"Conquest of Mexico" Topic

Hi
I recently have ordered Blood and Gold for FoW and the Foundry Book on Indians and Conquistadors. The Idea of this period is starting to grow on me. At first I was going to do the period in 15mm using Black Hat and Naismith. But Now starting to think it should be done in 28mm. From what I can see there are 4 companies that make suitable figures Bears Den, Foundry, Assault Group, Eureka. I was wonder which ranges mix together well. Anyone know of any company that produce Stepped Pyramids and Aztec Style Ruins etc.

Lastly the way I see the game is not so much as a FoW big battle but more a Skirmish game using Chris Peers El Dorado supplement for his Medieval and Ren Skirmish rules.

Does anyone else play Conquest of Mexico games? I would be very interested to hear your ideas.

I even thought of using settlers of Catan as a Campaign tool.

Cheers
Steve

I recommend reading "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz (Penguin Classic), who was one of Cortez' conquistadores. A bit heavy going in places, but well worth the effort, nothing like an eye witness to clarify (or muddy?) matters.
"Warlords of the Ancient America's" is good too, full of characters called 'Smoking Frog' et al. By Peter Tsouras and Richard Hook

Stonehouse miniatures do a good line of Aztec, Toltec, etc buildings.
Started an Aztec army for WRG 5 or 6 ? Used the naismith figs. Only got the fancy units done b4 the project went to the dungeon <sigh> May have to start again with the new FoG rules out ?

Check out Neil and Karl's stuff here:

link

Don't forget Outpost Miniatures too (seen in the photos). Most pyramids and ruins would work the best for Post-Collapse Mayan cities during the European conquest. The Aztec temples and cities were pristine during La Noche Triste and the Siege of Tenochtitlan. The victorious Conquistadors then razed the city and used the materials for their own needs.

Ralph

I have read Diaz. I also picked up Broken Spears (from Aztec popint of view) and Conquest. Bot are pretty good reads. There are also several Osprey's. I have a few others but can't recall offhand the titles.

Rules..I have looked at the The Sword, the Cross and the gold a The Sword and the Flame variant. Also, I found a very good WAB set of army lists with background for Meso-America and the Spanish. They are EXTREMELY nice!

Thanks,

John

Here is a link to the Army lists for WAB. even if you don't like the rules these lists are worth checking out if you are interested in the Conquest of the New World.

link

Thanks,

John

Also, I found a very good WAB set of army lists with background for Meso-America and the Spanish. They are EXTREMELY nice!

Thanks, John. I happen to be the author of those lists. (They do need some revision).

Ralph

Ral Partha makes some more true 25s that are nice.

Hi Ralph. You did a really nice job on those lists. i was very impressed with both the presentation and info provided in them. Well done!

Thanks,

John

Codex Mendoza for Aztec pictures of Aztecs and Bernal Diaz is a great read.

I also have a set of the Chris Peers El Dorado rules although like so many other things they're languishing in the 'to do' pile once I get round to painting some more 20mm Aztecs and Conquistadors.

I think his rules always create a love/hate reaction amongst players [I'm in the 'love' camp] and it would be interesting to hear if anyone else has played them. I asked yonks ago but got little or no response and it seems hardly anyone does [or admits to it ]

Ok, as far as I know there are NO rules out there that adequately represent Meso-american warfare. (That includes the ones I wrote). That is because, in some instances, Meso-american warfare is unique to most other forms of battle.

Imagine the typical Republican Roman army. For typical foot troops would be velites, hastati, principes and triarii. They could have different weapons, be differently armored have different training, and different levels of experience. But they all fought in uniform groups of similar troops, so you would have a unit of triarii and a unit of hastati, etc. They are not that difficult to represent on a tabletop.

Now imagine almost fifteen (15!) levels of troops, each with different weapons, different armor and different experience and abilities. Plus they don't fight in units based on skills, function, armor or weaponry. Rather they fight based on the barrio that they grew up in. So a typical Aztec combat unit (the 400 man Tzontli)would have ever conceivable type of warrior that existed, fighting side by side. Try representing that on the tabletop without too much abstraction distorting the actual reality. Imagine every figure you have in a particular unit of 20 X 28mm figures (at a ration of 1 to 20 giving 400 troops)and each one having a different stat line of abilities and equipment. It would be migraine inducing.

The best way to deal with this is having a smaller skirmish based rule set. However for larger battle, well……I still like my rules written for WAB. However, they are still somewhat abstracted to give a tenuous balance between reality and playability. But that is my totally biased opinion. YMMV.

Ralph

G'day,

Have a look at Ziterdes.de. " ziterdes.de/ziterdes/en/produkte/listview.php?catID=64&subcatID=66&we_lv_start_shoplistview=10 There's some ruins there. The ruined stepped pyramid is an impressive piece on the table. Admittedly I bought mine for Mordheim so I wasn't really researching appropriate carvings <Grin>.
Cheers
Bern

Hi Bern, those would be more appropriate for Mayan Post Collapse buildings. Check out the link above in a previous post to see what Aztec buildings looked like.

Ralph

One of the drawbacks doing this period are the buildings. They are beatutiful structures, but very unique,and huge! As far as I can remember, most of the major battles took place within Tenochtitlan. The style of fighting was urban combat similar to that say of Stalingrad, gritty house to house struggles involving small units. That being siad I'm going to start constructing small pyramids and temples. Terragenesis has a nice Aztec gateway for the DIYer.
link

Andrew

There was a local guy who ran a game at our local show. He had a load of plain style dwellings, some smaller temples and a few larger ones. He used the TSATF variant (The Sword, the Cross and the Gold). Game was impressive but the buildings weren't real complicated. I could make the adobe type houses. It's the temples that are the problem.

Thanks,

John

The Terragenesis stuff looks good. The painting of the murals must have been a pain though.

Ralph

Just as an aside; my son did an Aztec game for a convention as one of his first outings as a GM. Because of the Spanish technological superiority being tough to handle and have fun with on the battle scale, he eventually decided to run a game in which all the players took Aztec forces, with the Spanish playing by some sort of decision table. The objective was to capture a Spaniard for sacrifice without losing your entire force….historically a little dubious, but he was only 12 or 13 at the time, and it worked fine from a game balcne view.

actually, not that dubious. A few hundred Spaniards were sacrificed. He had the Aztec tactics correct. They believed if they could sacrifice enough Spaniards their gods would deliver them. A one point a group of warriors even captured Cortez himself, but he was saved at the last minute.

What figures did Duke Sierfried use in his fantastic Tenochtitlan game, absolutely beautiful and played just as good

What figures did Duke Sierfried use in his fantastic Tenochtitlan game…..?

They could have been his own figures.