UPDATE: Blueswill provided verification for this interview, since he doesn’t have a publicly available way of contact.
This interview is dedicated to all Small/Medium Armies who have managed to beat giants.
KLONDIKE, CP Army Headquarters– Welcome to another edition of “Back to the Dawn“! Once again, I will be contacting legendary figures of the earliest times of CPA history in order to bring light into some of the less well documented years of armies. Alongside me in this project there is always Coolster114, CPAHQ Head of History! For this edition of the column we approached the individual responsible for one of the most influential S/M Armies in the first years of Club Penguin Army history. He is a 2007 S/M Army Legend, and he is the mentor of many legendary figures of army history, including Army Republic’s Creator 122344a. The name? Blueswill, Creator of CP Clones (CPC).
Blueswill started his career in 2007 as a rogue on Mammoth. Sometime that year, he enrolled as a member in the Watex Warriors. He then proceeded to join the Army of Club Penguin. In 2008 though, he decided to leave and create what was going to be one of the most legendary S/M Armies of all time, the CP Clones (CPC). Slow but steady, the army kept rising in numbers although it never exceeded medium status. One of the recurring themes throughout their whole history was the struggle of maintaining sovereignty over their capital server Parka. The series of conflicts, known as the “Great Parka War“, began in 2008-2009 and lasted till 2011, the year on which the army shut down.
The main rival on those conflicts had been the Shadow Troops, the historical capital of which was also Parka. With both sides claiming the same server as their capital, war was unavoidable. On some points CPC shared the server with Person1233’s Red Blue Alliance Army, and used them and their other allies to successfully fight the ST. The war dragged on for years though and there is no universally agreed victor. CPC shut down in 2011, and so ST were able to control the server in the later years. The events of the Great Parka War are covered in more detail in CPC‘s history page.
CP Clones in 2011, past their prime.
Another notable event in CPC history was their involvement in the Mammoth Crusade. It was a conflict that happened in June 26 2010. The Nachos, alongside Ice Warriors, Team Gold, Night Warriors and other smaller armies attempted to seize control of Mammoth from Army of Club Penguin. ACP allied with Doritos, Watex Warriors, Snow Fighters and CP Clones and managed to successfully defend the server. CPC‘s history page mentions that choosing sides was hard for them, although it doesn’t cover the reasons that led them to select ACP. Despite those successes, CPC‘s most known achievement had yet to come.
CP Clones are remembered in army history for writing one of the greatest “David vs Goliath” stories to have ever happened in this community, and that was their run in the first Legends Cup, back in summer of 2010. After beating the small Fire Nation Warriors army in Round 1, CPC proceeded to face Doritos in a battle on which they were considered massive underdogs. However, on August 3rd 2010, CPC managed to beat Doritos and proceeded to Round 3 (quarter finals), maxing over 20 troops in what was one of their biggest sizes ever. This shook the army world. CPC failed to beat the Night Warriors in Round 3, but their victory over Doritos serves as one of the most prime examples of a S/M Army beating a much more powerful force. The CPC has suffered two Civil Wars, the second of which led to the deface of their original website (blueswill.wordpress.com). This was a really big blow for CPA history preservation.
A rare picture of the CPC vs Doritos battle in Legends Cup I, retrieved from Wayback Machine.
Blueswill is a very important figure of early armies, and naturally I wanted to have the chance to interview him. Sadly, following a brief stint as an Army Republic Leader, he retired 10 years ago and hasn’t visited much since. However, Coolster114 happens to be a friend of Blueswill, and was able to contact him via email. We were really happy when he responded positively about conducting an interview with us!
Hey Blueswill! First of all, why did you decide to leave ACP and make your own army?
This is a good question. To clarify, ACP was not the first army I had joined. I had joined the Watex Warriors the day after Dialga80 had retired and then the Watex Warriors had dissolved with a faction breaking off to form the Militia of Club Penguin. This had been led by Gambler21777 and Blak Mafias with many of the veterans from WW joining. The army didn’t last very long from what I remember, and I remember joining the ACP afterwards. After some time serving in the ACP and fighting in Mammoth guerrilla warfare (my first battle must have been Zippy500’s last battle before he retired, where the Dojo was PACKED with ACP and Nachos on either side), I just had come to the conclusion that ACP was too “corporate” to the point where they were just too big of an army. It seemed on the server Mammoth which was a hotspot for guerrilla warfare between all armies, it was the ACP against everyone else. They could have sizes of at least 15-20+ in ten to fifteen minutes and it felt very much like an oppressive empire to other armies from what I remember feeling at the time circa 2007. First I had made a small army called the Rebel Penguin Alliance while recruiting some of my friends from the Militia of Club Penguin. During this time, I had been close with Tone739 and Alpha 1, who were like my mentors in MCP. When creating my own army, I wanted a different challenge and to create an environment where others could come and rebel against the ACP who were notorious for being the army that everyone loved to hate. Rebel Penguin Alliance didn’t last long, and I eventually decided to change the name to CP Clones which caught on a lot quicker.
Why did you choose the Clones theme? Are you a Star Wars fan like Coolster? 😛
Haha, of course I am! I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was very little. The first time I saw the clone army on the screen in Episode 2 as a little kid, that was something that had always stuck with me. The Clones seemed like a unique concept as were many of the other small armies at the time such as the Vikings, Red Raiders, Shadow Troops, CP Warriors, CP Rangers, Black Bandits, Elites, Fort Ghost Recon, etc. The Clones just felt right as a name, and I knew it would universally appeal in that most people could identify with Star Wars right off the bat. It was easy to come up with the uniform design too with the knight silver armor plate, guitars, helmet, back & face accessories, boots, etc. while allowing for various cosmetic designs. The uniform is always important too so the soldiers can feel pride while having fun.
For the benefit of our readers, could you describe the state of the S/M community in 2007? (for context, nowadays there are only a handful of Small/Medium armies, with the player-base concentrated mainly in the major powers like ACP, RPF, IW, HF etc)
It seems like there were a LOT more small armies back then. I notice a lot of the S/M leaders were higher-ranks in one of the major armies, and wanted to try their hand with their own army. The fun part about the Mammoth guerrilla wars during ’07 and ’08 was that there were so many different small armies. There was a lot of creativity with the names and uniforms too. If it was catchy, then you would get a good amount of recruits and fight against the bigger armies such as ACP who patrolled the server. There were so many smaller armies that the CPUN was created by Mr. Deedledoo. Smaller and medium armies were definitely a thorn in the bigger armies back then, which led to Order 67 and the formation of ANTA. Basically this was when the bigger armies had enough and gained up on all the smaller armies. I can’t remember how the war ended though – I think there was some sort of truce.
What relations did CP Clones have with the major armies of 2007-2009? (ACP, Nachos, RPF, UMA etc)
Since the CP Clones were always a small to medium army over the course of its history, many of my friends also held allegiance to one of the top ten armies at the time. I remember this was a challenge sometimes, because we would want to take a stance with one major army side during the World Wars, but for example what you had was one of my higher-ranking officers supporting the UMA and another would want to support the ACP. Between that time period, I can remember several instances in which we allied with each of those armies at one point, and then fought against them another time. My memory is hazy on this bit, but I’d like to say that for the most part, while CPC had some higher-ranking soldiers that were also within the ACP, we were generally against the ACP as were many other armies at the time. We loved to go and fight on the Mammoth server and “ambush” ACP patrols as there was always a fight to be had. A lot of our conflicts were with other small and medium armies too, such as the Shadow Troops for instance, and that was a significant part of CPC’s history. I can remember UMA attempting to invade one of our other servers and succeeding. The server may have been Sherbet as that was considered our secondary server to our capital Parka. I also remember we raided the Nachos server of Fjord once, where this prompted an angry Ads354 to come to our chat along with Person1233 and a convoy of Nachos. Our relationship with the RPF was pretty neutral though, and I can’t remember of any significant events occurring with them.
A recurring theme within CP Clones history is the eternal struggle for maintaining sovereignty over the server Parka. Why was that server so special for you?
Ah, the Parka Wars. What great fun that was! CPC had set up that server as our capital, and I remember coming to an agreement with Person1233 and Pengyster48, who were the leaders of another small-medium army called the Red-Blue Alliance, that we could share the server. I want to say that the Parka War began sometime in 2008 or 2009, as it had been one or two years since CPC had been formed. Like Breeze and Mammoth were special to the ACP, and Tundra was special to the WW, so Parka was in the same vein to the CPC. CPC has a lot of history and great memories on that server, so there was a lot of sentimental value.
One of the greater conflicts in CP Clones history is the Great Parka War, the victor of which is still disputed. Who do you think won that war and why do you think so?
Still disputed?! 😉 In my totally non-biased answer, I’ll have to say that the CPC along with a collection of its allies ultimately won after an extended struggle. I vaguely remember the Shadow Troops formally surrendering Parka for a time, although they may have retaken it after the CPC waned in power around late 2011 or early 2012. I can remember the struggle for Parka grabbing the attention of the bigger armies and seeing several armies such as the ACP, UMA, and IW allying with the CPC and RBAA (it was like a Parka coalition) at one point against the Shadow Troops who didn’t have any allies.
Why did you choose to align with ACP in the Mammoth Crusade?
This one I cannot remember specifically why we had allied, but I do remember the day of the battle pretty well. It’s possible that while the CPC usually liked to fight against the ACP when Mammoth was a guerrilla warfare server, we had a change of heart seeing how many armies had ganged up on the ACP. I would guess that the CPC had a change of heart and was motivated to take the side of the ACP since the other armies had made an alliance against them. I have some visuals of that day though – making our base at the Ski Lodge for some time and charging into the Snow Forts where there had been fighting between the Confederacy and the ACP for most of that day. I think the CPC had about ten to fifteen soldiers that day. That’s all I can remember since it was so long ago.
One of the most important victories in CP Clones history is the one against DCP in the first Legends Cup at 2010. How did you manage to achieve it and what advice would you give to S/M Army Leaders for them to do well in those tournaments?
That was one of my favorite memories in the latter half of CPC history. It’s actually funny because I was on vacation that day and remember my 2ics leading most of the battle up until when I was able to join in the dying moments of the battle. To do well in these tournaments as leaders of S/M armies, I think you have to embrace the role of underdog. There’s excitement that comes with embracing the role, and it helps to stay loose. At the end of the day, as leaders we need to remember that most of our soldiers like being in our small and medium armies because it feels more intimate and like a family than that of a larger army. Being in a small/medium army provides an escape from their everyday lives. What could be more fun than being part of a smaller army going up against a bigger army? Just like we see in our favorite films and stories, right? While size matters a good bit against a bigger army, what also matters is the frequency and timing in the execution of your tactics. I like to think the judges’ favor will be helped if they see how coordinated and creative your tactics might be while mixing it up. Instead of spamming joke-bombs or emotes, come up with some unique phrases while keeping a downpour of snowballs at the other army in between tactics. Always having your soldiers do something instead of being idle while looking at the Xat chatroom helps more than we might think. Coordination can help an army look bigger than they actually are. I’ve been away for so long though that I don’t know how the tactics have evolved now. That was just my thinking at the time.
How much did the deletion of the original CP Clones website (blueswill.wordpress.com) by Zack during the Second Civil War affect you and the army?
There was definitely an impact, since there was so much history in that website going back to the very first generation. That’s something I wish I could do now is go back to look at the website. It would be like stepping back in time and seeing my old friends again. So yes, a lot of history and memories were lost. Some years ago, I was able to find a way to recover some of the old posts through a WayBack machine, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get back all of the content. I would be surprised if there was some way to do that now.
We read you had a brief run as an Army Republic leader. Can you confirm that? If yes, how did you end up becoming AR leader and what do you remember from your time there?
Army Republic was something like an old relic of the past when I first came upon them. In a time where most armies stayed on Xat instead of being active on Club Penguin servers, AR was always on CP like the old days. They were a guerilla faction led by 122344a (I think that is the correct spelling). They had been something of a nuisance to ACP patrols on Mammoth or Breeze at the time. I want to say that this was long after Mammoth had been removed as a war server. I had stumbled upon them one day at the Snow Forts engaged in a guerilla ambush with the ACP and immediately saw potential despite them having not been trained in the modern tactics of the day (joke-bombing, emotes, line formations, etc.). I remember having found their Xat chat room and introduced myself to 122344a. Straightaway I had begun training them in the more evolved tactics and they learned quickly, then went on to become one of the more prominent fighting forces in the latter half of CP army history. At the time when I had been leader, it was more of a caretaker role since Grant42, the current leader, had more demanding priorities in real life and wanted to be placed on leave for a few months or so. From what I can remember, my caretaker role hadn’t lasted long because another legend had decided to return at that time. I want to say that either one of Buritodaily, 122344a, or Vinny had come back into the fold and took over, but my memory is hazy on that particular bit. AR was an army that I had seen lots of potential in just like any other person would have at the time. Their numbers were impressive and proved to be an irritation to the ACP. I simply gave them a nudge in the right direction and I have some fond memories of my stint there.
Were there any specific figures in the community who you looked up to as inspiration back in the day? For instance, Pink Mafias, Oagalthorp, or Watex? And did any of them influence your way of leading?
I’ll go a little off the mark and say that Dialga80 was someone I was influenced by. WW was the first army I had joined just as he retired, and I actually never did see him. He never did come back to the community after retiring (at least that I know of), which was something of a rare thing to do. His name was revered in legend by those who had served under him, and I never heard a single bad thing about him. What I took most from him was how he treated his soldiers like his equals. You could already tell a lot about him in the stories that had been told about him. He was someone who was known for his terrific leadership skills, and I think he recognized that the community was an escape for many of us and he made sure that being in the Watex Warriors felt like a good and fun escape. In a community where there was a lot of arguing and bullying (we were kids after all), he was someone that seemed wiser and saw past that. I tried to incorporate those ideals into my own leadership. I wanted to emphasize a fun environment where it’s just friends getting together to enjoy themselves and forget about everything else in their lives for a little while.
What do you consider to be your biggest achievement in Club Penguin armies?
Getting to make all of the friends I did over the years. I still keep in touch with some of them, and wonder about the many others that I’ve lost contact with. I’m happy that I was able to create an army which lasted for a long time. Hopefully that is worth some childhood nostalgic value to the friends I made over my time in the community. I hope they’ll look back as fondly at their time in the CP Clones as I did and that being in the CP Clones was one of many memorable parts of their childhood.
You had the good fortune of witnessing the reigns of some of the most successful leaders in this community, in addition to being an excellent leader yourself. In your opinion, who is the greatest army leader of all time?
I am not sure if I can do this answer any justice. There were plenty of great leaders that I got to know. One thing I value in a leader is the ability to keep the army afloat over a long period of time even after the peak of summer comes and the school year begins. I will have to say that while Oagalthorp is a name that seems to be loved and hated by many, you certainly have to respect him for doing what he did with the ACP. Without him, the community may not have been what it is today. If I remember correctly, he first started the ACP on a MiniClip forum. The ACP maintained impressive sizes from their beginning in 2006 all the way to the early part of last decade. They enjoyed a lot of success, and they were always opposed against because they had a solid string of leaders over the years such as Fort57, Boomer20, etc. There was a culture and standard set, and I think that started with Oagalthorp.
As an S/M Legend, what advice would you give to S/M leaders today?
All I could advise is prioritize having fun. Remember that your soldiers may be getting bullied at school or at home, and that their life isn’t so great out in the real world. Make your army a fun and safe place where they can be themselves without fear of judgment. Do this, and your soldiers will always remember you and want to keep in touch long after the army has passed on. Ten years from now, people won’t remember what you did or the army’s accomplishments, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel. Give your soldiers that safe space like they’re with a group of friends that they can laugh with, but if the army gets bigger, this may be harder to do as I noticed time and time again. Perhaps it’s like the same idea of working in a corporate culture vs. small business. Some food for thought. I myself grew up in a small family business, and this was one way that influenced my leadership philosophy.
What advice would you give to the wider community in general?
The time we have is short, so have as much fun as you can. The CP army community is a privilege to come to, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get to make your own story. Don’t take everything so seriously. Sometimes it’s about quality – not quantity. If you’re a leader, your army having bigger sizes may not mean as much in the long run, but what matters is what you’re able to give to your soldiers. Make them feel welcome and happy. Give them an experience that can be applied to the rest of their lives. We are all kids at heart, and this community is one way for us to maintain that link to our childhood. As adults, there is nothing more important than remembering the positive memories we had in our childhood. After all, research does show that having happy memories as a child leads to higher quality of life later on. 🙂
Really interesting answers! We now know that Blueswill decided to create his own army since he disliked how “corporate” major armies of the time like ACP looked, something that I find extremely relatable since I took the decision to join S/M Armies in 2013 for similar reasons. CP Clones original name also apparently was Rebel Penguin Alliance, which honestly sounds like an RPF ripoff so I am glad he changed it :P. Blueswill also (not surprisingly) claims that CPC won the Great Parka War, something that may anger our readers affiliated with the Shadow Troops! He has also provided plenty of advice for smaller armies to do well in tournaments. Lastly, he made sure to remind us the importance of friendship and having fun in this community, which are probably the most important things we can take out of it.
But those are the main points I took out of this interview. What do YOU think? Are there any extra questions about Blueswill/CPC you would like to see answered? Please let us know in the comments below!
Superhero123
CPA Headquarters Website Manager
Coolster114
CPA Headquarters Head of History
