One of my hobbies is heavy weapons combat in the Society for Creative Anachronism. This is a martial art/sport that is meant to simulate medieval combat, with swords and maces and polearms. We use rattan (like solid bamboo) sticks to wallop each other, and wear armor to keep from getting concussions and broken limbs.
In October, I fought in my first large melee. Little ole me, one barely-trained soldier in our mock medieval army. It was interesting, I'll say that for it.
There were between sixteen and twenty of us from the Barony of Storvik, as I recall. We lined up about four wide and four or five deep. The first two or three rows were us sword-and-boards - sword and shield fighters. Behind us were the guys with polearms and spears. Our job, aside from trying to bash through the front line of the Other Guys, was to protect the shieldless spearmen.
The good news is, that's also the job of the swords-and-boards on the other side. We might try killing each other, but mostly we try to not get killed by the Other Guy's spearmen and keep our spears alive.
Oh wow oh wow, my first-ever melee...
Damn these tall guys move fast, keep up, keep up, don't break the line...
Is this gonna hurt?
I hope we get there soon, because I'm too out of shape to be jogging this long in armor...
There they are... OK, breaking a shield wall, keep moving and drop your center...
Last three steps, ready and RUN!
I was getting hit all over the place, but few blows seemed "good." I do mean all over. My buddies were pressing in from behind, there were shieldmen and spears in my face, and I'm trying desperately to remember to block and move forward at the same time. Our unit commander? Dunno where he is. I hardly know where my shield-mates on either side of me are. Orders? You expect me to hear orders through this mess? No way. I got my orders before we marched: Go forward. I try to do that.
"Hold" is called; that's SCA-speak for "Stop what you're doing, and dead people get out of the way." I stop; I think I'm alive. Then I look in front of me and notice that there are three guys with spears grinning at me. I dimly recall that something's been tapping my head. Was that them? I figure that it was and retire from the field. After all, if they had really been hitting me in the face, they're not supposed to hit so hard. This way they don't snap my neck for real.
Obviously, that's not a problem in "real" combat in a FRPG game. When you're "really" hit, you take damage. But I think it highlights the chaos of combat. I'm far from a battleraging berserker, but I could not honestly tell you if I had been hit in the face with a spear. You'd think someone would notice something like that, wouldn't you? But with all the jostling and hitting and shoving, I couldn't really tell.
Now what?
The first thing I did was find a buddy. This is where heraldry becomes life-saving. I looked around and saw a Storvik tabard - blue with the white wave down the middle. Zing! I'm over there. It's one of my cohorts from practice. We form our own mini-unit and start roving around, looking for damage to inflict on the Other Guy.
We come across a lone fighter. I'm a rank newbie, and my buddy (while big and strong and waaay better than I) has only been fighting a year and a half or so. I throw a blow or two at the loner, which he easily blocks, and he swings at me. I avoid it, mostly by backing up. But now my buddy has a blow.
The loner mostly concentrates on my buddy, who looks far more threatening. I somehow find myself on his flank, and hit him in the legs until he goes down on his knees (SCA-speak for "you hit my leg.") My buddy and I start to leave and the kneeling guy takes a last swing at us.
"He's not dead?" my buddy asks, and looks like he's thinking of finishing the guy off.
"Who cares?" I have to ask. "Not like he's going to be doing much." And besides, even on his knees, he can kill me if I mess up. We leave the immobile fighter safely behind us and go looking for more trouble.
(I got killed again, shortly thereafter.)
Lesson learned: In the course of successfully breaking lines, our own lines fell apart. Finding and sticking with an ally is the best, smartest thing you can do in that situation. One man can only really defend himself well against one other man. If you are with a friend (or two, or four), your odds of killing him just went through the roof.
PCs know this: it's called "Don't go off into the dark by yourself."
Adrenaline wasn't really a factor, but that's probably just me. I was nervous, sure, and a bit excited, but not as pumped up as many of my shield-mates were. There's also the emotional padding of knowing that this isn't really life-or-death. It's just for fun.
It was awesomely complicated overall, but incredibly simple (Don't die, go forward) for the individual.
It's also different from the small unit experience that's more like what most PCs are likely to have. I've done a little bit of that, too, and it'll be on another page.
So that's my melee experience. Got a beef? Got a question? Go ahead and email me.
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