All,
Ever since I made the decision to plunge head first into my 'side project' in 15mm I've been staring at Eureka Miniatures (USA) website, obsessing over their Australians, Russians, and Chechens. I dreamed of all the stuff I'd like to do with them, would fill up my online shopping cart, would get cold feet, close the browser, rinse and repeat numerous times over the past several months. I finally jumped in and boy am I glad I did!
On a side note, I bought all three factions: modern Australians, Russians, and Chechens, and pics of the Russians and Chechens will be following soon here on the blog. Up first are the modern Aussies, and they are absolutely fantastic. The Russians and Chechens are very good figures, but these are (in my humble opinion) the best of the lot, being a shade taller and a little chunkier than the other two, with lots more gear on them (which is also a function of the gear the forces wear).
The molds are apparently in great shape as all the figures are nice and crisp, with loads of detail, and especially raised detail that makes it really quick and easy to paint up. There is a tiny bit of flash which is generally easy to take care of, but in the whole force (that's about 65 guys in the three different forces) I screwed up four different guys' barrels when I tried to remove some flash too quickly. My fault...
And please let me apologize up front: my pictures always suck, and don't do the figures justice. I'm not very good at figuring out lighting, etc..., and so I've now just degenerated into using my Iphone to take pics because it's easy and I don't really get better pics with my camera... But let's get to the men.
The whole force, 23 Modern Australians. If I recall correctly, I bought one pack of 'regular' riflemen (6 figs), one pack of grenadiers (4 figs), one pack of riflemen with LAWs (4 figs), one pack of SAWs (which they call Minimis, four figs), one pack of machine gunners (2 figs, one carrying rifle and one carrying M-240/FN MAG/MAG-58), and two leader packs (two figs each, consisting of one officer/NCO and one RTO). As you see, I gave them bases with a grass but still showing some dirt, and I painted the dirt desert yellow looking to maximize the theaters I can use these guys in.
Regarding the uniforms, I'm not all that happy with my camo choice. It looks decent (I think), but it's too close to my modern Flytrap Factory Marines, and I was explicitly trying NOT to do that. I just wanted some sort of mostly temperate-climate camo, and I painted them all as Caucasian. This was done as I intend on using these three factions in my current campaign in Cronistria. It's over on my "Cuba Libre" blog if you're not aware; I've been playing out skirmish games in 20mm in a guerrilla war (my guys are helping the guerrillas), and some point soon they will get strong enough (and get enough militia trained) that they can fight conventionally to take the capital.
The first leader set, one officer and one RTO. I did the body armor and gear in a tan color, the boots and gloves in a yellow color, then did the camo with a relatively bright green, painted on medium brown swatches, then threw sand-colored dots in the brown and dark gray dots on the green. I like it, it's just too close to my attempt at Multi-cam. Here you get a decent look at their rifles, the Austrian Steyr Aug (I think the Aussies call them F88s?).
But I still can't wait to get them on the table!
Reverse. You get a good look at the gear, which I love. I wish more manufacturers threw on heavy loads of gear (at least on modern Western types).
The other leader set, like the RTO talking on the radio, rifle hanging by his side (looking like the way it would with a three-point sling).
Reverse.
Moving on to the grenadiers, here's the first two guys. It's funny, I used a dark wash on the figures and it stuck in all the guys' eye sockets, which makes it look like they're all wearing eye-protection.
Reverse.
The other two grenadiers, a guy firing off-hand and another in a kneeling position.
Reverse. What's interesting here is it looks like the guy on the left is carrying a LAW, but he wasn't in the LAW pack, he's in the grenadier pack. So a bonus!
Forgot to do these guys reverse, but I turned them sideways as I wanted you to see I put red on the ACOG lenses.
On to the SAW gunners, here's the first two poses.
Reverse. I really like the poses, well animated throughout the entire Australian range.
The other two poses. It is a pet peeve of mine; I just don't like using prone figures in my skirmish games. But I don't blame manufacturers for me not liking prone figures, and this SAW gunner is an absolutely beautiful casting.
Reverse.
On to the pack of riflemen with LAWs: here's the first two poses.
Reverse. Apparently a forgot to brighten up the LAWs; it's always been a habit of mine to put a yellow stripe on anti-tank or anti-air missiles/rockets, just to add some color and make them easy to pick out.
Ah, the other two prone poses. The 'regular' (i.e., the guys only carrying rifles) rifle pack and the rifles with LAWs pack both have a prone guy, so I put them together. You can see the guy on the left has a shorter rifle; this is one of the barrels I clipped...
Getting to the reverse you can see the LAW on the guy on the right.
And finally on to the 'regular' riflemen. Here's the next two poses (already saw the prone guy).
Reverse.
Two more poses, both guys firing off-hand. They have slightly different gear and different foot and arm positions.
Reverse.
Last rifleman, this one in a kneeling position.
Reverse.
And lastly we have the two-man MG team, with gunner on the left and A-gunner on the right. I like the fact the A-gunner has a loose belt around his neck. And here you see I clipped off the machine gunner's barrel...
And reverse.
Well, that's my new modern Aussies, they'll be getting into the fight probably in the next 2-4 weeks, whenever I feel the SF Teams have beaten the bad guys up bad enough, or I get tired of skirmishing in 20mm and want to move to platoon-level fights ;)
Really great figures, I highly recommend them! And I recommend them for myself, too; I plan on (sometime in the future, not sure when) exactly replicating my last purchase order, then painting all them up in winter wear/bases. Not sure when I'll get to that, but it's definitely coming now that I've seen these figs 'in the flesh.'
I still have one more batrep for Cronistria languishing, waiting to be typed up and posted, and I plan on playing some more games this weekend, so stay tuned and I'll see what I can get done.
V/R,
Jack
