Second Caid Rebellion
The Second Caid Rebellion occured on May 15th, 1976; between the forces of the Kingdom of the West, and its "rebellious" southern principality, Caid.
The history of the Caid rebellions goes back to the reign of Prince Hugh the Undecided, the second prince of Caid. During his reign the year before, he had led the fighters of Caid in a mock rebellion against the parent kingdom, the West; in the First Caid Rebellion. The following year, during the reign of Prince Gregory of York (fourth prince of Caid)this series of wars continued with the Second Rebellion
The war was held in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada at a place called Johnny Barton's Ranch, near King's Canyon. The West fielded a force of 52 experienced and well eqipped fighters, led by the king of the West, Paul of Bellatrix. Caid, led by Prince Gregory and Viscount Sir Hugh, numbered only 36 fighters; which only those serving with the Brotherhood of the Blade having much experience in war-fighting.
In those very early days in the developement of SCA warfare, melee/war tactics consisted of nothing more than forming one's forces into a single line of shieldmen (normally mismatched tourney shields), backed in places by occassional spear or great-weapon fighters. The main open-field tactic of the day involved a simple single-flank envelopement (usually one's right-flank attempted to envelope the opponet's left-flank).
The months of tactical practice by Caid in preparation displayed itself in improved deployments an tactics. The Caidan army held a War Council before the first battle, actually planning out the tactics to be used throughout the day.
The first scenario was the Bridge battle. Again, as in the previous Rebellion, it was a very hard-fought affair. And, in what was becoming a tradition, it ended with the West's last fighter, Sir William the Lucky, crossing the bridge on his knees carrying the Western banner!
In the Open Field that followed, Caid fielded a strong line of shields, anchored on its right by the boundary marker (representing a river). On Caid's left-flank, the ground rose up a slope. There Prince Gregory and Viscount Sir Hugh the Undecided (the acknowleged warlord of Caid) placed our key tactical unit and only reserve: The Mean Machine; an elite group of experienced Brotherhood of the Blade fighters, led by Robear du Bois.
The Caidan battle plan was to "fix" in place the Western (or "Notherner", as West Kingdom fighters were referred to by Caid back then)battle line by advancing their own into contact. At which time the Mean Machine on the Caidan far left would attempt to outflank and chew down the flank of the West Kingdom line.
At that event, however, the West was not caught napping. They too had been upping their game.
Already enjoying both a quantitative and qualitative advantage, the West fielded the first scutum shield-wall yet seen in the SCA (Reislingshire and Southern Shores both fielded scutum equipped units). To counter Caid's
