Project Log: Aztec/Conquistador Project (Updated 3/17)

[Bob da dowg]

Shame really, 'cos if Copplestone had finished off the full intended range of 20 or so packs, and then gone onto the Aztecs...

Well, let's just say that Copplestone-sculpted Aztecs would have been worth seeing.

Wrong - Mark never had the intention to do Meso or South Americans. The range was split up between us both with him doing the Europeans and I would have done the rest of the range, working through the corresponding Foundry book.

And he was there as well when I was sacked because of the pose of a single miniature - which btw to my opinion was one of the best in that range - and what happened there and was said there was the reason for the "exodus" of the sculptors who were working for Foundry< at that time - Copplestone, Perrys, etc.

JO

[Doc Twilight]

Thanks for the leads, LTD.

Jo -

What was the sculpt they sacked him about?

-Doc

[Bob da dowg]

AZ2/3 Cuauhtli’s Veteran Warriors -bottom right miniature.

JO

[Lowtardog]

Its mad Josef I have used that figure for elite warriors, slinger leader and allies I cant see what is wrong with him

[Bob da dowg]

His left leg is "said" not to be straight!

Foundry style = one leg straight the other bent for movement like with the old High Gothic statues with one leg being "Standbein" (free translation = standing leg, means on this is put the weight of the body) and the other being "Spielbein" /= playing leg , means this one ghives the aspect of motion)

I dared to argue so I was butt-f***** and sacked

JO

[white knight]

Foundry style = one leg straight the other bent for movement like with the old High Gothic statues with one leg being "Standbein" (free translation = standing leg, means on this is put the weight of the body) and the other being "Spielbein" /= playing leg , means this one ghives the aspect of motion)

Oh, so they didn't like that it didn't have the usual unnatural pose that does not in any way convey realistic motion?

[Doc Twilight]

F-ing ridiculous, Josef. I can't believe they fired you over that - and it's apparently still being sold... sounds like a typical Foundry "ego" case...

It's a very nice sculpt, by the way, which makes me all the more incredulous.

-Doc

[Doc Twilight]

Another brief update.

I am still very much alive, and the project is kicking along, albeit slowly. I had been waiting for some word on my terrain from Stonehouse Miniatures, which was apparently delayed due to an issue with the convention season; however, the pieces are on their way, much to my delight.

I am still short the urban buildings from Acheson (budget means I haven't ordered them yet, so not their fault by any means!) and my Jaguar Warriors, which I ordered from Eureka about a week and a half ago. Normally Eureka is very fast, but California has been going through a lot of issues, some of them involving payment of postal employees, so I strongly suspect that may be the reason for the delay here.

I have completed some painting in the last few days. So far, there are four Huaxtec suits and four Franciscan Friars finished, with four Native Bearers very near completion, and some Conquistadors in  light armor just behind. Most of the Aztec shields from Eureka are blank, so I've been using VVV Shield Decals for them; the Conquistador shields have a lot of surface detail, and no need for said transfers. The painting is being done with a mix of Vallejo, P3, and GW. I think that P3 is by far the superior product, if not for the limited range compared to the other two.

Anyway, I'll have some photos posted for you straight away, soon as I have the camera charged. Tomorrow is also the first public playtest of this version of my soon-to-be published Mexican-American War rules, and I'll try to get some photos posted here on the forum for those interested, assuming they come out:)

Thank you all for the support and interest. Hopefully this will all come out well in the end.

-Doc

[Operator5]

I'm looking forward to seeing the first pictures Doc.

[cdm]

Before I begin a long rambly chat (I do expect it will be long before I finish), perhaps I'd best say hi first :O I rarely use the net these days except ebay, Abe and wargamerau, so apologies before hand if I post and forget and disappear. I tend to be involved in offline things and online tends to be neglected alot. I came across this post while doing a search for other material, and was intrigued enough to register and respond.

The first major point to make before beginning is that like other scholars rooting out the truth of the Aztecs, there is an intense baying against the romanticised ideals and errors of the historians of the 1800's and early 1900's, many of which perpetuate continually in semi scholastic works through to today. Reading the 16th century source documents dispels most of them easily, but clowns like Pohl still persist to regurgitate unthought out and unresearched material. The best and most accurate work is still by Heath, majorly helped by his excellent and wargamery mind. Hassig contains some errors but for wargamining purposes is at least useable in the campaign sections. Scholastic works need to contest some of his basic assumptions even in the campaigns but for gaming, we don't care that much His assumptions campaigns only occured post yearly cultivation needs a big stick taken to it, and other erros occur, but I digress.

For the city itself, I'm sure you know it ran on a regular grid of streets and cross streets with long thin blocks,alternating with canals. Generically every few streets coincided with a canal so that there was a road each side of the canal. Each block faced onto a road where the main commoner residential 'complex' was built on or near to the street front. Each residential complex for an extended family consisted of a number of small boxy rooms, one for each family unit, all melded together with common walls. Commonly there were 3-5 of these boxes in a grouping often adjoining a sizeable walled courtyard. Facing the street was only one entry portal and commonly no windows. There may be no street entry but a wide pathway going down one side of the structure to allow a side entry a distance form the street. A second or third entry faced the rear of the alotment. Some of the boxes may infact be adjoining the main complex but entered by a totally different entry so that it can be considered a granny flat tacked on the side but with no direct access to everyone else. It made it very hard to do much for the Spanish as they were all dead ends, hence it was easier to demolish them and prevent their reuse after a Spanish retreat. All these had internal roof access for structural repairs/waterproofing. At the rear of each allotment*usually* was a small plot chinampa. Contrary to popular thought the city didn't come close to self supporting by chinampa, the region to the south of the lake kept the city fed. It has been speculated these smallish plots provided a small regular supply of fresh vegatables for religious purposes, but I tend to more they just liked to garnish their dried corn with fresh veges and coincidentally keep a small crop of green corn for certain rites. It should be remembered chinampas were harvested at least *twice* per year, sometimes more depending on the crop.

The traditional chinampa for rural agriculture existed in the south east and north west of the city. These are barely big enough to self support. They had the same residential complex but much more spaced out with alot of chinampa round, so much that these areas wouldn't do for skirmish at all. The rest of the city consisted of urban residential plots as described above. Original rate records for the immediate subsequent colonial period show the former layouts reasonably well, including the building floorplans As a generalisation a significant anti flooding dyke perhaps a metre (probably a touch more) in height run round the city from the north west causeway into western Tlateololca along the north shore, then down the east shore and across the southern shore to the southern causeway. This is seperate to the Nezahuacoyotl dike further east. A large canoe terminus/wharfy thing was on the eastern shore directly west of the Templo Mayor. Post conquest it was where the brigantines remained till they vanish from history.

For terrestrial farm plots do not forget particulalry to the drier portions of the valley, the crops were surrounded by a 'hedge' of aloe,a nice spikey cavalry barrier The downhill sides also had an shallow earth mound to catch water.

The tradition for almost all religious structures was to found them on raised ground. (closer to god probably). Many many shrines dotted the open landscape on top of every slight rise. The priests of Tenochtitlan, and presumably every major centre, performed a nightly exodus to go and perform personal blood letting on them. Within the city I would assume this still holds true. Religious complexes within the city, including those in Tlatelolca, were surrounded by a serpent wall which had religious significance of its own. Tlateoloca's temple had only been reconstructed in living memory after being destroyed following the rebellion/framing of Moquihuix. Monty 2, after persecuting the Tlatelolcans for abit relented and let them rebuild their temple. Not often mentioned is the fact the Tenochtitlans surrendered long before the siege was completed, the normal people (probably the older ousted calpixque families) actually rebelling against their leadership. It was the Tlatelolcans who fought on after Cuauhtemoc offered them ulitmate rule, he being tied with the Tlatelolcan dynasty anyway. Further intensifying the rivalry was the fact the Tlatelolcans did not participate early siege as it 'wasn't their fight.' They had to be induced to join. Do not down play a Tenochca/Tlatelolcan rivalry in a demo game

Aside from the snake wall around the temple complex, each temple complex in the city contained a number of sub temples. The tenochca part of the city had 4 sub complexes plus the templo mayor, plus many smaller single temples, say 5 per sub complex scattered throughout the quarter. The Tlateololcans I can't say off the top of my head. They may have had just the one major temple complex. Each temple grouping had an adjoining skullrack and priest quarters. It could be assumed they also contained an eagle warrior complex, but I'd stop that at the 4 sub complexes and leave those from being attached to the scattered individual temples. Adjoining the temple complexes were the appropriate ruler's palaces. Clearly the emperor's palaces next to the templo mayor, and calpixque (calpulli leaders) complexes next to the sub temple complexes. These calpixque complexes included the local court, meeting hall etc. The meeting hall (tecpan) for Tlatelolca was a few blocks to the east of the temple. Nearby would be both the calmecac (priestly and lordly training schools) and the telpochcalli (everybody schooled there, lords and non lords). Also don't forget the Quetzalcoatl temples were nothing more than circular huts with a portico Easily found in a passable form in many Dark Ages scenic ranges. Paint to suit with the banded colours and a dragon mouth entry.

It should be remembered the calpixque were all purged by Monty 2 on coronation, and replaced by his own noble muppets. I believe it was with good reason he feared rebellion in the city throughout his reign. The subject is oft mentioned in the histories but little detailed.

Re the cannibalism, rife among the warrior nobility, forbidden to everyone else. Do not forget the society was rigidly segregated, no doubt Monty 2 would have had a decapodian mobile oppression palace of he could have made one. The empire was more than despotic, and overly romanticised as a polished civilised one who just happened to have human sacrifice. There is an underlying 'evil' among the Tenochca rulers culminating in Monty 2 that is not plainly shown or exampled in any discussion of them except by cranks like myself, which I feel places them as the worst/evilest/baddest successful society in earth's history. Whether there is a god or not, kharma wins eventually. Sacrifical cannibalism existed pre Aztecs, but was taken to new heights by Tlacaelel, and was responded to by their regular opponents who did the same thing in revenge for what the Tenochcas were doing to them. It spiralled into absurdity.

Re the Flower Wars, the idea it was all a jolly knightly joust with medieval ransoming of prisoners replaced with sacrificing of prisoners is way off mark. The Flower Wars were genuine wars with an intent to kill. Late in his career Monty 2 started to lean toward making them wars of conquest but just couldn't pull it off. The written descriptions give more than enough evidence of killing in flower wars, and anyone claiming it was all capture needs to explain why bows and slings were used, and why wounded captives were killed on the field as being 'broken' goods unfit for sacrifice. The whole captive thing is a romantic ideal as we hear it, as most captives were taken post combat during the rout or following intense exhaustion from prolonged engagements. Many examples are given of captives being taken post combat, including for example Nezahuacoyotl's second credited captive being a woman, others taking children and having to buy a sacrifical slave to take their place for the gladiatorial sacrifice combat back in Tenochtitlan. It should also be remembered death in battle was preferred to any other death. It was idealised beyond all else. Death by sacrifice took you to a whole other afterlife. If you surrendered in battle you knew you were dying another way regardless. At least 6 of Monty 2's closest relatives died in flower wars including the huehue tlacatecatl who was killed during a rout. I sometimes wonder if he was secretly killing off rivals by having the battles manipulated.

For figures, sadly the Aztec expert is left with a mish mash of inaccurate figures. There is no complete or accurate range in 25/28mm and that is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. To get a passable mix you will need to cherry pick from the Eureka/Foundry/TAG/Outpost ranges and accept then that they are still inaccurate but at least you will get most warrior types. TAG also have god awful pack content groupings. As with every Aztecy miniature I've seen, everyone totally messes up the non priest hairstyles and jewelry into random wierdness. Imagine 1815 French in bicornes and steel helms. All in all though no deal breaker. You will need to convert some suited warriors to bows (if you want, re-bent paper clips or thick wire will do) and absolutely no one does warriors literally chucking rocks. And you thought the stories of hails of stones and arrows meant sling stones. There are more descriptions of warriors throwing rocks than there are of slinging stones :O Several of the TAG and Foundry open handed poses work for adding rocks

For makeup of formations, remember the duality of jaguars/eagles and tlacatecatl/tlacochcalcaltl. ie make them in PAIRS. Also remember 1-3 captive warrior fall within the 19-21 yr age range commonly, so most of your noble warriors are eagle level but not necessarily in eagle/jaguar suit. They could be just wearing a plain feather suit with the RIGHT hairstyle. Most commoners are zero captive warriors and MOST are non trained. I know someone in the 1800's said everyone was trained in war, but failed to read the source properly and the echo still travels with us. If you are grading your warriors somehow in Gloire, I'd suggest sticking with very broad rankings or you will get hung up on technical differences that have no impact on actual gameplay. For Aztecs I'd suggest non combatants, trainees (1-3 captives), eagles (4+ captives) and cuachiqueh/otomi (dedicated warriors) though the eagles may well be just as good as cuachiqueh if not better because they are smarter Eagles may play a command role for trainees/non combatants, other eagles and cuachiqueh. Tlacatecatls command units in conjunction with a tlacochcalcatl. The Tlatelolcans also used women dressed in suits as decoys. You may use the owl suit warrior as a holy suit as the natives did late seige. There is only 1 of these suits and I'd let it continue to be used with some bonus as long as the wearer continues to succeeed.

As Lowtar has said, (though his native numbers are much too low) the Spanish are vastly outnumbered by a broad mix of allied native cities hungry for final revenge against the Tenochcas. Late siege the Spanish split into handfuls accompanied by large groups of natives. The Tlatelolcans started picking them off in these small numbers, so much so they started wearing native disguises so they weren't singled out :O He is also correct about the significant 'beheading' of great warriors by the continual wars and disease and defections.

[commissarmoody]

WOW! i just lurned alot there, thanks CDM

[Lowtardog]

See guys told you he knows his stuff

welcome Chronofus

[Doc Twilight]

Indeed. Much helpful information CDM, thank you.

A brief update on where I am with painting. To date, I have the following completed:

4 x Jesuits
4 x Conquistadors with Sword and Buckler
4 x Huaxtec Suit Warriors
4 x Aztec Bearers
4 x Eagle Warriors

Currently on the painting table, I've got 3 Conquistadores with Arquebus and firing stand, and 1 Conquistador standard bearer. Next Aztecs will probably be some basic armored novices.

Also received my terrain order from Stonehouse. Quite nice. Most of it pre-painted, but in a stone grey color, which doesn't really match the color it'd be in around the time of the Conquest. Certainly passable, but I am considering repainting the buildings in white with some colored accents. I am neither crazy enough nor talented enough to paint each and every mural...

I am still trying to get my camera to work, but will have shots of this stuff for you as soon as possible.

-Doc

[Mad Doc Morris]

(...) 4 x Jesuits (...)

Don't want to be picky, but I hope they aren't meant to represent actual Jesuits as these guys weren't around in 1521. The Order was founded in 1534 and officially accepted in 1537, and they were introduced to America not before the late 16th century.
Anyway, would be great to see some pics of your efforts so far. I'm very interested.

[Doc Twilight]

Call them Dominicans if you like. I was using a placeholder name:)

Will have pictures up asap.

-Doc