You Jabronies Don't Even Know What Tactical Combat Means

The essence of war is a violent struggle between two hostile, independent, and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other. […] Clausewitz called it a Zweikampf (literally a “two-struggle”) and suggested the image of a pair of wrestlers locked in a hold, each exerting force and counterforce to try to throw the other. War is thus a process of continuous mutual adaptation, of give and take, move and counter move. It is critical to keep in mind that the enemy is not an inanimate object to be acted upon but an independent and animate force with its own objectives and plans. While we try to impose our will on the enemy, they resist us and seek to impose their own will on us. MCDP 1 (1-3)

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An even greater part of the conduct of war falls under the realm of art, which is the employment of creative or intuitive skills. Art includes the creative, situational application of scientific knowledge through judgment and experience, and so the art of war subsumes the science of war. The art of war requires the intuitive ability to grasp the essence of a unique military situation and the creative ability to devise a practical solution. It involves conceiving strategies and tactics and developing plans of action to suit a given situation. This still does not describe the whole phenomenon. Owing to the vagaries of human behavior and the countless other intangible factors […] MCDP 1 (1-17)

TLDR: War is a struggle between two irreconcilable wills, acting and counteracting against each other. The greater part of its conduct is the employment of creative or intuitive skills to devise practical solutions.

This is a vital corroboration for the necessity of Morale Rolls/Adjudications; without which we are not modeling the struggles between forces of will, but instead lurching toward some kind of spacial math game, like chess but worse. It is also now clear that the objective in war and combat is not killing the enemy, it is eroding their will and ability to fight. Killing is merely an accidental consequence of physical violence, which just happens to be one way of imposing your will on your social environment. Methods such as subterfuge, theft, politics, trade, rhetoric, parlaying, construction, destruction, dissemination, boasting, and innumerable others are also means of warfare.

When you force your will upon your environment, you are doing violence. Every action taken to carry out your will is also violence. Movement is violence. You should move violently.

When you take up a position and control the area, the shape of your unit changes, the field is altered, and the decisions available to the opposing force are constrained by your action. Movement is the most important tactical decision: “here I am, and here you cannot be.” As a combatant, you must own your space and not immediately give it up. If you fall back or break away from your unit, you are not a part of the unit’s surface but a gap in it.

Movement against advesaries or in an advesarial environment, can be called maneuver.

Yeah, I’ve kinda already defined tactics as creative problem-solving. There’s some other tidbits in MCDPs that are relevant to ttrpgs.

“[…] the immediate exploitation of success to defeat the enemy.” —yes

“[…] includes the technical application of combat power, which consists of those techniques and procedures for accomplishing specific tasks within a tactical action.” —I initially avoided the ‘selecting from techniques’ type definition out of fear I’d reinforce the Sweet New Unlocks concept. While knowing when to Turn Undead or Brace a Pike is part of tactics; these abilities as they exist on your character sheet are merely symbolic of the skillful technique in the ✨Imagined World✨. In-world thinking is part of the mindset I'm trying to express, but what I really mean is: stop being an idiot and just play pretend. Tactics is doing what works. This isn't the realm of theory—it's a craft. Warcraft, a world of it (I'm really sorry). You could read the entirety of MCDP 1-3 Tactics but I entreat you to instead consider tactics:

The art & science of analyzing the situation, envisioning your desired endstate, and bridging that gap with both honed techniques and the unbounded potential interplay you have with your environment.

There are some quite intuitive tactics, liking using a 10’ Pole, which are quickly added to one’s repertoire and can become standard procedures. While the simple heuristic skill of “learning what works” doesn’t require conscious practice, taking things further does. Here are some situations where a methodical approach should be attempted, an SOP formed, and communicated with the team.

• Bedding down for the night. What are our sleeping arrangements? Are we keeping watch, lighting a fire? When and how should the watch sound the alarm?
• Moving in a Line. aka marching order. Sketch a 1 wide and 2 wide formation to save time—you now only tell the DM when you deviate from this.
• Crossing a deep river in armor. Of course, someone can doff pack and plate to swim across with a rope; but with enough rope and some convenient trees you can suspend two lines above the water: one to walk across and one to hold onto. More people remain ready to fight and there's less chance of tragedy.
• Cresting a hill. No seriously, your body creates a very noticeable person-shaped silhouette against the sky. You can also see further from atop a hill.
• Fighting Monsters with Impregnable Hides or Elsewise Immune to Damage. You gotta do something man.
  • Similarly, when the DM thinks up new and terrible foes the players must devise and remember ways to defeat them. Everyone knows to burn by-the-book Trolls and show the Medusa a mirror—but what about Scorpjackalopes and Xiblers?
• Encountering Fellow Travelers on the Road or Elsewhere. Any cultural considerations? Do we change formation—is that too aggressive? If they’re armed and stop at sighting you, do you send forth a person to parlay—will this be respected?

This might seem excessive but remember, you only have to decide an SOP once and can then refine or tweak the standard as the situation changes. Really, not doing this is excessive. Why not build and refine your tactics / strategies as a group? Why not write them down—it saves effort later.

You might have noticed that most of the above situations aren’t really Combat, well that’s because we’re talking about…

In our quest to reach the Baron's castle we start by trying to figure out why the road is so dangerous, and we decide to ask around town. The townsfolk tell us the area is infested with brigands who are likely from a mercenary company the Baron dismissed last year. We decide to not question why the people are disappearing outright and not being robbed or ransomed.

We'll start by making an estimate of the situation in the form of a Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops, Time, and Civil Consideration (METT-TC). We assume that our brief survey and nonexistent reconnaissance will suffice.

Yeah just gonna breeze through these, read the handout if you want. The terrain is heavily forested, offering cover and concealment to both friend and foe—they are surely taking advantage of this. The time it will take to reach the castle is about 7 hours if we travel on foot. Perhaps a day or two if we try to go through the woods. We do have a time constraint in that we need to reach the Baron as soon as possible before he makes other plans. Civil considerations include the old ruins in the woods and would also include all those kidnaped travelers (but our party forgets about that here too!).

We decide, now quite deep in our cups, that the EMLCOA is too jump out of the bushes, demand money, and to take hostages if we fight or don't have enough money. If we try to fight they will likely sound horns and draw reinforcements from the forest.

This may also be the enemy's most dangerous course of action (EMDCOA), according to our estimation of their capabilities and limitations, other than slaughtering us in our sleep, but we don't plan to stop. We need to not get ambushed, and we could sneak around off the path, but the woods are fickle and we don't think we can afford the delay as that'd push us into our EMDCOA.

How can we exploit this situation?

We're going to travel on the road and in the forest to either side In a big V formation, with the mouth of the V facing our direction of movement. Our hope is that this formation will force us to encounter any ambushers hiding in the treeline, and once encountered they will be inside our 'V' and we can quickly envelope them. If possible, we'll kill all, to a man, so they can't reinforce. If some brigands flee into the forest, we will take to the road and try to beat feet toward the patrolled lands around the castle.

If we make contact on the outside or rear of our formation, we'll call it out and try to pivot on the enemy. If we take more than 3 casualties we'll surrender or retreat, but we're going to leave that decision to Bill, the burly fighter leading the movement from the center of the group. Our newest member, a magic-user who refused to give his name, has promised us quite the show if we can get all the brigands in close proximity.