Now, I wrote this a long time ago so now it's on my second page and people probably won't see it any more. I'm going to make a link for them, once I figure out how to do it (or find out how to bribe my sister into doing it!) So here it is, The Adventures of Zoomdog! Part One.
P.S. I'll be posting the second part above this one too.
Here it is then!:
Our dog would have to enter the competition for the dumbest dog on the planet. She’s half Dalmatian spots and all. She loves barking at shadows. She loves carrying fallen palm branches, whether miniature ones on a bike ride or huge ones that we’re trying to carry to our branch pile. She is an over-excited bundle of mis-directed brainless energy. And she is also deaf. Stone deaf. She can’t hear a thing (but she can feel vibrations). This is what today’s morning, slightly abridged and altered, would look from her view.
The Morning: A dog’s eye view
Or
The Adventures of Zoom-dog!
Oh, hello, that goofy human’s back again. It’s about time he let me out of this cage. I’ve been awake for hours. Well, at least five minutes. Same thing. I’ve got places to go, places to be. Hurry up. Good, you’ve opened it. Can I take my bone? Ummmm. No, I’ll just leave it. Funny how no one seems to make a sound around me. Very funny. I mean, it’s not as if I’m super-sensitive about noise! Okay, never mind, I’m out, I’m free and lets go!
ZOOM!
About one hour later…
Sitting next to the door here is very nice really. I mean, what better place to see my favourite humans (Even if they don’t have much intelligence, but then again, you can’t have everything; loyal and intelligent pets.)? Ah, that big mother human’s coming out to see me. How absolutely nice of her! She’s actually gone out of her way to see me! Oh, I’m touched.
Oi! Whatcha slap me for? I was only coming close to you so we could have a good talk. So what if you can’t put on your shoes when I’m this close, you’ve come out to lavish attention on me like those other girls do. Come on, girl to girl, let’s talk and sniff! Oi! You slapped me again! For some one who just went out to visit her dog you don’t have many manners. Oooo! The i-pod! And you’ve put on your shoes! I know what this means! A walk! A walk! Yippee! Oh, woman, how I love you. You have never wronged me, never! Nor ignored me. A walk! A walk! Come on, let’s go!
Another half hour later…
Hey, where’s that puny human that plays with me gone? Ahh, he’s back now. And he’s on his bike. He’s off on a bike ride. Maybe he doesn’t want me to come. Oh, never mind, he’s never bothered before. Can I take my part of a palm branch too? It’s customary for me, a sacred tradition. Or maybe he doesn’t want me to come. Oh, but I really wanna. I’ll just stay here and see. He’ll be back.
He’s signalling for me! HE WANTS ME TO GO ON A BIKE RIDE! I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO GO OUT WITH HIM!!! Ooooo, goody, goody, I can’t wait. Come on let’s go.
ZOOM!
It’s wonderful going out into the sun together, just him and me, together. Lovely. Hey, never smelt that before. Yol, wait for me human! Hmm, maybe I should just smell that too. Is that a shadow over there?!! OH, that’s right, the human! Wait for me, I’m comin’! Yahoo! Mud! I LOVE mud! Let’s walk though that! Wonderful. I’m all dirty. The perfect state of mind and body. Ahh. Let’s go home. Lalalala. Just walking gaily though the carefree world. Just walk right in front of the moving bicycle, no danger there…
A little later, back at home…
That human wants to lock me up in that cage again! It’s nowhere near night time. There’s some stranger-dogs out the back in the ute and I want to talk to them. That brainless human is just waiting for me to walk into the cage and giggling like a silly thing. “Oh hello human, how are you going? You’re not wanting me for anything are you? Wanting me to do something? Oh, of course not. You want just to stand there and look at me? Oh okay, I’ll just sit here and do nothing. You know, I have absolutely no idea what you want me to do. Not at all.” He’s pointing into the cage. He’s telling me to actually go in the cage. I am under orders! Ummm… “What on earth do you mean by that outlandish sign? You may as well go and speak Swedish, ‘cus I have no idea what you mean. No, really”. Alright, alright I’ll go. Hey he hasn’t closed the door, just taken the water bowl. Can I come out? No? Oh, what a surprise. I’ll just wait here.
A while later…
Finally you’re back! It’s about jolly time you let me out. Come on, let’s go and bark at those shadows together, just you and me, a dog and his loyal human.
ZOOM!
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Today was very busy. We first did our daily chores (I’m in the kitchen for this week!) and then cleaned up the house a bit until Dad was ready to take us kids into town to buy me a lawnmower, Jessica a bicycle tube and to take our rubbish to the dump. So now I have a new lawnmower! But I’ll get back to that later…
After we had done our running around town we had lunch (chips; crash-food is probably a better name, as we always crash afterwards) and came home. Dad fixed the kids’ bikes while I had some free time. After the bikes were fixed we carted trailer-loads of palm-branches and even a smallish palm tree which had toppled over to our big bonfire we’ll lit some time. I then had more free time until I had to mow the lawn…
The lawn took me 65 minutes for a HUGE job since I hadn’t done it for weeks because the lawnmower was broken and I was waiting for Dad to come home (he’s away a lot working on the cattle stations as a vet) so he could buy a new mower. It did the job well. I just have to see if it takes quicker over the shorter stuff or if it handles it all pretty much the same (that’s how good it is).
I will be writing up a new Zoom-dog article soon (as well as republishing the old ones so they’re where people can see them). It’s topic: True love and rattraps! I can see where this is going!! :)
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You know you’ve being doing math for too long recently when you start writing the date as:
9
- of 08
6
I went to a bookshop/restaurant/internet cafe on Saturday to do some downloading both for me and for Mum. She wanted some Cindy Rushton audios, I wanted to download some history websites for my own study and some wargame rules.
Well, it went great! I found a wonderful website called http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html which had all these medieval books for free. Not modern historians’ writings, actual sources written in the middle ages! There was one book called the Alexiad, which was about the Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople, etc.) emperor at the time of the First Crusade written by his daughter! This emperor, Alexius (hence the name of the book) was one of the greatest later Byzantine emperors and now I have a book, written by his daughter, about his life and reign! There was another book by Julius Caesar about his conquest of Gaul (France), another on the Hundred Years War between France and England, a list of testaments (I think that’s like a charter for a monastery) for medieval Orthodox Greek monasteries, instead of the European Catholic monasteries and a load of other goodies. I was like a child in a candy factory! It was an amateur historian’s dream!
I also downloaded some wargames for the Crusading Era in the middle east at http://www.perfectcaptain.50megs.com/captain.html but that was also large downloads and requires a lot of printing. I also downloaded some Wargaming magazines and files. Oh yeah, I also downloaded stuff for Mum too! J
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The silly things I do…
- Last Year: Start a load of washing in the washing machine but forget to put in the washing powder.
- Several Weeks Ago: Go to a concert. Forget to bring all 6 chairs (bring 5) and give Mum the fifth seat. Spend half of the concert asleep on the floor.
- Around the Same Time: Go to a church service in the park. The kids tidy up the rubbish left behind. The pastor then tells us to pick up the leaves as well. I start to get working on it before I realize the joke…
- Saturday Night: Forget to lock up the dog; it wakes Mum up at 2:30 at night, she doesn’t go back to sleep.
- Didn’t know what a body scrubber was for (How would I, never seen anybody use one…)
- Admit to all these things on the world-wide web…
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We had a good school-day yesterday. Normally we are more concerned about cleaning up the house then schoolwork on Mondays, but yesterday we didn’t do much cleaning up. I managed to fit nearly a full day in. I did Latin, Math, Science, History, Bible and a bit of Character and a public speaking course I am doing with some of the older homeschoolers. So it was a very good day.
Have you ever noticed that the ideal homeschooling day is the only sort of day which never happens?
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Hello! I’m back!
There’s not much for me to blog about. I’m still waiting for my order of plastic soldiers to arrive (it’s taken 5 weeks so far). It’s got Vikings, Saxons, Crusaders, Saracens, Napoleonic French, Napoleonic British, Greek Infantry, Persian Infantry and Medieval French knights and infantry. It took 6 weeks for my last and it had one set in it, not 9!
I’m intending to work on one of my stories every day and post every week, but it might not be “Dragon’s Orb”. If it isn’t I’ll start putting whatever story it is on here. Now, remember, my stories are real rough, so I need all the editorial help I can (via comments)! So please help me out as I polish these stories :).
Josh
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My head is spinning!
We went to this astronomy thing last night: they had several really cool telescopes and a powerpoint demonstration with lots of facts on the things we saw in the telescopes. We saw the rings of Saturn, the moon’s craters and several stars, it was really cool. Well, of course, there was several Evolutionary things said there and Mum later asked us what we wished we knew to counter the Evolutionary things the man said. I said I wished I knew something about light-years and how stars billions of years distant from us could be giving us light in a 6,000 year old universe. I studied this a bit today and learnt about one of Einstein’s theories. It will blow your mind!
Einstein said that gravity affects time. That means that in a place where there is more gravity, time travels slower. So, from a Creationist’s point of view, if in the Earth’s history it was once in a area where there was more gravity then time would have traveled slower here then way out in space, where all the stars are. Then the light from the stars would have had lots of time (their time) to travel to our solar system and to earth, who’s still spent only a few thousand years. So the world is still only about 6,000 years old but the stars had a long time (their faster time) to reach us! Doesn’t it blow your mind! How can that work? It seems crazy and impossible!
So, if there was a “Narnia” out in another galaxy, then they could experience thousands of years for them while earth experienced a year or two, just like in the Chronicles of Narnia! It’s so mind-boggling. Comment if you can’t follow me or just think that’s seems so impossible!
Another thing: the man said something about some scientists saying there are several universes out there. How can that work? I don’t believe it, but still.. how can that work? I mean, what’s a universe? Then how can you have two infinites, or even how can you draw a line and say where the universe stops? Is there a wall, or does it just fade into nothing? It’s mind boggling!
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Okay! This is the next part in that story I posted a little while ago: Dragon's Flame. I'll be publishing at least once a week, so stay tuned!
Gurthsboar stood watching at the entrance to the cave he had spent the night sleeping in. Before him was a small village, with fields of half-ripe corn bending slightly in the light, refreshing breeze. A few robins played amidst the ears, holding on to vertical surfaces as if they were level floor. No clouds were to be seen in the beautiful blue summer sky. It was not the charms of nature, however, which had caught the Elf’s attention; it was the small band of soldiery, all mounted and armored who were on the opposite side of the crest of a ridge to the village, whose inhabitants were working peacefully in the fields. The men were obviously knights and their mounted vassals, there were many different designs on their shields, indicating who the noble knights were, but the most common design was that of the Eagle, red on a black shield. The men holding that design were either members of the family to whom the heraldry belonged or lower-born men, whose families did not have a heraldic design. There were about 20 men all told, who were all armed with a 3-metre ash lance, a shield bearing their device and mail armor. They also carried lighted torches, for the burning of the corn.
As these raiders were behind the unsuspecting farmers, so was another band, smaller then the first, behind the mounted raiders. They composed of eight men, including their leader, a youth in his mid-twenties. They were no less well armed but were dismounted, for some reason none, but the leader, had a horse. That they intended to attack the raiders before they raided the peaceful village, to whom it probably held allegiance to the family this second party also held allegiance to was plain. How eight men on foot intended to set 20 men on horses fleeing the county was less plain. Gurthsboar calmly descended down the ridge he had spent the night in towards the second concealed party.
Gerry O’Turrsbourgh was young and not himself of a noble family; instead his father was a officer in the service of Baron Kiksdorg. He had been visiting a leading merchant in the village the night before with a few men. They had not taken horses because the castle was a very short distance away and Gerry’s small command were infantrymen, not rich enough to own enough horses to become cavalrymen. A hunter who had been out very early in the morning after a local stag who had evaded him for several weeks now had alerted the young officer of the presence of a small band of raiders, no doubt Gersens. The Gersen clan was an extremely powerful local band of errant knights and their vassals who had risen to power (aided by some foreign power) around the lands of Baron Kiksdorg and some of his neighbors. They had become a great nuisance and had attracted many knights and soldiers from near and far to their cause. They raided and destroyed villages, as was a noble’s want in war against a rival noble and defeated the parties of the baron’s men who might have opposed them. It was against such a band that Gerry intended to attack.
He was very well aware that the enemy had the advantage in numbers and horses, as well as having slightly better arms, but he intended to take them from surprise and from the rear, and disorganize them as to prevent the raid. His men were deathly quiet as they prepared for the very dangerous conflict ahead of them. Silent prayers were offered. Then at the signal, Gerry and his men followed a hidden course towards the enemy, hidden by a small corpse of trees. Once the enemy was within 30 meters, Gerry blew his war horn and leapt out of the corpse. His men followed, bellowing the war cry of their baron and his country.
“Kara! Kara!” This unexpected attack indeed took the enemy cavalry be surprise, who for some reason had been waiting, probably for their scout to return. There was not much room for the cavalry to charge and use their lances to great affect, and before their leader could turn his men around to the new threat, a wooden shaft flew out of nowhere and sprouted out of his chest. Temporarily disorganized by the unexpected attack and the loss of their leader, the horsemen’s’ response to Gerry’s attack was a less effective then it could have been. Only a few seconds later, another arrow took out one of the leading knights as the cavalry charge met the surging infantry. Gerry’s spear took out one horse, and one of his followers quickly dispatched the unfortunate rider. A couple of knights went down quickly, but at least one infantryman was transfixed by a knight’s lance in the initial onslaught. It was a wonder that Gerry did not lose more at the onset, but the arrows and the surprise attack worked in his favor. One more arrow followed, again only a few seconds after the former. Then another yell pierced the air, besides that of “Klara! Klara!” and the fierce war cry of the Gersens.
“Tersun! Tersun!” It was the war cry of wandering Elves, whenever they joined battle, which was often as they traveled over the evil face of the earth.
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Okay, this is strange. Two of my friends who go to the local high school have asked me about homeschooling. Of course they asked how long I spent on schoolwork, and they both thought I only did two hours of schoolwork! Both of them! How did they both get that idea? Actually, it sounds rather nice…
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Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I last posted so… to recap.
It was my birthday on Tuesday (15yrs old, and yes, I mean OLD J) and I received a cool computer game (Railroad Tycoon 3, which is a computer game where you build a railroad and make money from it and the industries using it), an audio book by G.A. Henty (more on that in a moment), a book on cricket (a major sport in Australia), and the book Ben Hur. Jess (you can see her blog on my friend’s list) gave me a blog coupon, as she is very clever with HTML and all that stuff. So expect some major revisions on this blog, and soon!
I now also have a job at a local soft drink distributor and farming machine parts shop, mainly working in the storeroom sorting things out but also to sweep and odd jobs. I do 2 ½ hours for two days a week. I enjoy the work and it’s for pay which is good. I intend to by a cheap bow and arrows, model soldiers, and stuff for my model railroad (as well as books and audios) sometime. I’ll have to post some pictures of my model railroad (read: model mess!) on here soon. It’s a proper, HO scale (87 times smaller than the real thing), electric train set on a table, I’m working on hills and will have a small town and trees and a jetty too eventually.
The audio I’m listening to is a historical novel by G.A. Henty about William Wallace and Robert Bruce’s fight for Scottish freedom against medieval
This is becoming a long post J! I’ll stop now and tell you more later!
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I was listening to these Diana Waring history tapes (I’m loosely using her curriculum for my history studies, mainly focussing on Church history) about the knights of the medieval period in Europe, and found some funny facts about knights at war! 
The main attraction in a Knight’s life was fighting and hunting; after all, they were military professionals, fighting was their life-long job, and they built a reputation for being warmongers. However, their armour was so good that battles were pretty safe for knights.
In the battle of Lincoln in 1217, where about 500 knights on either side fought, only 1 knight was killed and every one felt rather bad about that! Of course, poorer men were not as well armoured or valued as knights and more of them were killed then knights.
In another battle I read of, only four men were killed, one of them from blowing a horn too vigorously!
Another particularly funny story is that of the poor foot soldier whom his lord hanged because the foot soldier had killed an enemy knight in a battle!
Part of the reason so few knights were killed (normally) was that the victors didn’t want to kill the knight, they wanted to capture him so he could pay a ransom to buy his freedom. Of course, the captured knight probably preferred that idea too!
The Church tried to limit the damage done in the wars between Lords, Barons, and Counts etc. by making the Truce of God and the Peace Of God, which were strict rules about when and how you could fight. Part of the terms of the Truce of God was that no one could fight between Wednesday night and Monday morning! The Church also banned crossbows, because they were too dangerous!
One reason the Crusades were launched was so that the Knights could be given someone else other than Christians to fight :)
Also, at one stage, a lord or baron had to go and ask other nobles if they wanted a fight. If not, he wasn’t allowed to attack them!
Very funny!
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This is a fantasy novel I am writing up. Here's the first part of the first chapter. Please comment on any spelling mistakes or plot ideas. I'll keep you posted on this story, at least once a week! (Hopefully...)
"Hear Ye! Hear Ye!" Cried the brightly clad herald in the large courtyard of the palace. "How a dragon was slain! Hear ye the tale of Gurthsboar, mighty warrior who slew a terrible wrym! Hear ye!"
Annette kept walking. Tales of "mighty dragons" and "terrible wyrms" were all to painful.
A magnificent dragon, all glowing red, surroned by bellowing knights.
Annette began to walk quicker. She started running over her list of tasks.
"order some lettauce, white cloth, golden thread..."
A terrible orb of golden fire...
Two dozen cups, four dozen candles..."
Fire consuming men, now nothing but withered wicks of men...
"Two bags of flour, a bag of sugar and ask Joe to add more firewood to the stack."
The upward stab of a brazen sword, the desperate last act of a dying man, a man who knew he was dying...
Annette tired to block out the vivid imagery in her head. She failed.
A roar of anguish, as from the very depths of the beast's lungs, rends the air. A last flash of flame, a instant reaction to the pain steadily climbing up the dragon's chest... Down, down, ruin, despair, fire, death,
DARKNESS!
"Against Berushach the father of Gregoi and Terbucht, who was slain at the gates of Elveis stood only one, the Elf, Gurthsboar dragonsbane. But it is said that against the red orb of the dragon, shone a white light, piercing but subdued, coming from the immortal Elf." The ministrel continued his tale to the small crowd listening in the courtyard.
Annette cast a scornful look at the now distant ministrel.
"Elves" She swore vehemently under her breath.
Father!
"Warmongers!"
Father!
Noo!
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Okay, today's been pretty tiring...
We decided to go on a family outing for the morning to a tourist resort in the bush which has cool bushwalks with great scenery and swimming holes. It was about a 1 hr drive there, some of it on a dirt road where we... burst a tire! Of course! As we rush to get to the resort in time for breakfast, we burst a tire! Bound to happen! Once we got there (yet, we were in time for breakfast) we had breakfast and then went on the walk.
A lot of the terrain was small or normal sized boulders which meant we had to climb over them, very tiring. We were walking to a 65 meter (around 200 ft) waterfall about 1.6 km off (it felt longer than that!). It was quite a sight! In some places there was a fall of water drops, instead of a single sheet, but there was that too. It was at the end of a gorge, and very echo-y. The water was FREEZING! Well, for us anyway. We live where if it fails to reach 35 degrees celsius it's not a hot day, so when it's cold, we feel it! We tried to go for a swim, got most of ourselves wet and then gave up. Then we walked back to the car, another 1.6 rocky km away. Very enjoyable, but rather tiring. We were really tired when we got home!
Above is a story I'm thinking of calling "Dragon's blood" Or "Dragon's Flame". For now it's "Dragon's Flame". It's a fantasy story I'm starting, and I'll keep you posted on it (at least once a week).
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A quick post on several things!
Today I went to a friend’s to do Reading Journals (more of that later), went to the library, did abouts an hour of school, and mowed the lawn.
A reading Journal is simply a book where we write something about the “school” book we’re reading. To practice this habit we are reading an Australian History book called “Icing on the Damper” with the C family. Mum reads a part of the book and we might take notes on what’s happening in the story, the historical facts, things to learn from the story (heart wisdom, or heart knowledge), etc. If we have a question we ask Mum about it and then she answers it and keeps reading. After we read a long section (maybe a chapter) we talk about it and write down, in the journal, some fact, a narration or some heart knowledge (aka: wisdom!). The idea is to get us to think about the book we are reading. Check out mum’s blog (Belinda Letchford, it’s under friends) for more on Reading Journals! They’re really good to get you to remember what you have read.
A history anecdote:
The Roman Republic was involved in the first of a series of three wars against the trading empire of Carthage, which ruled the seas. The Romans did well on land, but the Carthaginians were the only ones with a large navy. Then one day, a Carthaginian ship ran ashore on the Italian beach and Romans copied down, to the minutest detail, the ship so that they could build them too. They very quickly built up a fleet, but added an extra feature to the ship, a large plank of wood with a heavy iron “thorn” on it so that if you sailed up close to the enemy ship, you could drop this plank over the side of your ship, the iron thorn would dig into the enemy ship and it was safe to walk onto the enemy ship and try and kill all the crew! However, this addition made the ships top-heavy, and this was quite a danger in bad weather, making the ships liable to sink. There is a lot of bad weather in the Mediterranean, where the Roman navy was fighting, and they lost way over one hundred thousand men in storms and combats with the Carthaginian navy.
In fact, the Romans lost more men in that first Punic War (that’s what the wars against Carthage were called) at sea than any other navy in any other naval campaign, ever! Including WW2 in the pacific! That would make them pretty bad sailors 
!!!
NOW, I’m going to bed!
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Suddenly a whole salvo of cannon shells rained down on Jimmy’s command. It was an army of Red soldiers! More Blue Cavalry rushed to Jimmy’s rescue as more Blue infantry saluted their new commander. Jimmy kept the captured cannon firing on the Red cannons as the infantry gave round after round of gunfire. Battle was joined.
Jimmy was preparing for a cavalry charge on the enemy cannons. His infantry would divert the rest of the Reds away with a charge. Suddenly a voice rang out: “Look out sir!”
Jimmy turned around to see a Red Cavalry captain, sword raised!
Thrusting forwards Jimmy knocked the captain out with his sword. That was one horseman who wouldn’t be fighting again until tomorrow night. Jimmy’s men were caught by surprise by the Red Cavalry platoon. The Blues were losing. The Red army of foot soldiers charged. Directing his infantry to the Red army Jimmy turned to fight the horsemen.
Again the voice called. “Chaaarge!”
The enemy cavalry were fleeing away from a new company of spearmen. Toby and Jimmy ran off after the infantry. The reinforcements hurried off towards the battle too. Jimmy stopped and looked up. There, leaning over his bed was Fredrick wide-awake. Jimmy stood mouth opened wide.
“It’s okay.” Fredrick reassured Jimmy. “I won’t tell anyone. Keep playing, this is fun!”
And so off went Jimmy to fight the Reds.
Smiling, Fredrick got some cannons over to help his new friend.
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This is another story I wrote about toy soldiers (any guesses about one of my favourite hobbies? 
). Enjoy! It's a bit long, so I'll post the next part tomorrow, as it doesn't really warrant two full entries.
Toy soldier
“Fire!” 7-year-old Fredrick yelled to his toy solders.
He made gun noises as he imagined his soldiers bravely firing at the enemy. Fredrick liked to play with his toy foot soldiers, horsemen and cannons. However, what Fredrick didn’t know was that his soldiers were alive!
Jimmy was one of Fredrick’s Blue foot soldiers. Jimmy liked to talk with his best friend, Toby, when Fredrick wasn’t looking. They talked about toys and soldiers and had pretend battles in their wooden minds. The thing they loved to do the most was fight with other soldiers at night when Fredrick was asleep. However, they couldn’t do that with Fredrick around. Since Jimmy and the other soldiers couldn’t do that they stood to attention as Fredrick charged them over the table. As they were toys, they had to try to make their child happy. And that’s just what they did. Fredrick had heaps of fun and that’s what toys are for. Finally Fredrick went to bed. The soldiers waited for an hour and then gave a cheer. The night had begun.
Toby, Jimmy and 10 other soldiers walked about aimlessly, wondering what was going to happen next.
Boom! A cannon roared.
Boof! The cannon shell landed near Jimmy. Everyone jumped. Excited, Jimmy took control.
“Charge!” Jimmy bellowed.
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Sorry, I AGAIN forgot to post this story yesterday so here it is. Next week I'll publish the first segment in a story about the First Crusade! So stay posted (No, wait, that's what I've got to do!! :))
The Archer Scouts Segment Two: The Stroke Of Doom
The First volley of fire from
Suddenly a horn blast broke the air. Buzzing filled everyone’s ears like flies on a hot day. The air filled with daring and debonair dragonflies while the roof of the pantry crawled with brave ant infantry. Percy had come. The small company of Toy soldiers formed a arrowhead, forcing their selves though to where the Archer Scouts were taking their stand. For a full half hour the combined armies of ant, dragonfly and toy hacked at the army of grasshoppers and finally defeated them. 45 Road Train Drive was free.
Thomas was slightly dozy after the combat but a new concoction by a teddy bear nurse took it all away. Gordon Bill and Edward were put in hospital under the best care possible, with the whole hospital system under stress since the Jill and the entire Doll committee refused to help with the post war clean ups saying that had they been consulted all this would never of needed to have been done. Sir Jimuel was inserted as King and a loyal detachment of elite ant axemen formed his bodyguard. Sure enough Gordon Bill and Edward awoke on the 6th day from the battle, rather groggily but were guaranteed to be fine in a week. The Archer Scouts were given the role of guarding the house from future invasions from any foe.
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One of my hobbies is wargaming, which, basically put, is playing with soldiers. However, it is not playing with green army men, generally speaking. There are many, many sets of plastic, lead and metal soldiers which are built with wargaming and diorama-building in mind. Not only are they much better built than green army men, they are intended to be very historically accurate and the hobby covers a wide range of periods such as ancient, medieval, Napoleonic and modern. I prefer to buy plastic figures 2 cm tall (1:72 scale) because they are very cheap ($12AU for 40-odd infantrymen is a good rule of thumb) but I do have to paint them myself.
There are hundreds of kits, from Romans, to Greeks, to Knights, to WWI soldiers to Medieval Korean soldiers. The very biggest and best companies are HaT, Zvezda and Italeri but Emhar, Strelets and Caesar make good sets too. Once you buy your soldiers and paint them, you can either make a diorama (a famous history scene such as a Viking raid built on a small board, kinda like a 3D photograph) or play a wargame with them.
A wargame is a game that uses model soldiers to either re-enact a historical battle or to play a battle that could have happened. There are also Fantasy figures (such as for The Lord Of The Rings) and rulesets, but I haven’t done much investigating in that area (yet). In a normal wargame the soldiers are limited by how much they can move in a turn and usually if a combat with enemy soldiers ensures because of these moves, a dice decides how many on each side die and are taken off the battlefield. The dice are weighted by several factors, such as how skilled the soldiers are and how well-armored they are (a highly skilled soldier is more likely to kill a enemy soldier and a well-armored soldier is less likely to be killed, because his armor protects him). Many rules also focus on morale, how brave the soldiers are and the possibility of them running away from a fight. Who wins a combat, whether or not the soldiers run away and so forth is decide by dice, but the dice are weighted by different factors.
My wargame rules I take off the internet, and there are several good sites with good rulesets on them. One of them is by an American who sometimes teaches history at a school by using his model soldiers to re-enact a battle with simple rules. So if the kids are learning about the American Civil War at school, he comes to the school and re-enacts a part of the battle of
This is quite a long post, so I think I’ll leave it at that. If you take a look at either of these sites, please leave a comment telling me what you thought.
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I'm afraid I didn't get to post this second installment for the Archer Scouts story on Monday, so I'll just post it on Tuesday! Next Monday I will post the third, final installment.
Segment Two: The Approaching Storm
“Nearly.” Thomas grunted as he continued to heave on the ropes lifting up the peppershaker. A few minutes later Gordon wiped his brow “There, all done. What’s next?”
Five minutes later, Bill returned puffed and exhausted but had somehow managed to sneak across open territory with no less then 10 quivers, or 300 more arrows. The fort was cleared; Edward and Mike had finished collecting all the reusable arrows (about 20) and put them in empty quivers.
“Now we wait.” Fred stated simply.
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Segment One: In The Heat Of The Moment
Thomas nestled down in the little bird’s nest that lay on the kitchen widow sill and prepared to wait. His squad of runaway toy model archers were all hidden in one place or another along the kitchen bench, all waiting. Waiting for Percy, the smallest of the squad was out scouting the surrounding territory. Thomas wiped the sweat off his forehead and muttered to himself. The ever present, ever nagging heat reminded him of his mission. To turn off the heater.
Thomas was the leader of an elite group of archers who acted as the ears and eyes of the ruling body of the house, the Toy Council. Thomas and his friends had lived in a nice little model shop but when the store faced liquidation resulting in selling of the stock at half price (The worst embarrassment for any thing on sale) to a large supermarket the 10 model soldiers had ran away and found this house. The house, 45 Road Train Drive out a little into the country, was empty with the owners away for another 6 weeks of travelling to relatives in Russia. With the owners away the toys took control of the house. Several toys had a go at being King. Most were pretty bad, only wanting to have parties and have fun. The few rulers who were any good never had the support of many army generals and would all be overthrown with the toy’s equivalent of a bloody battle.
The most ‘deadly’ weapons the toys had were ones that made the target go into a great sleep for 3 days. But then a massive army of grasshoppers with weapons that put the victims into the great sleep for 5 days invaded the weak and warring fractions of the toy federation. And now the virtually powerless Toy Council was split on what to do with the invaders. Some members, such as Jove the fighter pilot and Sir Jimuel and his best friend, the three headed dragon Samuel wanted to expel the grasshoppers, while other members such as Jill the leader of the Doll committee and Officer Shingle of the army was content to stay under the control of the Grasshopper Lord, Gruienu’anan. Just to make sure 45 Road Train Drive stayed under his command, Gruienu’anan had ordered that the his engineers turn the heater unit at the hottest possible temperature, which happened to be 35 degrees. Leaving the heater unit controls under consistent guard. With the heater on all the time it kept everyone in one place, immobilising the tiny army and the Toy Council until the heater was turned off.
Only Thomas and his command could do much active service in the stifling heat, as during their outdoor adventure after leaving the small shop had made them used to extreme heat.
Fearing everyone would lose their vision for their freedom Jove the fighter pilot had begged Thomas and his band of archers to turn off the heater. So Thomas had lead his men, sneaking around Grasshopper outposts all the way to the kitchen. Now Percy was scouting out the next obstacle, the stove topped oven and the pantry, checking for guards before Thomas and his Archer Scouts launched the hit and run attack. It would give the Toy Council a chance to breathe. James, Henry Gordon and Mathew had tools to disable the heater’s remote control for a long stretch of time.
“He shouldn’t be long now.” Thomas thought worriedly.
Just then a small brown head popped out from behind a box of finely grounded black coffee.
“Security pretty lax Cap’n.” Percy reported in the non-formal way of the Archer Scouts. “’Bout 30 troops, spearmen and swordsmen playing marbles of all things right in the middle of the pantry. Four more spearmen are playing cards on the ground below the control unit but I didn’t see any sentries.”
Thomas thought hard about a way around the problem. 34 Grasshopper Spear and Sword warriors vs. 10 expert House Scout Archers. Suddenly he perked up. “How far… NO that wouldn’t work, they’d just call for help.”
“Hang on…” The smart thinking Fred interrupted. “Look over there.” He pointed. Thomas watched as Mathew and Gordon helped themselves to the salt of a saltshaker, which was conveniently on its side next to a peppershaker. “I think I’ve got an idea.” Fred declared.
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