That is two extra queries, but hey, who's counting?
Also, who thinks it's a good idea to record combat data permanently? Would it be interesting to go back and read through combat logs? Is that a thing?
I'm trying to decide if there's any real use to my combat index table. It stores timestamps for start and end of battle, number of combattants (meaningless as php cycles through every existing entry that mysql feeds back), and winner, which at this time does nothing since winning and losing is determined by team. Do I also need a table that tracks who was in each combat? Maybe. But that's a lot of boring data.