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'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Sunday 15 July 2012

Projects...

... and finishing them. Some projects one has no choice but to finish. I'm thinking of paid employment there - in my case it is currently four projects, and soon to be five, with a combined worth (to my employer) of many hundreds of thousands, sterling. Other projects one has to finish within a reasonable time or other people's work will make your projects redundant - in my case this amounts to five writing projects; one book, one book chapter; and three articles. Still other projects suddenly grab you by the throat and insist ! In this case, it is my realisation that, since I was about six years old I've been a fan of Alpine plants, and now I must have a raised bed of them (the initial work began today).  But wargame projects, aaah, wargame projects. Here is one that I started earlier:


An English shieldwall (wighaga, or bordweallas) ...


collected and painted in 1986, when I began as a schoolmaster and, amongst other things taught lower school history.


That included the foundation of England, and I used these 15mm fellows (possibly by Donnington's) and others like them to illustrate the terrible defeat at Battle, and the heroic, exhausted defence of Senlac Ridge. But I also taught history with better outcomes at the school, using balsa, cocktail stick and paper ships to explain the great English victory over Spain in 1588. I wonder if any of those chaps (now around 38/9 years old) remember?

Anyway, last year I finally decided to have a go at De Bellis Antiquitatis (version 1.1), after thinking about it for a long time. So, more English, and some nasty Danes were bought (Essex, appropriately, this time), started, then left.

But this week, I'll finish them, this project:


2 comments:

  1. Love the figures.There is a rich vein of gaming in the classroom to be mined I think. I ran a lunchtime club a few years ago for children to game LOTR using their figures- great fun and they were enthusiastic at the time when it was popular at school.Now other non wargaming crazes are in the ascendancy I fear.

    I too am a big alpine fan ever since my parents had a biggish sloping border in the house we lived in til I was 13. I built my own where I lived around 20 years ago but am still thinking where to put a trough etc here.I look forward to seeing the work developing...

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  2. I must admit that my attempts in the direction were over 25 years ago, i.e., well before the IT revolution that has buggered up, sorry, offered a transformative interactive experience to young people. I would be surprised if our odd little hobby had legs today in the educative space...

    Excellent news - it is remarkable, as Springinsfield has previously noted, how the enthusiasms of some wargame bloggers seem to be so similar. Sounds as if your parents had a scree - lucky people. I've looked into troughs, but they seem scarily expensive. For my cheap, raised bed, see next post!

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