Australian Red Centre faction for ' Right Bloody Mess'

I have finished my first test paint for one of the 'A Right Bloody Mess' factions.

This one is from the Australian Red Centre faction, one of the few factions from within the book I am using, as opposed to ones I have created myself.

The ARC is kind of a resistance movement against the Westralia (Western Australia ceded from the Federation and took the Northern Territory).

Whilst I don't have any figures to represent Westralia, the ARC are enemies of Victoria, and they even sent troops to the NSW Riverina area, which is where I will be using them.

I used one of Eureka Miniatures 15mm WW1 British in the Sinai range, using the logic that the outback of Australia these blokes would come from would suit the uniform.

The paint was still wet when I took the photos, and I used my dodgy phone camera, thus why the image is a bit blury, but you should be able to get the idea.

I still need to varnish and base the figure.


 I really like these figures, so I am keen to finish them, and as there were some cavalry figures in the same range, I might even add to my ARC forces.

Eight Factions for "A Right Bloody Mess' Australian civil war

I managed to visit Eureka miniatures to day to buy some 15mm figures to make up some different factions for the 'A Right Bloody Mess" Australian civil war set in 1933.

As I am only playing at section/squad level, I don't need a whole lot of figures, and because of this, I was able to afford enough figures for eight factions.

I laid out each faction in rows for the above photo, so from top to bottom you have:

The Murray River League, a faction loyal to the Federation that skirmishes with Victorian troops along the Murray River. (The Figures are WW2 US sailors)

Riverina Troops: troops from the NSW Riverina area that ceded from NSW and are backed by Victoria. (WW2 early USCM)

The Tobacco Growers Federation: a militia group from North Eastern Victoria that were raised to defend their lands from other factions, and to send troops to help the Riverina. They are allied with Victoria. (I am using WW2 Italian Bersaglieri for these troops, as historically a lot of Italians went to grow Tobacco in the region in the early 1930s)

The Wine Growers Association: This is a Communist Union with troops across Australia where ever grapes are grown to make wine. This particular mob is out to take the lands from the Victorian Tobacco Growers Federation as the fertile lands would be perfect to grow more grapes. (WW1 Bulgarians)

Victorian Light Horse: one of the many units that forms part of the Victorian standing army. (WW1 Australian Light Horse)

Australian Red Centre: their main enemy is Westralia, but ARC troops do come in to conflict from time to time with Victorian troops, and can be found meddling in the Riverina conflict. (WW1 British in the Sinai)

An as yet un-named Militia group: but they are most likely to be a workers Union of some kind. As I visited Eureka Miniatures in person I was able to purchase just the figures with caps, giving them a very civilian look.  I thought I actually had a faction named for these figures, but for the life of me can't find where I made the notes. (WW2 Russian partisans)

and the final faction is:

The NSW Communist Party (a sub group of the Communist Part of Australia): This name is probably just a working title until I come up with something better. (Viet Minh from the French-Indo China range)


I am intending to paint up one of each of the figures to see what I come up with for the uniforms, and I intend to post each faction with the uniform once I had done so.

Alien invasion! ?

I mentioned in a post on my Zombie blog (click here to read it) that I was tempted to do an alien invasion to pit my 15mm Modern Aussies up against.

 This is one step closer to happening now, as I purchased the 'No Stars in Sight" sci-fi rules that are the futuristic platoon rules based on the 'No End in Sight' rules I like so much.

 The 'No Stars in Sight' rules (henceforth referred to as 'NSiS') uses the same system as the modern rule set, but also include a lot of other goodies like power armour, drones, droids, and alien creatures.

 There are also rules for solo and campaign play as per the modern rules.

 The aliens have their own lists and is quite extensive, and there is a system you can use to make your weird and wonderful aliens (and power armour/vehicles) balanced for your games.

Best of all Nordic Weasel is having a sale at the moment: "items Until the 3rd of February, almost everything I've made is between 40 and 50% off." Link


Now, what type of aliens to use for the game?

Being a fan of "Falling Skies" (which sadly will have it's final season in 2015) I am thinking of borrowing ideas from the show.

Thus I will have some bug like aliens starting the invasion, and then 'upping the ante' with a race of aliens that control the bugs.

To this end I am thinking of using the following minis for the game:

The bugs (all Rebel Miniatures):

Rebel Mini's Terror Mites - 5 in a pack

Rebel Mini's Death Striders - 10 in a pack

As the invaders in "Falling Skies" have mechs, I took a look at the Rebel Mini mechs/robots/power suit range to see what was on offer:

The HAMR suit took my fancy for the job:

HAMR recon suit

HAMR Support Suit

For the Alien race in control of the whole lot, I am looking at Khurasan Miniatures' 'Intruders':

The above pack of 'Intruders' is sold as a squad pack, but I think I will turn this in to a platoon pack, which means they will be rather powerful compared to the humans resisting their invasion.

 Khurasan Miniatures might have other figures that are useful, but the website is under maintenance and I can only look at limited ranges at the time of posting.


I also took a look at the GZG 15mm range, and would like to find some way of including the following figures, if for no other reason than they look cool:

GZG spider drones

Critical Mass Games also have some nice looking figures I could use, such as these hover drones:

and if I want to tone down the mech a little (the rebel mini's ones might be too powerful) CMG also make this:

Campaign wise, I will probably start off with the death striders as the main enemy, and when they start taking a pounding I will add the drones, then they mechs, and finally the Intruders.

So, this is all only in the planning stage.  During March I should be able to increase my budget a little to get this up off the ground, but I also want to purchase the Eureka 15mm Bushmaster vehicles for my Aussie platoon.

 If the project goes ahead (which is very likely) I will need to play test the aliens to see how they stack up against the Humans.

QRF 15mm Vehicles

I made up the QRF vehicles a few weeks ago, and didn't get around to posting the photos until now.

The vehicles are all unpainted, and the minis look taller than they should against them, but that is probably due to the 2mm thick bases they are on.

Since taking these photos I have almost finished painting the BTR-60 and under coated the tanks, as well as having only the bases to finish on my North Korean support weapons.

Finished 15mm Modern Aussies

I finished off my Eureka Miniatures 15mm Modern Australians today:

These figures make up a complete Infantry platoon, with the following:

Rear Rank: Manoeuvre support section, made up of three Manoeuvre Support Teams, each of four diggers.

Middle Rank: Three Rifle sections, each of two four man fire teams

Front Rank:
                  Left: Explosive Detection Dog with Handler, EOD/IEDD - one disposal operative, and one with a mine detector. A sniper team in is front of them.
                  Centre: Platoon HQ
                  Right: Joint Fires Team (forward observers) of six men

The structure of the platoon allows for flexibility of using four sections, or three sections with additional fire power.

The JFT can be broken down in to three two-man teams, with two embedded in sections and one two-man team (the Officer & a sig) being attached to the Platoon HQ. Or I can just have a large FO party doing their own thing if needed.

The EDD/EOD/IEDD will be used for scenarios/mission background, and the sniper is an additional bit of support as needed.

I have an M1A1 Abrams on order from QRF, which I will (hopefully) paint up in the Australian army colours:

I intend to order two more M1s at a later date, and live in hope that someone will make the ASLAV-25 that I can use. 

 I could use the LAV-25, but there are enough differences between the two that I don't want to use the LAV-25 itself.

 I will work on getting myself from Bushmasters from Eureka Miniatures for transport for my infantry. Given the size of the platoon, I will need about five of them.

But all of that is in the future, as I need to paint my North Koreans, and then paint the QRF vehicles I have on order: the M1, a T-55 and a BRT-60.

 The BTR-60 should arrive any day, with the M1 & T-55 a few weeks behind, as I ordered them separately after QFR had a 15% discount sale that I took advantage of.

For the NKs I have two squads and some heavy weapons on the paint desk, so depending on real life, I might have them ready in a few weeks.

15mm Eureka Miniatures Modern Australian infantry

Yesterday I visited Eureka Miniatures and purchased some 15mm Aussies for my 'No End In Sight' campaign that I am planning.

 I purchased a whole platoon, plus some extras, like a sniper team, an IED disposal team and a six man Joint Fires Team (Forward Observer party).

The platoon TO&E is based on up to date lines: three sections of two four-man fire teams, and three four-man manoeuvre support teams (MST).  This allows for flexible deployment, and I can either have three heavy sections of three fire-teams, or a platoon of four sections, one of which had three four-man fire-teams with heavy weapons.

Each normal section has a Team leader with rifle, a Grenadier with Rifle/GLA, a LSW Gunner and a Marksman, although I gave the marksman a SRAAW for extra fire power.

Each MST has a Team leader, a GMPG gunner, a Sharpshooter and a "Grenadier" with a 84mm Carl Gustav.

If Eureka made a figure manning an automatic grenade launcher, I would have purchased three of them for the MST - the idea being the grenadier can exchange the 84mm with the AGL depending on what the mission is.

I would love to have some mortars with crew and a few other bits and pieces too.

I want to get three or four Bushmasters from Eureka as well; I intended to get them, but my budget wasn't able to cater for them as well on the day.

 Above is my Platoon HQ: Left to right, rear to front are: Platoon Commander, Sig, Medic and Platoon SGT.

 I am very happy with the way they have come out, and they are surprisingly easy to paint. The platoon HQ is waiting for a few coats of varnish, and I will post more photos when they have been completely finished.

No End In Sight - a modern campaign

Thanks to the new rules I purchased, I have been drawn in to the game in a big way and want to play games set now or in the near future.

Rather than spend a fortune on buying completely new armies, I decided to go with 15mm - this way I can buy a whole platoon for around $30 - $40 plus the cost of any vehicles I want to use.

As Eureka Miniatures makes some awesome looking 15mm Modern Australians, I looked for an enemy to put them up against and found Khurasan's 15mm Modern North Koreans.

Sweeeeeet - now I have the forces for the game lined up, but how to get them in to a war involving them?

After dismissing a NK invasion involving naval forces as unlikely, I decided to have them invade parts of Russia - the Vladivostok region to be precise.

This is the background for a possible near future for setting my game up:

following the defeat of Russian forces in the Ukraine, and the weakening of the Russian state as a whole by World sanctions, many Russian states cede from the CIS and declare themselves nations in their own right.

If I do this, I can have the Country of “Primorsky Krai” (Vladivostok) as the battle ground, which would be perfect for an invasion by NK as it is on its boarders. Given this area is a food producer, it is a worthy target for a starving nation.

Digging around I found reference to ‘Green Ukraine’ on wikipedia, which  would make my plan even easier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Ukraine

With US forces based in Japan and Korea, it would be easy for them to come to the assistance of this new Nation. Rather than deplete the US presence in South Korea, I would have troops shipped in for the campaign.  Australia would get involved due to treaty obligations.

This leads to
twothree questions:
1) would NK invade SK  (Or US/SK invade NK) when this happens?
2) Does NK fire missiles at Japan, targeting US forces there and bring Japan in to the conflict?  (If so, would I get away with using 15mm US army figure for Japanese? The weapons are slightly different, but does that matter at 15mm scale?)
3) Does China and Russia get involved?


 A map showing areas taken by NK. The red is NK held areas the green is National held area:

This indicates where the invasion has developed by the time Coalition forces make unopposed landings to the North East of the country. By unopposed I mean no land forces to stop the landings. Air and naval battles operations conducted/ongoing leading up to this point.

The way the campaign will be conducted is to fight a battle with my platoon and tally the victory points after each battle.  I will match the points to the campaign chart on p51 of the rules to determine if the Coalition forces have captured the area and can move on to the next one etc.
I have decided to use victory points rather than dice rolling results. This might make for a very long campaign, but I can cope with that. It will keep me off street corners



 Game Notes:

 The Platoon LT, SGT and the section/squad commanders will be characters, and if any soldier within the platoons does anything heroic, they will earn the right to be written up as a character.




Things to do:

Create the nation: name, flag, background information/data & map

Buy: A platoon of NK, support weapons and vehicles/aircraft

A platoon of US troops, support weaons, UVA and vehicles/aircraft

A platoon of Australian troops, support weapons (not a big option at the moment) and vehicles/aircraft.

Write up the Unit data (game stats) for all troops, and create my personalities.

Decide on the campaign type: not sure which one to use as yet, but I am thinking of playing the ‘Military Progression’ campaign, and maybe develop it in to the ‘Escalation’ campaign if it has the legs to carry it.

Make/buy scenery: most of the games I play are 28mm or 20mm, so I will need to see what scenery will be appropriate, and what I can make.