Playing With Blocks - Lionian Temple

'CHILDISH THINGS' 

Who doesn't like to play with blocks? Well probably quite a few people. When we were children blocks were supposed to be a boy thing but both girls and boys like to make new shapes from blocks and other methods. Then people become 'too old' for 'childish things' unless, of course, they become brick layers and they kept assembling 'block' walls. Am I over thinking this? Yeah, probably. But really think of all the creative stuff we enjoyed as children - making stuff, drawing and painting, inventing games and so on. People give up most of those things but some of us don't but find more sophisticated versions of the same thing. I never stopped drawing. And I never gave up my toy soldiers. I did give up my toy blocks... until not long ago.

Among the many toy soldier books I have looked at are HG Wells' Little Wars and Floor Games and Frank Perry's First and Second Books Of Wargames. What impressed me was the making of temples, buildings and even islands and ships out of largish, old fashioned blocks.

So I started looking out for old wooden blocks and I made some temples but actually glued the blocks together as permanent buildings. Then I came up with a fresh idea. Why not get them especially made? So I visited the local Bunnings Hardware and selected a discounted beam of wood (discounted because it was slightly buckled). It was about two meters long. I got it cut into regular shaped blocks by Bunnings and next painted half of them dark grey and the other half sand colored, all with sample acrylic paints from Bunnings. 

The advantage of big blocks is they are quicker to use to assemble and take apart buildings although I add smaller blocks where needed. Sand colored ones were more desert type or Amerindian destination and grey ones more temperate climate. So far I have used blocks to represent a 20th century factory and Aztec type temples and pyramids.

LIONIA

Mat and I are going to play a wargame between Lionia (Army Beige) and Cotesia (Army Lime Green). The former is based on Abyssinia (the old name for Ethiopia) and the second on Mexico. How did we arrive at this strange match? We have a list of 24 numbered countries and roll two D12 dice for each side so Mat got Lionia and I got Cortesia (named after Hernando Cotes, the father of Mexico). We actually played this matchup a few years ago. The time frame was late 19th century to early 20th century. 

As Lionia is based on Abyssinia it represents an African country struggling to modernize to resist foreign invasion by more advanced nations. We have also played a game where Borduria invaded and was technologically equivalent to Mussolini's Italy so based in the equivalent of the 1930s with tankettes and armored cars.. The Lionia I have in mind will have outdated weapons and a few modern ones so it will have some balancing advantages of number or concealment or both.

One purely fantastical addition will be trained 'attack lions' and also 'Lion Temples'. Abyssinians were mainly Coptic Christians but my Lionians don't have to be. I am figuring on giving the Lionians extra morale and melee ability when close to the temples.

Why on Earth these two nations are fighting each other remains to be seen.

The larger blocks are the ones I had specially cut. The top section was a tapering set of blocks with children's pictures. The very top bit was a sample liqueur bottle. The two priests were Russian Orthodox I converted into Abyssinian type ones.

              I would have preferred large seated lions but did not have any so these will do.

     I had a spray can of copper enamel paint so decided to paint the lions and the pinnacle.

Now what I need to add is a door. Has anyone any suggestions as to the shape and what it will be made from. I am thinking icy pole (popsicle) sticks and maybe some very small wooden blocks. The goal will be to cover a portion of one of the large blocks.

Should I add windows? I'd probably just paint some medieval type slit windows.