Armies

My favourite war

When participating in any playground pursuit, the enjoyment factor is greatly enhanced when pretending to be a great exponent of a particular profession. When thumping a football into the top corner of a goal, one might be prone to windmill both arms out of sync and scamper about the penalty area whilst shouting, "Ronaldo! First time volley into the corner for his eighteenth goal of the game!", in a Spanish accent. Similarly, when a popular action film is showing at the local cinema, any playground game in which good guys are fighting against bad guys is greatly enhanced by pretending that you are the protagonist from said film fighting against twelve Shinobi warriors.

This is what happens in your head in the playground

This is what actually happens in the playground

Bearing this in mind, when one participates in a game of Armies or Cowboys and Indians (which, because of the need for political correctness, is now known as North American conquistador descendant cattle ranchers and Indigenous peoples of the Americas) it is always best to choose a period in history about which you have a modicum of knowledge; even if the game slowly descends from a faithful re-enactment of the Battle of the Somme into a random skirmish involving six stick wielding kids chasing each other around a tree. 

Luke, Darth and Obi-wan have a disagreement whilst the lad on the left thinks things can only be decided with a rocket launcher

Set up

When you attend a job interview, a common question invites you to describe an occasion when you successfully worked as part of a team. It is for those occasions that being part of the winning "army" is of vital importance. The sides tend to choose themselves; someone will declare that the armies should be "everyone over there onto everyone over here", remembering to ensure that both sides have an equal number of soldiers. A scenario is then proposed such as "you lot are the Scottish" and "us lot are the English" (which, although set in 1314, will evolve to allow players to use cannons, Gatling guns, Chinese mêlée weapons and eventually nuclear warheads) or for those who fancy their chances alone against everyone else, "you lot are the Romans and I'm Boudica". 

This is MY long stick with an axe thingy on the end...

Players may also decide to adopt the accent of the nation they are representing though every accent, in time, tends to descend into pseudo-pirate speak or Welsh.

Weaponry

Depending on the era chosen for the particular battle, various "weapons of the day" can be improvised as follows :

Hand Gun – Fingers
Rifle – A fallen branch 

Sword – Shatterproof ruler
Chariot – Scooter, bicycle or go-kart
Battering Ram – Any old piece of flat-pack furniture from a skip 

Cannon – A hollow biro and chewed up paper
Atomic Bomb – A rock
Hand Grenade – Tennis ball (also doubles as a bouncing bomb)
Night Vision Goggles – Fingers around eyes 

Biological weapons – A strategic sneeze 

Chemical weapons – Dead wasp
Missile – Anything that can be picked up and thrown
Light Sabre – Mop handle
Whip – Mimed 

Shield – Pizza box lid
Ninja stars – Nibbled Rich Tea Biscuits
Radar – Eyes

Spitfire – Bicycle 

With weapons such as the whip and Light Sabre, it is important that the player wielding it is able to perform an accurate representation of the sound the weapon makes with their mouths. Both of these weapons' sounds are relatively easy however, as is the noise a sword makes when it hits plate armour. Should a player wish to garner maximum respect from their peers for the sound effects they are able to reproduce, then the machine gun should be the weapon of choice. Only the truly gifted are able to vibrate their tongues off their palates to emulate the noise of an ak-47. It also takes a special talent and a mouth full of saliva to imitate the sound of an atomic bomb.

Structure

The game progresses largely without stricture or structure and is bound only by the players' imaginations. A game of Armies always begins with a scenario based on real-life events, past or present; one side assuming the role of the 'baddies' and the other the role of 'goodies' (especially if one of the players is a doctor and another likes bird watching) though the substance of your army's political standpoint is purely subjective. For example, should the players be acting out the Battle of Culloden and one of the players involved is Scottish, then this participant may breakdown under the stress of an ancestral identity crisis being unable to distinguish which is the good side and which is bad. Once the scenario is agreed upon and sides taken, the battle commences. Players gain a competitive edge by inventing original and impressive ways of injecting realism into proceedings such as a player dragging a stick along behind them in the dirt causing it to 'puff up' and create the illusion of bullet fire hitting the ground in their wake.

A bit like this

Conclusion

However strict the 'generals' of each team are, players soon develop not only weapons out of character with the setting but also technology and magical powers borrowed from the future, mythology and urban legends. Though historians tell us that Hannibal overcame the Roman Republic at Trebia with elephants, playground scholars tell us he did it with x-ray vision, space lasers and the ability to turn invisible.

Read more 'Playground Olympics' in the book 'Playground Olympics : an alternative guide to playground games', available now from Amazon.  Click here for details.