Formation help

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Formation help

Postby Izanaki » Sun Apr 09, 2006 5:53 pm

Sorry for the multiple questions:

What would some of you veteran leaders suggest as a good team
if there were 20 with shields, 10 without, 2 florentine, 1 archer, and out of all those people, about 5 or 6 veterans?

(what team would you make to balance out and make an even team one that is good with its heavy gear*reds, tower shields, etc* and good with its ability to move*speed*)

What is a good formation to have with the above teams, as well as a fighting field about 50 to 60 feet wide, and 150 feet long?
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Postby Kyrian » Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:53 pm

Just a couple of questions:

Is there a breakdown for the 10 who aren't shield or florentine fighters, i.e., spear, glaive, red sword?

What styles are the 5-6 veterans using?

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Postby bo1 » Mon Apr 10, 2006 3:58 pm

I like it like this,

5 vets with sword and board scattered in with 10 to 15 other line fighters, armor a real plus, that wills keep the line from breaking. 1 vet as a leader, armor plus a helm. the 10 people without out shields, at least 3 should have glaives or at a minimun spears, the rest reds or flourentine. Then mix in a couple archer gaurd/flankers, no armor for speed, sword and board or flourentine, maybe 5, along with 4 archers. That will get you alot of kills as long as your leader is competent. Remember the archers keep the shields high for the pole arms to get those legs, not to mention that the archers get alot of kills.

This is about 30 poepl in total. with this you should chew up any unit this size or up to 40 people.

the formation is easy. put all the armor sword and boarders on the main line. then mix in the poles and reds about a half step back. 2 steps back from that have your leader, flankers/ archer gaurds and archers.
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Postby Kyrian » Mon Apr 10, 2006 5:37 pm

Image

Image

I'm pretty much in agreement with Bo. Ideally, your vet leader should probably be your archer too. An archer, by virtue of job description, has to constantly scan for targets and potential threats. I've put two veterans near the shield wall and two "floaters" who are basically responsible for directing the flank teams and being flank/rear security. I put the red swords out with the flanking teams rather than on the line. I prefer having the glaives and spears there since they can get a bit more protection from the shields. Also, you should probably look at boosting your archer count as Bo mentioned. A shield wall with spears, glaives, and archers forces the other side to be constantly scanning for threats. If they focus on archers too much, they're often vulnerable to the low stab or glaive blow to the shield. Plus the archers can provide counterfire against enemy archers as well as targeting the spears and reds on the other side.

As much as it's going to be a challenge, you should probably establish some form of chain of command starting with your leader archer, going to the other veterans, and probably some small team leaders, perhaps responsible for 2-3 people. Why? Because the leaders don't always see the same things the people on the line do. Sometimes, you have to rely on the leaders up front to take the initiative and take advantage of the way the battle is developing. If there are people who aren't comfortable with that style of organization or just prefer to be on their own, you need to take that into consideration and perhaps figure out how to integrate them into the team.

Training:
1) You need to train your shield wall to maintain their dress, i.e., alignment across the line, regardless of what speed they're marching. In normal military formations, the dress is to the right side of the formation. Have everyone on the line also practice quickly breaking up and reforming. After the line starts to deteriorate, you might end up with pockets of people who need to get back together as quickly as possible or else they'll get picked apart piecemeal.
2) Another useful thing to train on is having the far flanks of the wall break off and start maneuvering around the enemy line. Most battles tend to start as lines with each side either attempting to curl a flank or punch through a gap.
3) Teach people how to shift their location to minimize any gaps and having the entire line shift left or right in order to move to the edge of the battlefield or to close a gap with a friendly unit.
4) Battle drills. These are specific responses to particular situations. Some of the ones you might want to work on are:
a) Loss of leader.
b) Collapse of a flank.
c) Dealing with threats from the rear of the formation. One way of approaching this is by designating your fastest people as your counter-skirmish team who will deploy immediately when needed.
d) Exploiting a gap in the enemy line.
5) Actual formations
a) Standard (what we've discussed so far)
b) Wedge (vee formation with the point pointing at the enemy). This is useful for punching through an enemy line.
c) Echelon (basically forming the line at an angle to the enemy lineinstead of parallel. This can be useful if your formation as to protect the flank of your side in a two-team battle.
d) Reinforced flank. This is "stacking" some additional troops on one flank so that they can apply pressure and often achieve a breakthrough.
6) Leaders need to step back and see the "big picture". It's so incredibly easy to develop tunnel vision and only be concerned with what's going on in front of you. Your leaders need to develop a larger scale of field awareness and quickly identifying potential threats.
7) Communication! Communication! Communication! It gets loud and chaotic on the battlefield. If people can't hear commands, they will fall back on their training or their personality. Encourage communication especially when there are threats outside a particular person/team/squad that they can't see.

I've got a whole manual of this stuff that I've written if you're interested...

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Postby Osric » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:29 pm

What program did you use to do your pics Kyrian? Sorry if this is off topic.
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Postby Kyrian » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:36 pm

I used Powerpoint to create and manipulate the different objects and then cut and pasted the grouped objects into Paint. I then saved them in the bmp format and uploaded them to Photobucket. I'm not completely sure why the formation image got shrunk so much; I think it got automatically resized by Photobucket.

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Postby Izanaki » Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:21 am

cool. Thanks for the help/suggestions.
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Postby Big King Jimmy » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:56 am

Kryrian, are the groups to the left and right actually in formation there, or are you just grouping them up to show that they're together as a group of skirmishers?
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Postby Kyrian » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:12 pm

Treveylan,

I'd either have them up on the line ready to break off on command or I'd have them slightly back like they are shown so they can be detached in a specific direction. They're kind of like the safeties and defensive ends in a football defensive formation. They can go in pretty much either direction and rely on their mobility to react to a threat or to start getting around the enemy's line.

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Postby Jesus » Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:49 pm

What if your enemy has slightly less numbers, say 15 to your thirty, but has experiance on you. As in most of the people being rather competent with 10 vets. They refuse to fight you as a line but instead move forward to meet your line with 10 people, including 6 vets, and the others, the 5 vets push one flank.

What would your reaction be? Just wondering cause this is how I'd see NB reacting to this.
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