SWG Basic Combat Training: TKO Hunting Group Methods and Tactics

The material to know and practice for approval for membership in the Teräs Käsi Order is contained under Group Methods and Tactics. Introduction material is provided for people who are fairly new to, or have many questions regarding, hunting groups. Scanning the links should reveal what sections you should read further.

TKO has always placed hunting group conduct highest among member qualities, believing how one acts in group is a strong indicator of how one will act within the guild. Pulling one's own weight is not enough to maintain TKO membership, one must see guild membership as an opportunity to produce for and uplift others. We are strict in our requirements but find people who play maturely have no difficulty with our requirements, which are plainly based on common sense and decency.

Authorship Note

When THX (TKO Bria) first sought membership with TKO, he grouped several times with me (Taigei aka Eirie Noh) and TKO first officer Sinjin Otola. It was on a run through the Tusken-infested hills of Tatooine when he truly showed the spirit we were looking for in TKO members.

At a time when dying and cloning meant a corpse run to retrieve all your equipment, the three of us ran into a Tusken party who killed us all. We realized we had to draw off the Tuskens during several strategic attempts to retrieve our corpses and get away, but it was the one-shot-and-your-dead Tusken Captain who hunted us relentlessly and camped our corpses. On each attempt one of us engaged and attempted to draw off the Tuskens while the others recovered their items and ran off to a staging point. At least one of us would be killed in the attempt.

The Tusken Captain, separated from his compatriots, kept vigil over Sinjin's corpse as it lay in a ravine. He'd spot us for sure if we attempted a retrieval, and that meant another corpse run. But THX had a plan. Stripping to his boxers and handing us his gear, he announced he would run screaming and yelling at the Tusken and take him on alone.

Sinjin and I told him we weren't about to let him fight and die naked and alone. But THX had his mind on one thing: The Mission. And the mission was to get all our belongings and make no more corpse runs.

"You hold my gear. I'll attack him and burst it as far as I can get before he kills me. Sinjin, you loot your corpse, and the two of you get the hell out of here," he said. "I'll be kicking back in the cantina before you reach town."

"But your corpse will be out here," I said, still not getting the point.

"Yeah, but you guys will have all my stuff," he said. "I can leave my corpse here."

So, THX ran screaming at the bloody bastard and burst ran it over the hill and out of sight while Sinjin and I made it to the corpse and headed back to town. After a long trek, Sinjin and I found THX just where he'd said he'd be - kickin' it back in the cantina checkin' the Twi'lek dancers - still in his SWG standard issue undies.

THX became an officer in the guild and headed up the membership-required Basic Training program. THX wrote the core concepts down which I have expanded upon to make a publishable version of TKO's Basic Training manual on group methods, conduct and tactics, which contains what we believe every member of TKO should know and practice.

~Taigei~