[commercial] Emu dawn: The battle for Australia

[Chris from Ocker games]

Emu dawn, the battle for Australia.

In drought ravaged Western Australia in 1932 there were many tales of epic battles for survival. One included the Australian army and Local farmers, at war against the vast hordes of the EMU King.

But the Emu King never surrendered, and is still watching and waiting for his revenge. The war goes on!.

An excerpt from the book,

The collective noun for a group of Emus is a Mob. Well sometimes, but not always, because, umm it’s complicated. The word Emu is pronounced EE-M-U (ewe) not E-MOO, which causes fairies to lose their wings, Koala’s to drop from trees and Australians to roll their eyes and quite possibly start a blue in the Pub (bar fight). Just don’t do it! Emus are fast, very fast, very hard to see in the bush, also called the outback, the countryside, (the outside bit with all the snakes and spiders in it) Emu’s are also very single minded, that is, fixated on food and anything that might be food or could be food. And frankly, are very annoying in a way that only a 6’ (180cm) giant bird with huge rending claws can be.

Over the last few years, we have been playing our Emu dawn game both at local venues here in Canberra and also last year as a display game at Australia’s biggest convention Cancon, with I think good results. Lots of laughing and yelling "Streuth! the mongrels are charging us, I call on the feathered god!." which I think means people were having fun.
Essentially the game revolves around Emu mobs trying to raid one of the 5 fields (paddocks) on the table. While the local farmers and the army try to stop them.

The army troops can move around the table in their trucks trying to disperse/remove the Emu mobs with ranged fire, either from the back of a bouncing truck or dismounting from the truck and having better chance to achieve a result from the shooting but being un-able to move. The Emu king trying to graze the paddocks with timely consolidation of single Emu's into mobs (the bigger the mob the quicker to graze a paddock but also a bigger mob being easier to shoot at) and clever use of their activation tokens, all within 6 turns.
Activation by either side is by drawing a token from a bag, both sides having a set number of tokens in the basic game.
In the book (pdf or hard copy versions are available on our website) we have some printable counters for use in the game forgive me I'm no artist and for a project like this I couldn't afford one (trucks, dismounted soldiers, Emu's and Emu Mobs), as for some strange reason not many people have Emu miniatures, I have no idea why but there you go.
We personaly use the amazing emu and Australian militia 28mm figures from Eureka games.
My first post in a long long time so forgive me if I have missed something, I'm still having trouble working out how to post up pictures, so no pictures of my large collection of Emu's and baby emu's.
The Game was designed to be quick and fun and from what I have read works out close (ish?) to the reports of the actual events.


Cheers
Chris from Ockergames.com.au.

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

Sounds like a fun scenario!

[CapnJim]

This oughta be interesting...

[FreakyFenton]

Cool!

[Captain Darling]

Good luck with your game release! There’s lots to read on the web about this little war!

It’s so cool we’ve played this situation ourselves and have it ready for when the next convention is run locally, but there’s been a bit of a drought on them here since Covid.

Our version includes the actual characters involved, they feature as factions earning points ‘pursuing’ and being ‘pursued’ by the wildlife,
The Royal Australian Heavy Artillery, the very small army unit actually engaged
The Campion and Districts soldier settlers, hired by the government
The boys from Pickering Brook, just joined in the fun and adventure
And Fox, the Cinetone cameraman covering the action

The Royal Australian Heavy Artillery represented by Major Meredith, Sergeant McMurray and Gunner O'Halloran (inset in picture). They had 10,000 rounds of ammunition and two Lewis guns. Gunner O'Halloran was nearly killed when they mounted a Lewis gun on the back of the truck and tried to chase emus and he fell off.  It didn't help that emus are much faster than  trucks of 1932. The Major reported that the emus were led by "Black Plumed Generals" who marshaled their troops and foiled every ploy the humans threw at them. Even the media thought the heat was probably getting to him. He did however report eventually that his force had suffered no casualties!


Photo of the solider settlers at one of the ambush sites during Smoko. That blob on the horizon is a set up Lewis gun.......just in case the emus make a raid!


Photo of the Pickering Brook contingent in ‘The Old Bus’. Whether they just wanted to get out of work or were seeking adventure, Vic and Bert Francias, and Ray Owen ventured north and took part in the great adventure


Fox at work…


Our Battlefield, a fabulous piece of Western Australia!


On our Blog has a three part series on our version of Emu Wars…
https://toysoldiersforoldgits.blogspot.com/2020/05/through-fence-and-defenceto-wheat.html

https://toysoldiersforoldgits.blogspot.com/2020/05/to-wheat-fields-beyondpart-2.html

https://toysoldiersforoldgits.blogspot.com/2020/05/le-mudle-blood-great-emu-war-part-3.html

[Driscoles]

The table looks really, really nice.

[carlos marighela]

Does indeed. Looks authentically Australian, right down to the gum trees.

[CapnJim]

Good job so far.  I like the story on your blog of the emu besting Gunner O'Halloran...we've had similar animal encounters in a few of our games...

[Freddy]

Cool looking table, and what a great idea for a game!