With Covid locking everything down, I thought I’d use the downtime to post some videos of period formations. These aren’t to scale, nor detailed [I’m still learning], simply an overview of the general idea. These are videos of basic commands of Calontiri Battle Doctrine as explained here: https://www.calontir.org/calontir-war-council/ to help everyone stay sharp.
As always, I’d appreciate feedback!
Advance To Contact
This one is sometimes not done correctly because some stop once spears begin being fired at them, or an Axe is swung at them. Advance to contact means that you continue to advancing until you make the OpFor within YOUR striking distance. Think of it as “Advance to Contact Them”
Reform The Line
This importance of this maneuver cant be stressed enough. In the middle of a scenario, some may instinctively fall back and regroup with allies, however everyone must quickly check their position on the field and where they need to go. The person who is the closest to the OpFor or Mission Objective [depending on scenario] must raise their weapon, yell or otherwise draw attention to themselves as they need to act as a rally point where the scattered troops need to form up on. If you see the person everyone should form up on before they themselves notice, you can yell “Form up on Maren!” or “Reform the line on Kendall!”
All the dead around you died for that ground, make sure you keep it.
Spears Up, Spears In, Spears Out
The troops here are already in a “spears up” formation, the command is given if there are not enough spears in the second line, or to prepare for offensive actions. So when this command is given, any spears are to move “up” to the second line so that the line has a full complement of spears ready.
The command that generally follows is “spears in”, you can think of it as spears going “IN” to battle. The shields make way quickly for spears to enter into an offensive posture to begin dueling OpFor spears.
Finally, whether the commander sees a charge being readied, or our spears need a break, they will call “spears out”. You guessed it, the spears are to get “OUT” of battle. The shields again make way quickly and help the spears get behind the line and rebuild the shield-wall.