Editing Mnemon Explains Solar Combat (section)

====For the Meleeists====
''Fivefold Bulwark Stance!''

Fivefold Bulwark Stance has a couple of nice advantages over Flow Like Blood - firstly, it tends to give a few more dice (due to more applicable specialties and the Defence bonus on weapons), and secondly, it's Reflexive, so it's not as vital to get it up early.

If you're attacked before your initiative, and you have your weapon ready, activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance and Full Dodge. From nothing to layered defences instantly! If you win initiative, activate Fivefold Bulwark, attack once or twice, and save a dodge or two.

If your weapon isn't ready, and you lose initiative, you're in a bit of trouble. You'll have to Full Dodge until you can get a chance to ready the weapon on subsequent turns - try stunting your Full Dodge to get a stick or other improvised weapon into your hands, and if your GM goes for it, activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance, and then switch to your real weapon as soon as you get an action. Otherwise, run like a squealing Ledaal until you're in a position where you have a hope of winning initiative and readying a weapon.

Once you've got Fivefold Bulwark Stance up, on the next turn, activate Flow Like Blood if your initiative comes up and you haven't been forced to Full Dodge. Otherwise, you can keep Full Dodging whenever an attack gets through your Fivefold Bulwark before your initiative, or attack (possibly with an offensive charm) and save a couple of dodges if your initiative comes up without you needing to Full Dodge. You can use Shadow Over Water in place of Full Dodging if you want to make sure you can attack, but remember you need to activate it BEFORE the attack, so you either need to use it on every attack, or just gamble on only using it on the attacks you think will be big ones (if your GM houserules the dodge charms to work like the parry ones, just use Shadow Over Water and don't bother Full Dodging unless you're low on motes).

Fivefold Bulwark is no good against attacks you're not aware of, however, so beware ninja. Also, particularly hardass GMs might insist that the talk of "golden arcs of essence guiding the blade" in the charm description is always true - in which case it's a poor choice for discreet battles in such games.