MK Marshal's Handbook - Middle Kingdom Melee Conventions

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See Marshal's handbook

Middle Kingdom Melee Conventions

A. Rules of Engagement

1. Engagement is the process of making your presence and intention as a martial threat known to your opponent.

a. Engagement is gained through specific action to notify an opponent of your presence (a light tap with the weapon, shield contact, verbal warning, etc.)

b. AND you’ve received acknowledgment that the opponent recognizes you as a martial threat before making a serious attack.

c. Combatants may not deliberately ignore attempts to engage them.

2. An opponent in a melee who is unaware of an attacking combatant’s presence is not to be struck, as the attacking combatant does not have engagement.

3. You are engaged during a melee when you are part of a group or line that attacks the front of another group or line that is not currently fighting anyone until the situation changes significantly to mix the lines.

4. If you or a group that you are with comes up to a fight already in progress, you may NOT just join the people on your side and start swinging at the other side. You MUST GET engagement before striking a killing force blow.

5. If, after hitting a person, they say they did not know you were there and they did not think they were engaged with you, it is the polite and proper thing to treat this situation just like you would if someone called your blow light or glance.

6. An opponent, by not taking a blow because of lack of engagement, has now acknowledged you as a martial threat, and so you are now engaged

B. Striking in the back

1. “Wrap” shots – shots thrown from the front hemisphere of an engaged opponent striking them in the back – are always legal.

2. You may strike a person in the back when they, while fighting you and thus engaged with you, turns and flees. You have until they get out of weapons range to strike them.

3. You may pursue your opponent and as long as they never get out of your weapon range, you may strike them. Once they do get outside your weapon range, you must re-engage them if you catch back up to them.

4. You may strike a person in the back when they pass through your group or line at the initial point of engagement. You may use a back hand or wrap as they pass. You may also turn and strike them. You only get one shot and you may NOT pursue them.

C. Four on One (4 on 1)

There may be no more than 4 attackers on 1 combatant, except when lines are engaged.

D. Fouling

Combatants may foul the weapons, or make shield to shield, or shield to weapon contact (as in when rolling a flank) with opponents they may not strike, prior to engagement. In doing so they must show restraint in the interests of safety. Fouling does not include grappling as defined in Middle Kingdom Armored Combat Conventions subsection (see above).

E. Charges

A combatant, or group of combatants, that deliberately charges into a group of opponents may be struck from any angle by those opponents during the charge.

F. Friendly fire

Combatants in melee killed or wounded by their teammates must acknowledge these blows in the normal manner.

G. Dead Combatants

Dead combatants should die defensively by hiding under their shields or weapons and then leave the field as soon and as safely as possible at the marshal's direction. Dead combatants may neither hand weapons nor shout advice to the living.