The Tactical Painter: Eureka 20mm Australian Platoon for Chain of Command

The Eureka Australians are now finished and based. All up, including the set with slouch hats, I have enough for five sections, which gives me more than enough for Chain of Command. I still need to add a few support units, but this is the core platoon done. Given I wasn't totally happy with some of the figures in helmets I've mixed up figures from both sets - helmeted and slouch hats. Looking at period photographs this practice seems to be quite common with Australian units, so I will let that be my excuse. The full range of Eureka Australians are here Eureka Miniatures

Platoon senior leaders with three sections.

The platoon leader and sergeant are on 40mmx20mm bases, makes them easy to identify.

"Did someone say, charge?"

Eureka make two sets of Australians, one lot with helmets and the other with slouch hats. While the body poses are the same, the heads and headgear are different. As you may have gathered from earlier posts, I'm not so enamoured of the helmet set which has some strange proportions - mainly large heads, grotesque and caricatured features and small helmets. Not all figures, but some. It really is amazing what a relatively small difference in a face or the angle of a head can make to the overall look of a figure. I've tried to show this in the following pictures.

Same pose, different heads and head gear, but what a difference it makes.

Take the two figures above. I really like the one on the right, to me he's thinking about taking a shot and looking for targets or the result of his previous shot. Figure on the left could be doing the same but he's looking down, why? At first I thought he was supposed to be bayoneting someone but the pose isn't quite right for that. Aside from the big head issue, it's unclear what he's doing, while the figure on the right not only has the right proportions his pose is easier to understand. My wife just walked past and said, 'they look like little munchkin men'. Speaks volumes about that big head issue!

Ready for another aimed shot....

When your head is this big it is hard to lift it up......

So here are some more comparisons, same poses just different heads:

Figure on the far left is my least favourite - all wrong - head too big, helmet too small, grotesque face.....

I can live with any of these, all work well

Overall I'm pleased with how these have come out. They work well as a unit. They all look good after a lick of paint and the worst offenders will be assigned, ahem, 'other duties'.