Hey mate, I am absolutely enamored with Mesoamerica, and have recently given them all my attention after spending nearly 10 years focused solely on Rome. Can I ask who youd recommend for a manufacturer? or if you had any other information on the different armamants? What are your thought to the other animal headed warriors for someti
There is a very limited amount of evidence, maybe 20 or so books plus assorted lesser manuscripts and then archaeology. If you're in the UK or US, you should be able to get access to English language editions of a decent amount of them for primary research. You should be able to find both of Sahagun's works and both of Duran's as covering most of what you wish to know, with Mendoza giving you some pretty pictures to help out.
As a decent primer I recommend Heath's book Armies of the Sixteenth century - Armies of the Aztecs, Incas etc. I don't recall too much issue with the information he presents except it is not comprehensive enough. I would avoid Pohl's Ospreys as a pile of poorly researched rubbish more likely to lead you astray than educate. Hassig's book should also be read with caution, some of his 'theories' are plain rubbish anyone with basic research skills could discredit, and I have a sad feeling his research on the military chapters was based more on collating and footnoting other people's work than reading primary works himself. His claim nobles didn't use bows or slings is disproved consistently by a simple reading of Duran, whom he quotes extensively from, sometimes from the same paragraphs where it's mentioned, so I have no idea why he latched onto his own poor translation of Torquemada to come up with something that is now established as 'fact.' The disservice Hassig and Pohl has done to Aztec military knowledge is as heartbreaking as it is now entrenched. I haven't followed research for a couple years now, I don't know if genuine, serious, scholarship has been published on the Aztec military system recently.
Much will depend on whether you wish a
- pre or Tlacaelel/Monty I and later army.
-- pre you may have commoners at war, Tlacaelel banned them ever more. *with provisos not worth expanding here due to length of this answer*
-- pre you may have an array of wonderful outfits of pretty much any style I would venture. Tlacaelel nerfed this to state provided military suits only (except in exceptional cases for very high ranked nobles) where they were presumably standardised to what we know now as the common suits
- whether you focus on a core kingdom, subject kingdom, or a traditional combined army.
-- you will have to do some time research for your period of interest, but at it's height the aztec army consisted of 3 'corps' composed of (1)Tenochs (which absorbed the Tlatelolcans after their downfall, and then submitted to them briefly just before their own downfall), (2) Texcocoans and (3)Tacubans, plus there were a number of subject kingdoms which gave direct military service as their tribute, and some more that were traditional allies.
I only know 28mm ranges, so I'll comment on those for you. There is no 'good' range to satisfy your Aztec needs, you will need to cherry pick as needed and turn a blind eye from time to time. 99.999999% of your opponents will have no clue of any inaccuracies, and those that do already know not to bother button counting over them. Are your warriors painted with black body paint? Yes/No. If no, don't even bother starting a discussion on the aztec military with anyone who reads. It's the first fundamental flaw that jumps out in every aztec army I've seen on a table (including my own). Look more closely at the Mendoza images sometime, and then read some texts for the body painting.
The most outstanding common problem with every range is the 'common' warrior and the word tequihuaqueh, or which ever variant of the name is used. Every range fails this criteria and my guess is the 'researchers' for them all looked at pictures only and didn't really do much research. I'm cynical I know.
The first failure of research is the Mendoza warrior list which shows captives ranks. As a story picture about the progress of Tequihua warriors, it shows each warrior with the distinctive tequihua hairstyle so the storyteller knows what he is telling. It is not an exact photographic reproduction, it must be looked at as a story telling aid. Aztec drawings have clues on them which tell stories of their own, the tequihua hairstyle is one of those clues. We are aware from explicit text evidence that noble warriors ranked from 0 to 6+ captives had distinct hair styles At 4 captives they gain the tequihua hairstyle (the so called top knot) bound by red leather. All miniatures ranges show this hairstyle on all ranks of warriors and 'commoners.' Priest warriors had only 1 style, unkempt long hair tied back with a white strip. Make sure you add black face paint and red to the temples (more likely intended to be the ears anyway according to the texts) along with the black body paint for priest warriors.
The second most common issue with ranges covering 'commoners' is the inclusion of padded armour. Off the top of my head the rule regarding the wearing of cotton (and only nobles who fought in war BTW) and thereby armour limited to nobles as well, came about with our favourite control freak Tlacaelel.
Here is an example from the Outpost Wargames range common warriors:
proudly wearing their tequihua hairstyle and cotton armour. Obviously these warriors aren't what you might think of as 'common' but already experienced veterans with 4 captives.
Here is an example from the TAG range of tequihua:
proudly not wearing their tequihua hairstyle in defiance of the state's laws apparently. *shrug* bad research, badly named pack to boot. If only they'd named them allied or something maybe it wouldn't have been so embarrassing after their claims at the time as the most detailed, researched range around.
Here is two examples from Foundry, the first are novices, the second are veterans.
Not sure what the novice is doing with the tequihua hairstyle, but the rest look ok-ish except for the vest
These are meant to be 'veterans' but don't have the hairstyle for it. You could 'wing' them as priest warriors though if no one looked closely at the lack of very long hair and the missing white hair tie. Maybe they are younger priest warriors.
Here is some examples from Eureka of novices:
Maybe we should call them unarmoured tequihua with atlatls
Armoured 'novices'. Maybe we should just call them armoured tequihua
That covers the OUTSTANDING errors for commoners vs tequihua you should be able to spot the proper troop types in ranges now you know what you are really after. If you re arrange your thinking that commoners refers to the common tequihua you're pretty ok, just don't apply it to what you think of as 'social rank' commoners. You MUST remember this when reading online commentaries, because a lot of the text you'll read online really has no grasp of the concept and you'll need to prefilter it to what it should be saying. Take this wiki entry as an example:
Tlamanih
Tlamanih (captor) was a term that described commoners who had taken captives within the Aztec army, particularly those who had taken one captive.
More issues abound with detailing. The wearing of body jewelry and shoes also varies with ranking. Shoes for commoners? No, just no. Tequihua without shoes? Really? The nature of nose, lip and ear piercings also changed with material and style as a warrior ranked. Tequihua without a lip plug? You may as well have just shaved him bald and thrown him out of the empire. Have a closer look at the pics above now looking at those details.
Another problem you will find is a distinct lack of completeness when it comes to back banners. You CAN find all the common ones, but you will need to order from Eureka, TAG and Outpost to get them for general needs, and if you pop open the Primeros Memorialis and see the rest, well, start making your own
If you take the time, go back to the kickstarter page and look at say Nezahualcoyotl and begin wondering why his lip and nose plugs are missing, why the shield fringe looks wrong, then just feel a little sad the research wasn't done well enough and you get that little let down feeling. The sketch pics are too small to determine if the sculptor is going to add the facial jewelry when I suspect the sketches don't have the detailing right, and the variation in the detailing of the obsidian on the weapons is surely plain fantasy, almost GW saurus-ey. The range appears to be semi 'mythical/fantasy' based on the 'Hitler channel' style commentary, so good luck to them for at least trying to bring some exposure. That the kickstarter says the empire was born 500 years ago, when it died 500 years ago, is a clue to the fantasy level of research I guess. The 'hero' figure, to be truly heroic, should have TWO feather bundles to the top of his helmet. Maybe he's just a lesser hero?
When it comes to it, don't get all fancy pants with the captives thing. An apprentice warrior could go from 0 to 5 captive in one battle. You may think, wow, that dude must be awesome sauce. I'll point out the great Nezahuacoyotl from the kickstarter, one of his accredited captives was a woman, and another a young boy. It's not all it's cracked up to be, so don't hang on it with reverence. Very late in the empire they tried to reform it, there is no evidence either way how successful that reform was. Use it as an indicator of some experience though, but trying to grade 1 captive vs 2 captive etc, you're going way too fussy over something that can't be quantified that way. The amount of 1-3 captives in your army should be low.
BTW, don't make the mistake the kickstarter does and call the tlacochcalcatl an army banner. It's obviously shoehorned for some rule set, but don't take it literally.
You'll have to take my tone with some grain of salt, to mis-quote Vader - I find the lack of research disturbing, which is why I tend to shy away from online discussions with people who clearly don't research or read primary sources. My main encouragement to you is to read primary resources yourself and not read dodgy online texts.
Enjoy your armies, don't fuss on it too much
BTW, Eureka's unarmoured mayans make great 'wild' otomi for an allied war band/regiment/whatever. Their range of Tupi also have circular feather back banners which are awesome 'wild' otomi back banners.
Edit 8/3/17
Amazingly :O some of these are on ebay so you get a better view of those figs
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/28mm-Aztec-Hero-Paymaster-Games-/222365812860?hash=item33c609087c:g:~o0AAOSwzaJX-V8thttp://www.ebay.com.au/itm/28mm-Spirit-Beast-Tlahuelpuchi-Aztec-Vampire-Paymaster-Games-/222365812851?hash=item33c6090873:g:MkEAAOSw4shX-am7http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/28mm-Aztec-Hero-Warrior-Poet-Paymaster-Games-/222365812871?hash=item33c6090887:g:hJ4AAOSw8w1X-WVX