlantia. And although it’s better than everyone else’s, it’s still not very good. We start fighters in a line. We discuss unit-level phenomena like maneuvers and orders and tactics and strategy and objectives. And that’s exactly backwards, particularly for new fighters.

I’ve been slowly coming to this realization, and formulating a better approach, over the course of nearly 14 months. My first attempts were good ideas, but still couched within Atlantian SOP. Some time ago, I had the epiphany which provided the basis for my current formulation; at the time it was a bit disorganized, as new ideas tend to be, but I have since refined and expanded.

It’s far from done, but I think there is some profit in these ideas. Take from it what you will.

The Currency of Melee

And now for a lengthy theoretical preamble:

We talk a lot about objectives. And yes, they’re important. Superlatively so. But they vary from melee to melee, and they’re almost always achieved in the same way: by fighting effectively. Therefore, I’m going to ignore objectives, or at least assume that they can be separated from generalizable principles of fighting, and devote my investigations to the latter.

Warfare (real warfare) has upwards of a dozen legitimate principles, depending on which doctrine you subscribe to. Our sportified sword-games have far fewer. I ask the reader to consider that all melee has, really, three currencies:

Mass, or how tough your army is. Mass is the product of skill and numbers (and armament, but that’s rarely a factor in our games) and represents, in absolute terms, how difficult you are to attrit down (the more skilled your guys are, the harder they are to kill; the more of them there are, the harder they are to annihilate).

In rez melees (which is most of them), Mass is converted to Energy, a product of skill and cardio. With rezzes, your numbers are infinite; the limiting factor is your fighers’ fatigue. The more skilled your guys are, the less often they die; the less often they die, the less quickly they tire. (Contrary to popular belief, actual fighting does not take much energy, as the movements are relatively small; moving around a lot by going to rez and back, however, is quite tiring.) And the better their cardio, the better their ability to sustain effective fighting over time and deaths. Ultimately, cardio should be your backup plan. Plan A is “don’t die”. This is important.

The last, I will call Attention, which derives from the limitation of time. Attention is ultimately about how well (how quickly and efficiently) fighters can react to changing conditions. At the battlefield level, this is realized in the flexibility and efficacy of your command structure, the tactical aptitude of leaders, and your army’s drilling and discipline. Your C2 determines how efficiently you can deploy your Energy/Mass.

But I’m more concerned with the individual level. Forgive the awful physics puns; here, we begin.

Attention is Everything

Neurologically speaking, you can only attend to one thing at a time. People who are “good multitaskers” may be able to switch their attention rapidly between different tasks and have good working memories, but they are not truly parallel-processing, as a computer might.

Successful fencers can track and react to a dozen variables at once, but it’s not because they magically have more mental resources. By practicing (and especially by drilling), we can create automatic subroutines in our brains, and ingrain effective (or ineffective) responses to certain stimuli. With enough experience, we can “pay attention” to these things – which is to say, we can interpret and react to them – without conscious thought, freeing our brains to examine other things.

Of course, newbie fencers start at zero. They have no automatic processing. Because of this, they have difficulty enough attending to the details of a single one-on-one fight.

Why, then, do we expect them to respond to commands given in the heat of battle? Why do we expound on the tactical implications of such-and-such a game-state? Any fighter without a modicum of experience – I’d place it around the Sea Dragon level – is, in most cases and at most times, literally incapable of processing or using that information. It’s not that they’re stupid or useless. Their brains are just overwhelmed.

And their brains are especially overwhelmed after we’ve stuck them in a line fight, where they must attend to at least five other people to be successful. The line is a terrible place for the newbie.

Unfortunate Realities

Of course, we don’t necessarily have a better place for newbies. They’re not likely to be much better at skirmishing – they can’t automatically process the tactical implications of an exposed flank any more than they can process the physical implications of a closed line. I hold that this is mostly a question of training, and teaching melee tactics is a lot easier than getting them to internalize, through hours of mask time, the variables germane to the physics of swords. But I’ll come back to this point later.

No matter how we slice it, newbies will probably encounter a line fight sooner or later, and they must be prepared to deal with it. They will, necessarily, be “in over their heads” as far as their mental resources (Attention) are concerned. But we can try to direct their resources where they will be most effective. We can try to simplify melee down to something they can handle.

Rule 1: stay alive. Remember Mass? Remember Energy? If you’re dead, you’re either useless or you’re becoming useless by burning your stamina on the rez run. So don’t die.

How do we not die? For the raw newbie, I’m going to say “keep your sword up and parry.” And that’s it. No attacking (unless the opponent is begging for a face stab). Definitely no lunging. Nothing fancy. Just stay alive, even if it means running away. (Try to take your friends with you.)

Rule 2? Ignored. It’s unnecessary cognitive load. If they’re staying alive and keeping their swords up, they’re keeping their friends alive by threatening the opponent. Rule 3? We’ll just barely touch on it. Rule 4 and up? Advanced stuff. Outside their abilities. Maneuvers? Commands? Formations? No. Keep it simple, at least to start, because they can’t deal with anything else. Once you get them some experience (preferably with regular practice – but that’s a separate topic), they can move on.

Universal Principles

Thanks to some basic automation, the slightly more advanced fencer can direct his Attention more finely. Again, we start with staying alive. (Will Ruairc have to sing some Saturday Night Fever at S&S? Maybe.)

In highfalutin Italianated fencing, the state of the fight is dictated by three principles: measure, tempo, and line. Each is pretty deep. But these can be profitably simplified for the novice, especially in a melee context. We are trying not to die. Let’s say that our opponents need three things to kill us, then:

Range – they have to be close enough to hit us (we’ll define it as a lunge)
Readiness – they have to be ready and able to attack us, as opposed to, say, in the middle of a retreat or a parry or an attack directed at someone else
Opening – they have to have a space through which they can attack

For melee, I’d add Awareness, which is to say that they have to know we’re there.

(From the Italian perspective, this is a derivative of Judgement, but can also be understood as a subset of Attention. As such, this one is also more complicated than presented here: more completely, the opponent must be aware and confident that they have Range, Readiness, and Opening, and they must be aware/confident that we are not aware of, or do not have, those things. This is where intimidation and other mind games, such as Connor’s no-look shot, come in; but for now, we’re keeping it simple.)

We start at the simplest place to demonstrate: a 1v1 single-sword fight. Awareness and Range are fairly obvious concepts and will not need much explicit instruction, and they should be automatic for even very fresh fighters. We’ll need our students to focus on Readiness and Opening. These should be fairly easy to demonstrate.

Once these are understood, we move on to the tactical implications: If an opponent knows where I am, is within range, is ready to act, and has an open line of attack, then he is a threat to me, and I must be very careful. I am obligated to look to my defense; attacking is suicidal. (Even an attack which simultaneously shuts down one of these factors – say, a lunge that closes the line – can be countered – say, with a cavazione di tempo or a void.)

On the other hand, if my opponent lacks any one of these things, they are not a threat, and I’m safe. If he doesn’t know I exist, or if I’m too far away to be hit, or if he’s not ready to act, or if he has no openings, he cannot hurt me, at least for a moment.

The best situation is when I have all of these things relative to my opponent, and my opponent lacks one or several relative to me. In this case, I am a deadly threat to him while he is no threat to me. (This is, in a very rough way, the basis of Italian tactics.)

Building Up

At this point, novices will have a basic framework, which logically and demonstrably springs from singles fighting, for interpreting melee. Now, they can allocate their limited Attention where it is likely to do the most good. That in itself is an achievement and is more than half the battle. Everything else grows from these. Let’s demonstrate.

The beginner is going to have difficulty enough with 1v1. There’s no reason to jump up to 5v5 or 10v10 or even 3v3. Melee is any fight with more than two people. If you have three, hey! it’s a melee! Let’s start at 2v1.

We can immediately apply these principles to this slightly-more-complex situation. Let us consider the 1 in a 2v1.

The rules hold. If each of my opponents lack at least one of Awareness/Range/Readiness/Opening, I am safe and can, at least for a moment, act freely. If even one, however, retains all of these, I am threatened, and attacking is likely fatal.

Success, for me, is found in taking these away from every opponent, even if just for a moment. This gives me the opportunity to act freely – and if I’ve retained Awareness, Range, Readiness, and Opening, that opportunity will translate to a potential kill.

The lesson for the 1: don’t die. When you are safe, THEN you can try killing someone.

The lesson for the 2: gang up on people. 2v1 is how you can be safe and still kill someone. 2v1 is, then, the basis for all melee at the tactical level. It is the basis for all maneuver and all melee drill.

This is the sum of the first class – the first few steps of understanding. Once the basics are known and 2v1 begins to make sense, we can expand. Soon, you have fighters capable of skirmishing. Build it up to 2v2, 3v2, and 3v3. There are some additional details, but they derive from the principles above.

After that, it’s easy to integrate your new fighters into a line. From the individual perspective, a line fight is essentially a static 3v3.

This eventually builds back up to the battlefield level. Attention comes full circle, complete with commands and maneuvers and such. But that’s a discussion for another time.