Dos and Do-nots of a Warband leader.

Had some terrible experiences with WB leaders at Tier3 RVR today. Not only they couldn't give clear orders, but couldn't decide on what orders to give and changed them all the time. More than that, they couldn't make a decent rotation on postern guarding groups -- so all members on the Warbands could share the bounty and the price of a decent siege. The worst part -- they would take no advice from the rest of the Warband, and when finally their plans failed, they just left, leaving the WB to dwindle and disappear -- no apologies, nice words or even passing the command. These are a lot of "Don'ts" of the Fine Art of Warband Leadership, and made at least part of the Warbands very frustrated.

That made me think if we have some text on the "Dos and Do-Nots of the Warband leader". Simple things like "Give clear orders, and only give them when you are sure about them.", "Do not give an order if you don't know what to do", "When your group works well, congratulate them. If something goes wrong, explain clear and nicely what went wrong and go on with your work" and "Don't leave the Warband if things goes wrong, as that would be disrespectful and frustrating" and so on.

If we do have such text, where could we find it? If not, who wants to help me to write it? I may have much energy, but I'm very far from being the experient leader i want to be. Such simple texts could help educate WB leaders, and may work wonders on the quality of leadership and most of all on the fun of everyone on the Warband.

What do you think, my friends?

Well Fog has written a lot of stuff about being a warband leader. Check out his blog. http://www.gaisciochnaanu.com/member/Foghladha/blog.html

I might at some point write something like this. Ben does have something similar up now as Aethen posted. Im not sure it's exactly what you're talking about, but it's darn close.

Thank you very much for the ready response to my thread, my friends. I'm reading Fogladha's texts right now, and they're pretty much what I would like to write. Maybe just a little bit more "in-depth" than my original idea. And I noted they came out just at the same time I was writing this. I guess I was not the only one with bad WB experiences yesterday. Well... I'll read Fog's tests, and maybe write some "indexing" of them myself later. The main idea is to create a text simple enough to be read in 3-4 minutes, and that gave the most basic guidelines on "what a WB Leader shouldn't ever do, for Sigmar's sake!" =) I fact, i think we could all write about this. I'm sure its an important topic, and every single one of you has a lot to say about it. There should be a way to index all these texts on WB leadership on a single page, by subject, so they became easier to find. Blessed Be.

As a side note, I agree with Evesong... WB leadership is pretty intuitive and requires common sense above all. But common sense is pretty lacking in the universe. So we must teach people how to lead, IF and only IF they care to learn about it. Some will not. We follow, and lead, the ones who do. (there's no shame in deserting a WB with a bad leader that is leading everyone to defeat and frustrating everyone. Better yet if you create a "rebel overflow" after that. I tried to do it yesterday. And it almost worked)

I feel your pain Seabhran! I may have not been leading but I have witnessed the rudeness and carelessness of a few soldiers out there not willing to cooperate with the orders being given. I myself get frustrated seeing someone else getting put down or ignored and I want to say something but feel it may be better to just keep my mouth shut. I do believe that the leader should make his rules clear and have one warning and then let the person know they will be eliminated from the wp. We need to support our leaders! Every choice they make may not be the best, but a good team sticks together through it all!! Battle on Seabhran, you are a good leader!!

I thank you very much for the support, Jay! You are always the faithful sister-in-arms! I know you and Othrakin are witnesses to the terrible PuG we had yesterday at Empire T3. I would like to clarify that I hate being bossy or such. But clear orders must be given, and if one doesn't want to follow the group and it's leader, there's no point for he to be in a Warband. I don't like kicking people from warbands, though, as it sounds really bad and mitigates morale. I think one should simply grab is hat and leave if he can't work together with the group. I think I really need to write that article on the "Dos and Do-nots of the WB Leader", and then write a follow-up on "Dos and Do-nots of the WB member". Someone must write an article on the art of being "Main assist" too, don't you think? =) Blessed Be.

Hello sister Evesong, you seem to be a GREAT assistant, and the Gods know how needed a great assistant like you are crucial to a Warband. Reinstating orders, and making sure people are following then, along with group rearrangement and giving feedback to the leader are maybe the core of the Assistant's work. And by your words, you seem to know it very well. Blessed Be.

I don't have much to say on the topic. I am a leader but I lead in my own way. I have many ideas and I try to use them. Pugs are hard to do but i have alot of followers now and soem listen and some don't. When people dont listen the war bands will fail. As far as guarding the postern door. I dont do it much at all. I don't Like to unless I know they are comming. I'd rather put all my focus on the door and oil. Faster they go down faster we get in. Other then that you are more then welcome to join me. I will be doing a war band sometime today. As always this Tuatha Alliance is something my guild has fun doing so we try not to make it a job.

Thank you for the commenet, Knuckels! I think we disagree about the postern door, but that's ok. I think the postern must be guarded all the times, by at least 2 or 3 men (1 tank and 1 healer) to try to cut down reinforcements. No matter how fast you lay down the doors, the reiforcements can always be a pain in the arse... But I respect very much the way you lead. You make it work, and that's what counts. The rest is Strategical Theory. =)

I don't lead. So forgive me for being presumptuous. But from what I've seen, when we run our events, we only guard the postern depending on the size of our force. Because guarding the back door is like catching water with a screen wire. Destro will just flow through you. You can kill some, which will annoy them. But if a healer gets in, then he'll just res those who die below. So most of the time we just focus on knocking down the door as fast as we can. We only seem to guard the posterns when have 1 more warband than Destro.

There's a lot of wisdom in your words, Aethenbrior. I must say you convinced me! Blessed Be.