"rules recommendations for 28mm Mesoamericans/Conquistadores" Topic

Waiting on a big order to come in and I am looking for rules recommendations. Looking at 150-180 figures per side – individual figure basing preferred but not mandatory. Mid level complexity (i.e. Warhammer ancients) works best for me.

Any hints would help!

Interested in this as well

There's a rule set from a few years ago by Chris Peers (El Dorado I think) which I have somewhere but have never played. I'm not sure if they're still available though.

I'm currently rebasing lots of 1/72 Aztecs (details on my blog…. link ) and I'm planning to use Lion Rampant…there's an excellent adaptation available on the 'I Live with Cats' blog called (not surprisingly) Quetzalcoatl Rampant… ilivewithcats.blogspot.co.uk

If you have played "The Sword and the Flame" colonial rules, there is a variant for Aztecs and Conquistadors called "The Sword, Cross, and Gold." sergeants3.com/18.html# (in right column on first page).

It uses individually mounted figures and can easily handle your 150-180 miniatures per side.

Jim

There's a rule set from a few years ago by Chris Peers (El Dorado I think) which I have somewhere but have never played. I'm not sure if they're still available though.

It's "War in Eldorado", a supplement for Peers' "By the Sword".

I checked here, but it's sold out:

link

I believe based on a ruleset installment-published in Wargames Illustrated way back, very closely resembling his "In the Heart of Africa" rules.

I had contemplated picking this up; if it's anything like ItHoA or the WI version, it's a fairly simple large skirmish rulset, a la TSatF or Lion Rampant, and can scaled up to your desired numbers.

Here is a version of Lion Rampant for Mesoamericans/Conquistadores:

link

Whereas the commercially published supplement is for 'By The Sword', which is an adaptation of Peers' 19th century skirmish rules 'A Good Day to Die', the series of articles in Wargames Illustrated included an adaptation of the 'In the Heart of Africa' rule set, along with army lists and a campaign system set on an imaginary continent to the east of the Americas – the idea being to give gamers the freedom to use any historical Central/South American nation/tribe and any European troops.

ItHoA isn't a skirmish game, but its figure-to-man ratio is unspecified and flexible (although clues in the lists suggest that in practice it averages around 1:10).

The four advantages of Lion Rampant – as with most of the new Osprey rules – are:
Very easy to play,
You get a result in an evening,
Very easy to adapt to suit the nuances you might require from a setting,
and usually you don't need many figures.
Moving 150 individual figures a turn, might be a bit much I think, others have suggested basing 1-2-3-6 figures per base per units (usually 12 in a foot unit).
I play Lion Ramant, but my go to rule set for big battles is Might of Arms. It does not offer any Mesoamerican options, but we have adapted a QRsheet to suit, and the 1996 version is free online.

While I absolutely love Lion Rampant, I don't think it's suitable for that many figures a side. Although still doable. Just switch "complexity" with "takes quite a while to move all of them". Also, I don't think that LR's activation system would give a good game with more than 10 units / elements per side…

One other option is to use larger units sizes and Dragon Rampant's idea of Strenght Points instead of actual model count and use bigger units (say 24 models) instead of standard 12 / 6 model units.

Well, that's actually some difficult thing you are looking for (although one should suppose otherwise). For mass battles Field of Glory Renaissance comes to mind, but no individual basing, of course….

Single basing should be provided by War & Conquest (WAB style, I recon). Not specifically written for that period but you can find army lists in the official forum. But be aware the army lists are more or less copied directly from DBR, and the publishers of the rules do not give due credit.

the rules Duke Siefried used to run his great games were good

Waiting on a big order to come in and I am looking for rules recommendations. Looking at 150-180 figures per side – individual figure basing preferred but not mandatory. Mid level complexity (i.e. Warhammer ancients) works best for me.

Back before WAB self destructed, I was in contact with Rob Broom about writing the Mesoamerican and South American supplement. I have some WAB lists for the major belligerents. PM me for copies in Word format.

Understand that Conquistador armies in Mexico will have a sizable contingent of Tlaxcaltec allies. The conquistador's writings always emphasized their achievements, but they would have been finished without outside help. You may want to do some more purchases.

My copy seems to have survived the 'Mission Impossible' directive.

I bought plenty of allies with my order. … :)