I considered leaving this arrow out of the diagram in case it over-complicates matters. However, I want to write a post about it as I think it highlights some important aspects of timing and will act as a segway onto binds and handworks.
7.1 Counter sieges
In i33, we do see some direct attacks against a fencer who is in a ward, but we do not really see direct attacks made against a fencer who is in a counter ward. Instead, the fencer who was in a ward will first bind their sword against the counter ward - presumably to prevent the opponent in the counter ward from making or completing their attack - and then they will make a secondary attack (which I'm going to call a handwork). Now, in real life there is nothing to stop you from making a direct attack against a fencer who is in a counter ward, particularly an attack to the arm. However, generally, because a counter ward is providing a defence and is held with sword and buckler in front of the body, the counter ward is probably defending the closest line of attack, making it hard for you to attack a deep target such as their head. Also, because their sword is 'closer' to you, they can attack you fairly quickly and unpredictably.
We can therefore state that, in general, attacking someone who is in a counter ward is a little different to attacking someone who is in a ward because our attack must get around their defence, and as a rule of thumb, this makes direct attacks harder. Our first step is often to bind on their counter ward. In doing so, we basically form our own counter ward, and then we need to act from there to make an attack (a 'handwork'). To differentiate this from a 'siege' (covered in part 6), I call this a 'counter siege'.
7.2 How useful is this concept?
Consider the following scenarios:
Parry-riposte: A parry-riposte is where you are attacked, you make a parry, and then you immediately return (riposte) your own attack.
Example: You are in third ward, and so is your opponent. They have just attacked your right side with an Oberhau, and you have parried it with halpschilt. Now you make a riposte, attacking them with a cut or a thrust.
Remise: A remise is where you make an attack which your opponent parries, and then you make a second attack before they make their own riposte.
Example: You are in third ward, and so is your opponent. You attack them with an oberhau to the right side of their head, and they parry it with halpschilt. You make a remise, thrusting them with a Stichslach around the outside of their sword before they can riposte.
Counter siege: A discussed above, I consider a counter siege to be where you first attack an opponent who is in a counter ward by binding against their blade. Then you can make your attack.
Example: You are in third ward, and so is your opponent. Your opponent cuts to halpschilt and enters distance. Before they can attack, you fall under, binding their sword (basically attacking their counter ward), and you thrust around the outside of their sword with a Stichslach.
The three scenarios are extremely similar. They all involve an attack and a defence. The defence is either a parry or it is a counter ward. The key differences are who is initiating the attack, and whether the opponent is in a ward or a counter ward at the start of the action. However, by the time the attack and defence have been made, both opponents can be said to be in a counter ward, and they are in a bind. There seems to be little to distinguish a siege and a counter siege.
The most important differences between the scenarios - particularly the parry-riposte scenario and the other two - is who is the initiator and the timing of the actions. In the parry-riposte, the opponent has attacked first, and you parry and then riposte; importantly, your riposte must be made before the opponent has a chance to remise. In the remise example, you attack, they parry, and then you remise; your remise needs to be made before they can riposte, in direct contradiction to the first scenario. In the third scenario, you bind an already waiting halpschilt, and then you need to immediately attack before they have a chance to attack you; however, as you make the bind, your opponent has an opportunity to riposte or bind or take some other action against you.
So, while I'm not convinced that it is particularly useful to distinguish a siege from a counter siege (but certainly a parry-riposte and a remise are clearly different), doing so has forced us to think about timing.
7.3 Timing
It is a universal constant of fencing that when you perform an action, this gives a time for your opponent to perform an action. When you attack, they parry while you are attacking, not once you have finished attacking. In theory, the first to move can finish their move and start their next move before the opponent has completed their own move (e.g. you can complete your attack and make a remise while the opponent is still parrying) but this is only true if we instantly start our next move.
In reality, there is something like 0.3-0.5 seconds needed for our brain to visually register what just happened and then react. However, if we attack and our opponent parries, it is likely that the opponent will parry and riposte faster than we can remise, unless we have planned for this in advance. This is because they expected the parry and 'pre-programmed' the riposte. A riposte is therefore usually faster than a remise. It is also because our sense of touch is faster than our sense of sight; we can react quickly when we make a parry because we rely on our sense of touch, but when we attack we tend to use our vision to help us understand whether the attack was parried and whether the opponent is making a riposte.
If we were to plot these actions onto a graph, with time going left to right, and the time taken for each fencer's action represented as a box of a certain length, we might expect it to look like this:
However, what we actually see is something like this, where one of the fencers (often the fencer who parries) has a timing advantage:
This is not always the case, and it depends on the skill of the fencer. Often you will see beginner fencers attacking multiple times, even if their opponent has parried and is riposting. Likewise, it is common for fencers to riposte following a parry, even if their opponent is making a remise. It is hard to say whether this is the fault of one fencer or the other, but it does illustrate the problem: following a bind or parry, whose turn is it now?
I don't have a concrete answer. You simply need to be aware that i33 expects us to perform various actions from a bind, and this is where the majority of the techniques in i33 are performed. The techniques used are fairly agnostic of whether they are being used to riposte, remise, or counter siege. The successful use of the techniques, however, depend greatly on you being able to pull them off at the right time.
The below graph illustrates some possible timing differences between a parry-riposte, a remise, and a counter siege. These aren't the only timings possible; it just illustrates that there is a tension between the actions each fencer can perform and, for the techniques to be successful, you need to be able to perform them in good time. You either need to be able to blend one action into the next before your opponent can perform their own action, or wait for the opponent to perform their action so that you can make the appropriate action in response.
7.4 Conclusion
So why am I telling you all this?
If you break down the lessons of i33 found in the plays, we discover that whenever there is a bind of sword on sword, we are presented with some techniques that we can perform. Whether we are attacking or defending, the techniques are largely (but not exactly) the same, but will vary based on the following criteria:
Who was the initiator?
What bind was made?
What is your position in the bind?
Who has the timing advantage?
In other words, the techniques we use to parry and then riposte against an attack are more or less the same as those to remise, and are largely the same as those to perform a counter siege, but applied in a different way. If we can keep this in mind, it is easier for us to understand the actions i33 is teaching us.
In part 8, we will look at the binds that are possible.
7.5 Example counter sieges
While I can't say all of these are equally effective, in theory the below counter wards are opposed with attacks or binds that themselves end in the following counter wards:
Opponent is in counter ward: | You bind with: |
Halpschilt (outside) | Halpschilt (outside) Falling under (outside) Right Schutzen (outside) |
Halpschilt (inside) | Halpschilt (inside) Left Schutzen (inside) |
Left Schutzen | Left Schutzen (inside) Halpschilt (inside) Fiddelbow (inside) |
Right Schutzen | Halpschilt (outside) |
Fiddlebow | Longpoint (overbind, inside) Left Schutzen (inside) Halpschilt (inside) |
Krucke | Krucke (outside) Longpoint (inside) |
Falling under | Halpschilt (outside) |
Low Schutzen | Low Schutzen (inside) Krucke (outside) |
Longpoint | Longpoint (outside, or inside) |
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