Youth Armoured Combat Draft:Rules of Group Combat

Melee combat involves more than two people fighting against each other. You can have melee combat in a tournament, or in a war.

General

1. You are only allowed to run to get to where you can reach your opponents. You must not deliberately run into (charge) your opponents.
2. You can only use thrown weapons in a melee scenario if all of the marshals and all the other fighters are told about it first.
3. You are not allowed to hit somebody from behind who doesn't know you are there.
4. No more than four fighters are allowed to attack a single opponent who is on their own.

Unit engagement

1. Unit engagement is when two or more groups (units) of opposing fighters meet in combat.
2. When two units meet, you are "engaged" with all of the fighters in the other unit, which means that you are allowed to strike at any of the opposing fighters, even if they are distracted by fighting someone else, or you are behind them, and don't realise that you are about to try to hit them.
3. If your unit has been surrounded, this may mean that you can be hit from behind.
4. If the fighters in the unit become separated, they are considered to have left the unit engagement and you must use the "1 on 1 engagement" rules to fight them.
5. If you hit someone from behind and you aren't part of an engaged unit, you will have to leave the field, and there may be further punishment.

1 on 1 engagement

1. In tournament melee combat, you engage your opponent by moving into their line of sight, and loudly say, "I am engaging you" or some similar.
2. In war combat, you engage your opponent by moving into range where they can see you and clearly show that you are about to attack them. If you don't think your opponent has actually seen you, loudly say, "I am engaging you or something similar, and make sure that they are aware of you.
3. You are not allowed to try to hit an opponent that you haven't engaged.
4. remove?If you are engaged with an opponent, and you turn your back on them, they can hit you from behind until you get out of weapon range. Do we want to encourage hitting people from behind at all? We took this out of the fencing rules.