India: Portuguese Expeditions

[steve_holmes_11]

1500 - 1600 in the Indian Ocean

Plenty going on, but doesn't fit neatly into the common wargamer's classifications.

Colonial?: If you're Portuguese, but most gamers begin counting "colonial" after the American war of Independence.

Renaissance?: Most powers have adopted gunpowder.
The other accepted elements: Pikes and lighter cavalry are found in Japan, but don't suit the terrain or fighting styles of many other cultures.

Far East?: A relative term whose precise boundaries vary by nation.
Is India Far East - It's certainly "far" if you're travelling from Europe.
The treaty of Tordesillas assigned the "east" to Portugal's interests.


No matter how you title it, it's an interesting niche in history.
Heroic naviagtion.
Fascinating cultural exchange.
But also brutally inhuman treatment.

Contemporary with the Spanish conquests in Mexico, but offering a broader range of opponents.
 * Africa's Swahili Coast, Abysynnia and Somalia.
 * Arabian coastal emirates.
 * India: Consolidating Mughal Empire, Southern Vijayanagar, West Coast trading cities.
 * Sri Lanka
 * East Indies: Malacca, Aceh, Indonesia, Borneo and the spice Islands beyond.
 * China.
 * Japan.


Please let me know whether this 'theatre' belongs on a different board.

[Inkpaduta]

Yes, I have always found this an interesting period and era.
Wish there was more written about it and more gaming on it.

[Plynkes]

Personally speaking, I don't really consider the Indian Ocean region to be the 'Far East', but I guess that point is open to debate. While the official blurb of the Colonial board states it is for 19th and 20th Century subjects, we have hosted stuff from earlier periods in the past, and if you chose to post there it wouldn't be turned away.

But I really think the Pikes etc. board is the best fit, purely from the time period.


But hey, you often get subjects that could easily fit on more than one board. I wouldn't worry too much about which is the 'right' one.

[fred]

How are you thinking of gaming this theatre / period?

[PBR Streetgang]

I've found that Irregular Wars rules do well for this setting. There are plenty of army lists, armies are roughly DBA size as far as the number of bases needed (although each base roughly represents 25-50). There are some nice mechanics to replicate the feel of the period (sickness affecting your force, gunpowder in rain, gunpowder impact on natives resolve, companies don't ng their own thing when our of command range, etc).

[carlos marighela]

On LAF it’s ‘Pikes Muskets and Flouncy Shirts’. By the latter half of your nominated time span, it definitely ticks all three boxes.

If you wish to indulge the late Kenneth McIntyre’s fantasies you can even have Cristóvão de Mendonça travelling as far as Warnambool. Even more variety.

[Poiter50]

Kenneth McIntyre’s fantasies, Cristóvão de Mendonça travelling as far as Warnambool? Do tell?

On LAF it’s ‘Pikes Muskets and Flouncy Shirts’. By the latter half of your nominated time span, it definitely ticks all three boxes.

If you wish to indulge the late Kenneth McIntyre’s fantasies you can even have Cristóvão de Mendonça travelling as far as Warnambool. Even more variety.

[carlos marighela]

Kenneth McIntyre wrote the Secret Discovery of Australia in 1977 and spawned a mini school of thought that the Portuguese discovered Australia (plausible, they were in Timor for 400 years) and that Cristóvão de Mendonça travelled down the East coast of Australia getting as far as Warnambool where one of his ships was supposedly wrecked and later sporadically turned up in the 19th C as the legendary ‘Mahogany Ship’. Somewhere along the way he also supposedly lost a set of keys at Geelong, mysteriously depositing them in a layer of soil dated to around 2,000 years ago. 

Old Cris is also supposed to have built a fort at Eden, which turns out to have been a storehouse built in the 1840s.   

It ‘s a fun read. It was at one time on the school curriculum in Victoria, I think we read it in the Fifth Form IIRc. Pretty much the entire theory has been comprehensively demolished since, although some sympathetic loons have expanded on the theory in recent years but with even less factual basis. The whole theory rests on a shit ton of pure speculation and ‘facts’ distorted to fit the theory. Notable is an interpretation of the 16th C Dieppe Map which is massaged through bogus geometry to resemble Oz.

Funnily enough, my wife was invited by the local Portuguese community a few years ago to manage an event in Warnambool celebrating this er ‘discovery’. Any excuse for a party I say. Seemed rude to point out it was all nonsense.

I was going to say google Theory of Australian Discovery but Wiki has a decent potted summary of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_Portuguese_discovery_of_Australia#James_Cook_and_Cooktown_harbour

Saves you reading the book and the ever more tendentious ‘studies’ that followed it.

It should be pointed that MacIntyre did some useful working in exploring archival materials in Portugal and was even awarded a gong for it.

And back on topic, Eureka do a range of ‘Denisovans’ as potential foes should anyone wish to do a ‘what if’ scenario.

[carlos marighela]

Here you go.

https://www.monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/landscape/exploration/display/33923-portuguese-explorers-memorial

[Poiter50]

Thank you. Aussie version of the Chinese fleet stuff. Never finished that book as I found his style dead boring.

Here you go.

https://www.monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/landscape/exploration/display/33923-portuguese-explorers-memorial

[Matakakea]

There have been similar theories of Spanish or Portuguese ships having been wrecked in New Zealand. One author claiming that this accounted for the appearance of red hair in some of the Maori in the Kawhia/Raglan area. The weirdest story has to have been the claim that a rock with Viking runes carved on it was found in a river in Taranaki nearly a century ago. No concrete evidence of this of course 

[fred]

Or was it concrete with Viking runes…

I've found that Irregular Wars rules do well for this setting. There are plenty of army lists, armies are roughly DBA size as far as the number of bases needed (although each base roughly represents 25-50). There are some nice mechanics to replicate the feel of the period (sickness affecting your force, gunpowder in rain, gunpowder impact on natives resolve, companies don't ng their own thing when our of command range, etc).

Yep, Irregular Wars are a great set of rules. They have made me create many armies, as they seem quite small and easy to build and before you know it you are trying to build many many armies!

[SJWi]

Good evening. I have seen “Irregular Wars” and am intrigued by them. I have a small collection of Eureka Portuguese/Conquistadores purchased in a moment of weakness as a “Frostgrave Ghost Archipeligo”force help out a mate. Still waiting to get on the table.

 How many figures do you need for a decent “Irregular Wars” game?

 For me this would always be a minority interest so not looking for a huge investment of either cash or painting effort.

[OSHIROmodels]

Happy for this stay here unless otherwise directed 

[fred]

Good evening. I have seen “Irregular Wars” and am intrigued by them. I have a small collection of Eureka Portuguese/Conquistadores purchased in a moment of weakness as a “Frostgrave Ghost Archipeligo”force help out a mate. Still waiting to get on the table.

 How many figures do you need for a decent “Irregular Wars” game?

 For me this would always be a minority interest so not looking for a huge investment of either cash or painting effort.

Irregular Wars is written around bases of smaller scale figures, rather than individual 28mm figures. Bases tend to be 30mm or 40mm squares, with 4-10 15mm or 10mm figures on them, the actual number of figures per base isn’t important within the rules, but I like the density to look right for the type of unit. All the distances in the rules are based on Base Widths - so there is no reason you couldn’t use bigger bases with 28mm figures on, say 50mm squares with 3 figures.

Armies tend to be around 15 to 20 bases