Fantasy With A Purpose Forum Battle Tactics?

I would like some information about medieval field battle tactics. Most of the information I find is more about castle sieges. So anyone with some info or great link, help?

It would help if you were more specific.  Is it two armies going against each other?  A few characters on the run?  It also depends on what they have at their disposal.  I know that sounds common sense, but I've had writer's block like that before.  I told one of my friends the situation, and he said "why don't you just have them do..."  It was simple advise, but writer's block can keep us from seeing the obvious sometimes.

Yeah it depends on the situation.  A lot of field battles in real life were between ground-based and horse-based armies (Britons vs. Normans) in which case the ground-based army was usually defending.  They would make shield walls (a line of heavily-armed and armored warriors interlocking their shields) along with weapons like spears and lances jutting between the shields to stop a cavalry charge.  And in the back of the army there would be longbowmen, often hiding behind a huge shield-type thing planted in the ground.  They would load an arrow, step out from behind their shield, and all fire at the same time into the general mass of the enemy army.  This was a good thing both for weakening cavalry charges, and for giving their own melee comrades a good charge opportunity.  The enemy would be busy trying not to get killed by arrows and therefore wouldn't have time or attention to protect themselves against a mass of charging ground warriors wielding great maces (which could puncture even very thick armor, whereas a sword would have to find a specific weak spot in the armor).  One thing to note is that maces used by foot soldiers were usually bigger, heavier, and deadlier than horsemen's maces, since foot soldiers could use both hands to wield a weapon.  Before the use of the longbow was popular, cavalry charges quite often decided the fate of a battle right from the start.

A lot of medieval armies came in three sections, the vanguard, (can't remember the middle section's name) and the rearguard.  I could be mis-remembering, but I think the vanguard was made up of archers and foot soldiers a lot, the middle were the heavily armed and armored (and better trained) knights (horsed or otherwise) and the rearguard was quick and light cavalry.  The core of knights (especially cavalry) would lead charges using wedge formations, so that the enemy would be engaged at different times and their line would be weakened rather than just being pushed back intact if the core were to charge in a straight line.  The rearguard, toward the end of the battle, would quickly circle around behind the enemy army to cut off any attempts at fleeing or of reinforcements.

Siege engines usually weren't used in field battles, except sometimes for mangonels and ballistae.  Mangonels are smaller catapults that fling a spread-shot of smaller rocks intended to land on a large area occupied by enemies.  Ballistae, those giant crossbow thingies, when used several at a time, could cut down a lot of enemy soldiers pretty quickly since their huge bolts could go through one enemy or his mount and hit the guy behind him.

Of course there are other scenarios and tactics, such as the Mongols' hit-and-run raid style fighting, in which their lightly armored cavalry archers would flank the enemy and cut them down with arrows.  It was they who invented the technique of firing arrows backwards off a moving horse, which was baffled many of their enemies.

There are also a lot of specific combat styles and moves, depending on what martial tradition you come from and what weapons  you use (European knights with broadswords, Renaissance swordsmen with rapiers, Japanese samurai with katanas, Arabian warriors with scimitars etc)

Add wizards and magic into the mix and there are a whole lot more opportunities.  I always try to limit magic in huge battles so as not to have one magician completely overpower everyone unrealistically.

Hope some of this helps :)

Thanks :)