[Ansteorra-rapier] melee practice

[Darius and Monica]

Greetings friends

At Gothic war this weekend we had allotted of fun doing melee's on
Sunday. Both War Scenarios and a resurrection battle. I wanted to
mention something that I had noticed as I was thinking back over the
activities on the way home. We had several new fighters on one of our
lines, some new all together and some just new to melees. While our line

certainly had heart repeatedly taking the pounding we received and
returned to start and tried again and again, it demonstrated that while
we are telling our new melee fighters the conventions and rules of
engagement we are not teaching the very basics of a line engagement.

How to dress the line.
How to advance as a line.
How to wheel left or right.
How to maintain order when the line is split
What to do if you lose the person standing beside you.
How close do you stand to others to maintain a line while not binding
your neighbor's arms.

I can't remember the last time I have seen the basics of how to be part
of a line engagement taught. and our new fighters are having to learn in

live scenarios. This is not conductive to helping these new fighters
want to be part of the line at war. Nor have I seen any sessions on how
to run as a mobility unit (cav) We are learning allot from these
practices and our performance on the filed is improving. However it can
only improve so far if we don't teach the new people coming in the
basics of what we are doing.

Hl Darius of the Bells,
Cadet to Don LLywllyn

"Besides the artist two things are to be considered in every art, the
instrument and the audience" - Sir Walter Raliegh