In the Mix

Anyone who's been around fencing for any length of time has heard someone ask, "What's the best off-hand weapon?" And everyone has their own opinion about what that is. Looking back at Estrella, and the weapons on the field there, the hands-down winner was case, followed by dagger, then buckler.

The reality of the situation is that weapon choice usually comes down to personal preference. To put it simply: people are going to use what they're comfortable with. Unfortunately, personal preferences play only a minor part in determining the best mix for the melee field. And it really should be a mix, too. Every weapon style has its advantages and disadvantages: it's only through mixing the styles that you can get the most out of the three styles.

Bucklers are your linemen. They don't pack much of a punch, but they can hold the line like nobody's business. Casers are the exact opposite. They're your heavy-hitters, capable (in theory, at least) of attacking multiple targets at the same time, but seriously lacking in the defensive department. Your daggers are your all-purpose fighters. They've got better offense than bucklers, and better defense than casers, but their defense isn't as good as buckers and they can't match the casers for offense.

So now that we know their strengths and weaknesses, what do we do about them? Well, the obvious answer is to match each person's strengths and weaknesses so that they complement someone else's. In other words, pair a buckler with a caser the same way armored fighters pair a shield man with a spear man. The buckler's in charge of defense while the caser is in charge of killing things. Unfortunately, this means the middle-of-the-road daggers are on their own, but that's okay. We can work with that.

The next step is to build our formation, using the sets we've made. Most formations are made up of a line, reserves, and cowboys. Generally speaking, the only thing that effects the set-up of the line and the reserves is whether you're on offense or defense. If you're on offense, give both the line and reserves an equal mix of bucklers and casers. But, if you're looking purely at defense, make your entire line bucklers while your casers are the reserves. But no matter the situation, cowboys are the easy part to figure out. They're the guys who are going to be acting independently anyway, so why don't we use the guys who are on their own, anyway: the daggers.

As for actual numbers, you want one buckler for each caser and enough between the two of them to fill your line and reserves, with any extras as daggers. A good, generic formula is 40% bucklers, 40% casers and 10% daggers. This isn't a hard-and-fast mix, and may need tweaking, depending on the situation, but it makes a good starting point.