Fighting Down Under

[Iceaxe]

Bezzo,
I set up a fictional area some years ago that had a small town, squatters, mining camp, aboriginals, bushrangers, police and British army all wandering about doing their own thing, with some set-up clashes. It never got beyond a couple of games but one day I'll get back to the idea.

That was done in 54mm using skirmish rules. The figures were all converted - aborigines out of airfix indians, brits were napoleonic, police converted from Britains ACW, cowboys were altered to look more colonial Oz & less western.

I do think it would be good in 28mm, and the new range from Blaze Away (which is Cannon Fodder's old aboriginal range now back in production, maybe with some new sculpts - not sure on that) hopefully will expand to all the above. Until then I think I'll go back to 54mm anyway.

[Smokeyrone]

Bezzo,
I set up a fictional area some years ago that had a small town, squatters, mining camp, aboriginals, bushrangers, police and British army all wandering about doing their own thing, with some set-up clashes. It never got beyond a couple of games but one day I'll get back to the idea.

That was done in 54mm using skirmish rules. The figures were all converted - aborigines out of airfix indians, brits were napoleonic, police converted from Britains ACW, cowboys were altered to look more colonial Oz & less western.

I do think it would be good in 28mm, and the new range from Blaze Away (which is Cannon Fodder's old aboriginal range now back in production, maybe with some new sculpts - not sure on that) hopefully will expand to all the above. Until then I think I'll go back to 54mm anyway.

As a 54mm plastic figure playset collector, I want to see pics of your conversions!  (please)   

[Iceaxe]

OK, I'll
a) find them
b) try and get some decent photos over the weekend and then
c) work out how to post them. How hard can it be?

[Smokeyrone]

OK, I'll
a) find them
b) try and get some decent photos over the weekend and then
c) work out how to post them. How hard can it be?

LOL!  It can be hard (for me at least, my 15 year old daughter has to help me)   Get a free photobucket or Flicker account, that helps greatly, and don't hessitate to ask some of the folks here for help.

[Fuzzywuzzieswiflasers]

As an Australian, Eureka Stockade has a lot to do with the birth of democracy in this country. Sure they were all a bunch of drunken miners, but they were subjected to an extremely harsh form of taxation where gangs of police would sweep the gold fields and assault and arrest miners who hadn't paid their licence fees.
There was a huge amount of corruption in the police and local government. The local military commander went out of his way to enflame the whole situation so he could grab some headlines and look like a hero. A similar tax on tea in the US caused a little disagreement if i remember correctly 

As for Ned Kelly, he was plainly a murderer and got what he deserved, but if you go through "Kelly Country" in Northern Victoria you will still find people (descendants) championing Kelly as some sort of democratic hero.

Aboriginal conflicts are not very appealing as they were basically massacres of varying sizes. The problem in Australia with the Aborigines is that Australia is a harsh country. There were no indigenous animals that could be domesticated ( No cows, sheep etc) and no plants that could be cultivated like corn, wheat etc.
Hence Aboriginal tribes were all nomadic. They didn't form strong communities like the Native American Indians or Zulus or Incas etc.
So they were unprepared to defend their lands from White incursions.  I personally think that this apparent weakness lead to them being treated a lot more disdainfully by whites. Like they didn't put up a fight so they must all be rubbish, not like the tough zulus or apache.

A bit serious for a "gaming forum" but that's  my two cents.

Cheers
Fuzzy.

[carlos marighela]

Hmmmmm. Actually, the progress of democracy has a lot less to do with the Eureka Stockade than is commonly claimed. South Australia gained its constitution in 1856 and had introduced secret ballots and a representative parliament by 1857, without any recourse to fisticuffs. Actually there's very little to suggest that Eureka made much of a material contribution one way or the other. If you look more broadly you will see there are a lot of factors leading to the gradual extension of franchise.

Peter Lalor, the leader of the Eureka Stockade was later elected to the Victorian Parliament, where his voting record shows that he was opposed to universal male sufferage. Some democrat. The Hugh Morgan comparison is apt in Lalor's case, he tried to use Chinese miners as scab labour to break a miner's strike. Something the CFMEU really should think about when it raises the Eureka Flag.

Comparisons with the AWI are facile in the extreme and the two situations bear almost no similarity. I know you intended that in jest but seriously, the sooner Australians stopping trying to draw these grand parralels the better. At any rate if you examine the actual causes of the American revolt, you'll discover they are mostly pretty squalid and Australia should be thankful it doesn't base its nationhood on them.

[carlos marighela]

As for Ned Kelly, he was plainly a murderer and got what he deserved, but if you go through "Kelly Country" in Northern Victoria you will still find people (descendants) championing Kelly as some sort of democratic hero.

Curiously enough it's the plastic paddy brigade that most champion that view. Curious because Ned was Australian, born and bred and yet all the policemen he murdered at Stringybark creek were Irish. Actually at the time something like 80% of the Victoria Police were Irish born and about 60-75% of them were Irish Catholics. Strange world isn't it?

Hence Aboriginal tribes were all nomadic. They didn't form strong communities like the Native American Indians or Zulus or Incas etc.

Er, I think you will find those opinions will be hotly contested these days. Indeed those are the very arguments used to justify terra nullius.

[Barry S]

If you are interested Miniature Wargames ran an article over two issues on the Kalkadoon War 1874/84 which were penned by Greg Blake. The issues in question are September 1992 (Issue #112) and October 1992 (issue 113).

Over the years the odd article or two about gaming events in Colonial Australia have appeared in Miniature Wargames and Wargames Illustrated.

[carlos marighela]

Wasn't my intent to sound 'belligerent', sorry you read it that way. Whilst I appreciate the generally civil and decorous nature of this forum, surely it's possible to have an adult discussion and disagree on interpretations of history. I do apologise for taking the thread off topic but I don't subscribe to Henry Ford's view that 'all history is bunk'.

[Iceaxe]

Right, here goes with the photos of my 54mm Australian colonials. These are from many years ago (hence the bright blue showing through where the paint has chipped) and pretty much just a lot of carving, with some melting & realigning of the plastic.

A couple of cowboys made to look less cowboyish:
http://s902.photobucket.com/albums/ac222/iceaxe/Aust%20Colonial/?action=view&current=IMG_2409.jpg

Another view, and also more of the Victorian Police of the later 1800's:
http://s902.photobucket.com/albums/ac222/iceaxe/Aust%20Colonial/?action=view&current=IMG_2408.jpg

Aboriginals from Airfix Indians. Not very realistic, but I know more now than I did 20 or so years ago when I did these:
http://s902.photobucket.com/albums/ac222/iceaxe/Aust%20Colonial/?action=view&current=IMG_2407.jpg

More Vic Police, from Britains ACW. On the left is a black tracker:
http://s902.photobucket.com/albums/ac222/iceaxe/Aust%20Colonial/?action=view&current=IMG_2406.jpg

[timg]

When i lived in Melbourne a long time ago i used to visit a lot of places associated with the Kelly Gang, some nice times at Etucha too down on the Murray river, Fuzzy is right, theres definitely a pro Kelly brigade in that area. I could see some Wild West scenarios being achievable for this time just with a different accent!

I suppose another potential game would be Naval landing partys having a scrap or two on the beach too, maybe Cooks initial landing could become more contested?