advice sought - forming a small unit

[freiman the minstrel]

Guys,

I have been kicking around the idea of forming a small unit in central Drachenwald. I would like to form a "lance" of five to eight members. There are two reasons for this.

First, local practice is an hour and ten minutes away for each of the two close practices. A small unit formed locally could fight at local practices. Second, having "A unit" would give a goal that is relatively easy to accomplish.

I would like to form the group entirely out of newly recruited fighters. This pretty much means that I need to outfit 5-8 fighters entirely on my own. It also means that the local group will be able to count five to eight new members. I am not an armourer, but I have been fighting for fifteen years and I can dish a set of floating cops, and set straps.

I have never founded a combat unit from the ground up. Any advice that you might have would be greatly appreciated. It seems that there is interest in the SCA if it doesn't mean two and a half hours of driving every week to just make practices.

freiman the minstrel

[William Campion]

Excellent! Always great to have more people to play with, even if you are a bit more than 2 hours from the Midrealm Our company has done a lot of work on leadership and unit formation in the SCA. Please drop by the manual section of our website (http://www.pentamerefreecompany.com/docs/docsindex.htm) and check out the series on SCA combat leadership. It will give you a lot of information on how to construct your unit, figuring out what you want to do as a group and how to get there. I am also (slowly) working on a write up on SCA motivation and recruitment. It's on the back burner, but much of the basic research is already done.
I'd be happy to answer any questions or swap stories of early days of our company. email me privately if you prefer.

[Gaston de Clermont]

William's site has some good information, and ideas particularly for once you get your group on the field. It strikes me that your first, and probably most difficult challenge is getting them there.
So you need to solve:
1. Gear
2. Recruiting
3. Training
If you have the funds to buy a couple used helms you should be able to cobble the rest together for a local practice. Does anyone near by have loaner gear you could borrow? Is there anything going cheap on Ebay? Do you have a specific kind of unit in mind? Do you have an era you'd like to portray? Is there a kind of look that your guys are interested in, or do they mostly just want to whack at stuff?
As William's site says, comeradery is one of the major draws of a unit. Do you brew, or is there a brewer you can recruit? NSTIW stories are always best shared over a cool beverage.
You've been fighting for years, but there might be extra draw if you can bring in a guest trainer occasionally. Make sure it's not someone who's recruiting too. Keep the drills interesting, and give them opportunity to see the impact of their work. Targetting a specific war, or starting your own might give folks the goal they need to get moving.

[adamstjohn]

Freiman!

Nice to see the plan coming on. I am sure it will be a success.

Don`t forget we have a bunch of fibreglass spears in the store, as well as the scuti if you need them.

Maybe this would be a good time to think seriously about adjusting those too-tall helms?

Cheers

[Sir Daniel]

Greetings,

I like Sgt William's website. I have a similar website that is less specific and more concept oriented. It's a work in progress and mostly stream of conciousness at the moment, but I enjoy hearing feedback good and bad.

https://home.comcast.net/~dansolum/onlinestorage/finalhomepage.html

In Service,

Sir Daniel

[freiman the minstrel]

This is good stuff!

The Pentamere company has spent a whole ton of time formulating their info, but I found Sir Daniel's page easier to swallow on the first sitting. I am pretty sure that it will take a while to really mine the Pentamere stuff.

Pentamere's page started with outlining goals.

I think that a lot of stuff will depend on what the new folks want to do, but I think that our goals are pretty easy to identify. The idea is to recruit all new folks, so (I am guessing) our goals will be,

1) have fun
2) learn about swordsmanship and the SCA
3) make sure that everybody has a cool suit of newbie armour they can call their very own, with cool cloth (tabards, surcoats or something like)
4) get everybody a membership
5) occasionally kick a little bootie

I am shooting for 5-8 newbies (I currently have three interested folks) because fighter practices work better at the number (at least) I think. The long drives to the established practices is daunting when viewed on a weekly basis. They don't seem so scared of the twice a year drive to central region wars. That may be different when the wars come closer.

Since there are no competing small units in the central region that I know of, I think it is safe to say that any commander would immediately cast us in the role of central line unit. So I think that training for that role is a good idea. I personally enjoy the sheildwall much less than other roles in battle, but that is probably the role we will be cast in.

The first tasks are recruiting and armouring up the folks. This I think needs to be accomplished by word of mouth (my mouth is big) and making sure that the folks involved have a good time. If they are enjoying themselves, they will bring others with them. I think that an informal gathering is going to be the next step, perhaps with handouts on the rules of the list, the authorization process, and armor expectations.

I should probably start cutting blanks for floating knees and elbows now, in job lots. Each fighter can do dry drills, and sit on the sidelines during the armored drill, until he or she has dished the copps, strapped them, and attached the vanbraces and cuisses. Some of the copps will disappear, so I should make extra.

Maestro Aethstan, thank you for your kind offer. We will certainly need to hit the armory up at least once for each new fighter. I am hoping to have the shire's leg armor back by Sunday of next week, but no promises. I have access to three helms now on my own, but you're right, the "Too tall" trueheart helms need to be fixed, and fixing them might be a great "rental fee" for a fighter that needs to use them. What's the point in a shire owning ten helms tha nobody can use?

thanks for the advice guys! and please keep it coming, this is all new turf for me.

freiman

[william]

Hi!

Wow - this is a great idea! But Freiman, if you had paid more attention during Summer Coronation feast you'd know that you are *not* the only one plotting in this area in Central D'wald. But that's ok - especially as the gap in combat experience sets me up for a spanking anyway ...

Do you have enough PVC end caps etc.? If there's something you cannot get in D'wald let me know. If I can fit it into my suitcase after the new helmet is packed I'll bring it back with me.

Cheers,

William
*shopping stateside*

[Stacy Elliott]

Frieman,

I guess my PR firm needs to be fired!

Giles, Arms merchant to Drachenwald.