Australian Frontier Wars - 24FEB23 (update) - MANY New AFW books…

[fantail]

I am Australian and I think the only book I read that made me think about gaming this period was the book you mentioned on you blog, Australian Frontier Wars, 1788-1838 by John Connor. It is a military history book about a touchy subject that is often very political.Good book and recommended. I thought about gaming some of the Australian skirmishes by converting them into a Cape Frontier Wars setting, I enjoy doing that, Sikh War battles become Mexican American War battles, Little Big Horn moves to Zululand etc. 

[Happy Wanderer]

Gents,

In this instalment we have a look at rules and figures and thoughts around such things related to Frontier War games.

The period lends itself to a number of ways to portray actions and players will usually find their favourite rule set able to be used without too much trouble.

Please pop over and have a squiz…

https://wp.me/p1YrZG-15U


Cheers

Happy W

[Munindk]

Those aboriginal miniatures look great and I think you're handling a potentially topic in a very well.

This is a bit off topic but, have you come across any good books on aboriginal mythology?

[von Lucky]

My primer was the children's books by Dick Roughsey (an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Lardil language group in Queensland):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Roughsey

While it doesn't go into any depth on the myths and legends (being children's books), it's the colour that has burnt its memory into my mind.

[von Lucky]

Some information on mythological figures here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_Aboriginal_mythological_figures

[Alcide Nikopol]

Nicely done.

[Happy Wanderer]

"Those aboriginal miniatures look great "
  The war chief is a bit 'shiny' so I'll need to hit him with the dullcote again  


"This is a bit off topic but, have you come across any good books on aboriginal mythology?"

Certainly not off topic but I confess, I haven't focused on this aspect of the Frontier Wars. Aboriginal mythology however is certainly an important part of indigenous culture - but no more relevant to colonial gaming than African or Native American mythology would be for example. That said, there was a most excellent HOTT list that had aboriginal mythology in it that Von Lucky put a link into above - certainly one to run your eye over.


"My thread "Fighting Down Under" from 2010 produced a quite heated debate. So far this thread has been able to avoid that."

I've laid out my thoughts out on this in my opening post - 'nuff said on that...we'll leave all that in the past. There is alot of interesting material related to our subject yet to discuss and my next (rather large) post will focus on something of a military history timeline to provide some structure around the subject before we take a closer look at putting together an aboriginal force...and let's not forget the soldiers/settlers as well!  

Happy W


Here's a shot of the old Cannon Fodder aboriginal warrior next to the Eureka Denisovans...I must admit, I still quite like that old CF sculpt  

[Plynkes]

My 2010 thread "Fighting Down Under" about the same topic  produced a quite heated debate. So far this thread has been able to avoid that.

Yes, and let's keep it that way, please, guys. The arguments pro and con have been hammered out ad infinitum in almost every thread we've ever had on this topic and I don't think I've seen a single person persuaded to the other side's point of view, so there is little point in us doing it all again.

[Munindk]

I cant find the Denisovans on Eurekas site, which category are they listed under?

[Happy Wanderer]

Thank you Plynkes and Bezzo - subject closed on that.

@ Munindk
I can’t find them either! Eureka certainly do make them. I ordered via an email using the Greens pics shown in my last post and noting which number of each I required.

Edit - Eureka can be contacted via email from their website.

Not my next post, but the two afterwards will focus on my use and thoughts on conversion of the Denisovans so that might be worth looking out for.

HW

Cheers


PS a question if I may chaps.

On my blog, I tend to use a fair bit of discussion, with perhaps less eye candy, on subject matter. Do you think the posts are to long or should be more succinct? I’m curious as to how much people actually read ‘lengthy’ posts that are a bit more in depth. With so much to cover, less frequent but slightly longer and more cohesive posts seem to me the way to do it...or should they be smaller and more frequent bite size chunks? - your comments would be appreciated.

[Nic]

Just a note, we are open and have been since 2nd January. Our physical shop front, isn't open until 19th and 20th January.
These figures haven't been officially released yet, so if you would like any now please e-mail us at nicr@eurekamin.com.au

Nic EUREKA MINIATURES

[Happy Wanderer]

In this post we take a look at some military (and general) history. The idea with this post is to provide structure around Frontier Wars engagements in a military context. This should enable you to get an idea of the conflict zones and possible areas of interest worth further investigation.

I’ve capped this chronology at 1831 and will follow up by pushing it up to 1855, which is my selected cut off date at this point for the period I’m looking at just at the moment.

As you can see from the year by year dot points there is alot of military activity. It is in no way complete nor mean’t to be. It should prove a useful jump off point to dig deeper at specific topics that either interest you or suit your current miniatures collection.

https://wp.me/p1YrZG-1Gy


Happy W

[von Lucky]

PS a question if I may chaps.

On my blog, I tend to use a fair bit of discussion, with perhaps less eye candy, on subject matter. Do you think the posts are to long or should be more succinct? I’m curious as to how much people actually read ‘lengthy’ posts that are a bit more in depth. With so much to cover, less frequent but slightly longer and more cohesive posts seem to me the way to do it...or should they be smaller and more frequent bite size chunks? - your comments would be appreciated.

I probably prefer to read posts that are a quarter of that length when just posted like this (to be able to read them at the time), but when I'm doing research, etc for a project I prefer for it to be all together. I'll probably leave that particular post open in my internet tabs and read it when I've got the time (over the weekend most likely).

But you should do what you want that is the best way to present your work. Reading blogs is something we all do differently anyway.

[Munindk]

I found it very interesting and read it in one sitting

It is a bit long, but its hard to do a long timeline that isnt and because it is a timeline, its easy to split into several sittings. I prefer long posts, perhaps with a table of contents that links to headlines, to several posts that cover the same topic in continuation.

I agree with von Lucky: post the way that works for you, then people will read it the way that works for them

And keep up the good work, this is most impressive!

[Happy Wanderer]

Gents,

In this post I round out my chronological military ‘history' of Frontier Wars confrontation. Whilst putting this together it staggered me to see just how wide spread the levels of resistance was by tribes, clans and tribal coalitions vs army, police, armed settlers and civilians. Both sides really were locked in a desperate struggle.

Whilst perhaps not as dramatic in the sense of the 'lightening fast' campaigns and large force concentrations of contemporary conflicts like the Indian Mutiny or New Zealand Wars the ‘drip-drip’ insurrectional nature of guerrilla warfare in Australia really does define frontier conflict and in many ways best reflects our table top clashes when we play with 50-100 miniatures in a whole host of possible scenarios.

There is much to dig your teeth into here and as you can see the colonial forces arrayed are (and can potentially be) quite diverse.

Whilst I know chronology posts aren't ‘sexy’, I think it is important to lay out the historical nature of the conflict early on so as to give players a feel for the subject given how difficult it is to easily sequence in regions of confrontation in what was literally a century of warfare on a whole continent.

Next post we’ll return to miniatures again so you’ll have a bit more to look at…hope to see you then.  

Cheers

https://wp.me/p1YrZG-114

Happy W

Victorian Native Police

PS Thanks for your thoughts Munindk and von Lucky on posts.

"post the way that works for you, then people will read it the way that works for them"

Possibly the best bit of blogging advice I've heard  


PS I know there were two articles in Miniature Wargames issues #112 (September 1992) and #113 (October 1992) – The Kalkadoon War 1874/84 by Greg Blake. Does anyone have those and would be able to scan them and send to me please? As usual, my sporadic buying of magazines missed these two issues.