Shake n Stomp

Today went down to the beach. We started to build this sandcastle - it was pretty impressive. It was a massive pyramid surrounded by towers. We added a little church and a sphinx and a druid stone ring (we're multicultural). We realised we needed to create some little fields for food production. Soon we had an entire little feudal society. I quickly drew up defence plans - luckily we were situated between some large rocks that provided a good natural defence.

I built rock walls barring all the valleys that lead to the castle making attack from any direction impossible. I built a few watchtowers, strategically placed, and one on the top of the largest rock with visability across the whole beach. My friends decided they wanted to test the defences by launching a full scale attack (throwing balls at the castle).

Here I account the heroic defense of the sand castle:

As expected the attack came from the North across the fields. The defences here consisted of a hastily constructed wall and a trench. However natural cover from the mountains was most lacking from this direction. The assault began with a few smaller attacks resulting in the destruction of one of the castle turrets. Although there were a few casualties this was only the beginning. Larger forces, and attacks from two armies at once quickly followed. Often while the defense was distracted by one attack another force would take the oppertunity to attack at another point. The defense held well, although the curch tower was destroyed as well as a couple of devestating attacks on the castle. Ben "the widow maker" Shaw destroying several of the outlying towers in vicious attacks.

A breach in one of the outer walls and the destruction of a watchtower led to a weakened defence. The hired soldiers were beginning to grow weary against the vastly superior force. The grain stores were also destroyed by a mutiny (although most of the grain had been moved to the castle) resulting in fears of starvation. Especially as warfare had torn up the Northern fields. More casualties including a direct hit on the castle (killing the heir apparent to the throne) led to a drop in moral.

I'm sorry to say the hired soldiers left the castle defenseless as they swapped sides. After a few more bombardments the opposing forces swarmed on the castle raping and pillaging. There were none left alive! (We smashed it up)

As we left the beach I was a little sad that the castle was gone - but I felt a bit better knowing at least we got to wreck it rather than some scummy little chav kid.