Mesoamerican DBA Part 3 - Tlaxcalans

Even as I was wrapping up my Aztec army last year, I found myself wondering if I could pull together one more Mesoamerican DBA army - preferably one that could be an opponent for either the Aztecs or the Maya. As it happens, there was one plausible candidate - army list IV/19a. This list covers a whole swath of Mesoamerican groups, among them the Tlaxcalans. The DBA version of the army is heavy on bowmen, and as it happened I had quite a few archers left over from the Aztec project. I decided to see what I could piece together - and for those who are interested in the process, I wrote about it in a thread over on Benno's Figure Forum. 

(In brief: I took a great deal of inspiration from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, a record put together post-Conquest by the Tlaxcalans themselves to document their role as Spanish allies. It's made up of about a hundred illustrated panels which run together in a narrative almost like a comic strip. As far as the figures go, they are mostly a mix of the Revell and Caesar Aztec sets, with a lot of conversions.)

Now, at last, the army is complete!

First up, our Tlaxcalan generals, as suit-wearing warriors who can be either solid Bows or fast or solid Blades:

The IV/19a list includes two additional units of fast or solid Blades. Unlike their Aztec counterparts, the Lienzo depicts most of the Tlaxcalan warriors without animal headdresses - the exceptions tend to be either feline or canine rather than avian. (One thing I learned while working on this project: the "crocodile" headdress that shows up in both the Aztec sets is probably supposed to be a stylized coyote and not a crocodile at all!)

The IV/19a list also calls for three stands of solid Bow. Per the description in the DBA army list, I depicted these units with two archers and two warriors with shield and maquahuitl - partly to help distinguish them from the fast Bows, and partly because I didn't have quite enough archers and wanted to avoid having to buy more!

The fast Bows, of which there may be up to five. There are a few converted Robin Hood figures mixed in among here...

In the IV/19a list, one of the fast Bows may be replaced with a fast Warband unit of Otomi allies. Unfortunately I was not able to find any good pictorial sources on the pre-contact Otomi, so they are a little fanciful.

Finally, one unit of psiloi - these are actually Atlantic Egyptians, as I had used up my stocks of Aztec bowmen. 

A couple of views of the whole army together:

But wait, there's more! Although my primary goal was to build the IV/19a list for the pre-contact era, in the end I also put together the four Spanish units needed for the IV/19c list variant, which covers the Tlaxcalan/Spanish allied forces. 

Here we have the Spanish general, as a unit of knights. The rider on the left is from the old Revell set of conquistadors; the other two are from the more recent Caesar set - though the man with the raised spear has a substitute horse for size compatibility.

One unit of Spanish sword-and-buckler men, as solid Blades. While I kept mostly the same overall color palette for the Spanish as for the Tlaxcalans, it was quite a change to go from the intricate designs on the Tlaxcalan shields to the plain metal of the Spanish...

One unit of Spanish crossbowmen and arquebusiers as solid Crossbows.

Finally, the Spanish get to deploy a falconet or similar small cannon as a stand of Artillery. The crew, the gun barrel, and the carriage are from one of RedBox's sets of Spanish sailors; the wheels are taken from another set. (There are a few panels of the Lienzo that depict Spanish cannons; they are shown there as having spoked wheels.)

Here's a shot of the Spanish contingent all together, and one more of the combined Spanish-Tlaxcalan army:

And with that, I am just about done with my adventure into Mesoamerica! I do owe all three armies some camp followers, but I think I am about due for a break - hopefully both to work on some other projects and to actually play some games!

Bronze Age DBA Part 8 - Mountain Men

Happy New Year, everyone!

I closed out 2021 with the last (really!) of my planned Bronze Age DBA armies - the Kaska. These perennial foes of the Hittites (whose name also gets transliterated as Gasgans or Kashkans) lived in the mountainous north of Anatolia, and are covered in DBA under the I/4 Zagros & Anatolian Highland list. Unfortunately, information on them is pretty scant - there are few, if any, Kaskan archeological sites, and they don't seem to have left written records of their own, so we have to rely on Hittite sources. These don't include any visual depictions that I was able to find, so I was left largely to my own devices in deciding what the Kaska should look like. The result is a mélange of scraps and leftover figures from a number of sets:

• Caesar Hittite Warriors
• Caesar Hittite Chariots
• Caesar Mitannian Maryannu Chariots
• Caesar Trojan Army
• HaT Assyrian Allied Infantry
• HaT Sumerians

In many cases, the figures themselves are little Frankenstein's Monsters, with heads, torsos, arms, or even feet swapped around to create an appearance that was relatively consistent and distinct from my other seven armies. I also tried to tie them together with a color scheme that was heavy on reds and greens and eschewed blues and bright whites. (The Christmas colors are entirely coincidental - I had plotted them out quite a while ago!) There are also quite a lot of checks, stripes, and even tartans worked in.

So without further ado, here is the army:

LCh or 3Wb general

First up, we have a general, either in a light chariot or as a fast Warband.

3x 3Wb

The army includes three more stands of fast Warband as "elite warriors." The DBA book suggests that they might be armed with both bows and axes, so I've done something I would not ordinarily do and mixed some archers in with the melee troops here. To help keep the "elites" distinct from the next set of units, I have also depicted them with armor, generally a shirt of bronze scales.

2x 3Ax or 3Wb

Next up, we have two units of "common warriors" as either fast Auxilia or more fast Warband. Ironically, they may prove more useful than the elites as Warbands in DBA 3.0 are quite vulnerable to cavalry.

6x Ps

Finally, half the army is psiloi skirmishers - mostly with bows, but I did put together one stand of javelineers.

I will admit, I am a little skeptical how well this army will play out in DBA, as they seem pretty vulnerable unless they can take advantage of rough terrain. For a change of pace, I may also deploy them as the I/4c Hurrian/Early Kassite/Nairi list instead (treating all the warriors as fast Auxilia instead of Warband) - the I/4c list also has a more extensive selection of historical opponents, including the Mitanni, Assyrians, and Syro-Canaanites.

Speaking of historical opponents, the completion of my eighth army lets me put together a nice little bracket:

Maybe in 2022 I will get a chance to play it through and see who comes out on top! If I do, it will help fulfill my New Year's resolution of taking all the figures I've painted over the last couple of years and getting them on the table for a game. 2021 was another good year for painting, with 368 figures finished:

Getting adventurous

This is the second half of my post-Mycenaean painting spree; as mentioned in my previous post I got some work done on my Proxian 19th-century Imagi-nations armies, but I also had some fantasy odds and ends that I wanted to work on. In particular, I thought it was time to re-visit the Caesar Adventurers set. I've painted a number of the figures over the years, but I still had a few tucked away. 

First up, I selected a trio to base together as a stereotypical D&D adventuring party, with a fighter, a magic-user, and a rogue. I expect the three of them will feature in Hordes of the Things games as a Hero unit. (The fighter's coat of arms is actually an allusion to a long-running D&D game I'm in, where our guild's symbol is a phoenix.)

I've also been plotting to add a few fantasy elements to my Bronze Age Egyptians, to allow them to play as a HotT army as well. One of the female magic-users from the Adventurers set looked like she could serve as a priestess; I gave her a couple of retainers from the old Atlantic Pharaoh's Court set. This unit will probably be either a Cleric or Magician as required.

As another HotT element for the Egyptians, I had a couple of crocodiles to serve as Water Lurkers. These are from HaT's "Jungle Adventures" re-issue of the Airfix Tarzan set.

This next one is bit of an oddball; some years ago I picked up several boxes of MiniArt Germanic Warriors at a convention flea market, thinking I would use them as Riders of Rohan. Well, I got as far as painting one stand of them, then kind of lost interest. I sold off the bulk of them to a friend of mine, but I still had another unit that had started prepping. Well, I finally got around to painting that unit, so perhaps now they'll see some action in a future game of N.U.R.D, or as a little mercenary contingent in a HotT campaign.

Moving over to the 28mm side of things, I also got a few more Reaper Bones figures painted. This one is a Psychic from their Pathfinder range. I actually painted a version of this figure in a speed-painting contest at Gen Con a couple of years ago and I liked it enough to get a plastic Bones version when it became available.

Finally, I painted up a gang of lizardfolk to match some I did a couple of years back. They might see action as primitives in Stargrave, or if we return to the Ghost Archipelago some day.

Next up, it will be the Bronze Age once more... perhaps for the last time! (Though I've said that before, haven't I?)

Nordalen and Seridia Join the Fray

This past month I've been working on a few different things in the miniatures vein, working off some pent-up energy after painting Mycenaeans for so long. One part of this was a return to Proxia, my 19th-century Imagi-nations setting, last seen about a year ago. Part of my plan from the beginning was to have two main combatants (Occiterre and Elabrün) and then two smaller contingents that could be allies to one or the other as needed (Nordalen and Seridia). I finally got around to painting up some troops and flags for the latter, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce them. 

My concept for Seridia is that is broadly analogous to Italy, possibly with a bit of South American flair. (Some years back I was considering trying to model the War of the Triple Alliance; there's still a bit of that DNA in this Proxian project.) The Seridian flag is red, with a white canton containing a green star. Their troops may end up a little more irregular, and might feature in scenarios where I want to designate some troops of differing quality or temperament (militia, volunteers, revolutionaries, etc.) These particular figures are Italeri Confederate Infantry, though they may be supplemented by others at some point if I find ones I like the look of.

Nordalen, on the other hand, I'm imagining as a bit more like Switzerland or Scandinavia - rather mountainous and independent-minded. The Nordalener flag is a simple vertical tricolor of black, yellow, and blue. The figures I'm using for their infantry are Esci Crimean War Russians. Since I happen to have a rather plentiful supply of these, their role in scenarios may be to give provide one side a significant numerical advantage if needed.

I'm still considering what rules I would like to use for these - a few years back, my dad and I played a couple of games with them using Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames, which worked well enough but I thought lacked a little flavor. I do plan on expanding this project a bit over the coming months, so if that goes as intended I may have more options available to me. I also had (what seems to me like) a fun idea for a series of games - a sort of "Famous Battle Charades" where I would set up various well-known battles using the various Proxian armies and see if the players could guess what they were re-fighting. We'll see if I get around to that at some point...

Bronze Age DBA Part 7 - The Plain Before Troy

Well, after a sojourn in the Americas, it is back to familiar territory for my latest DBA army: I/26 Later Mycenaean & Trojan War! The historicity of the Trojan War has stirred a lot of debate over the years, so about all I will say is that my views have been indelibly marked by having a copy of Peter Conolly's The Legend of Odysseus floating around since childhood. (And I suspect I am not the only one.) My intention with this one was to build a single army that could match either the I/26a Achaian or I/26b Trojan lists, rather than two entire armies; for now their opponents are likely to be my Hittites and Sea Peoples.

The whole army together

The figures here are all my usual 20mm plastics, mostly Caesar Miniatures' Mycenaean and Trojan army sets and their Mycenaean Chariots. I mixed and matched pretty freely between these sets; I don't see any indication that there was a lot of difference in equipment between the two sides (and anyway, the Iliad seems to suggest that arms and armor were swapped back and forth or taken as trophies on a regular basis). There are also a few head-swaps and other minor conversions in the mix.

LCh or 4Bd general

First up, we have the general in his light chariot. DBA allows the charioteers to dismount and fight as solid Blades instead, so I made sure to have that option available. The banner is not especially historical, alas, but I wanted to be able to distinguish the dismounted general at a glance. (Bonus point to anyone who can figure out the source of the horse head finial!)

3x LCh or 4Bd

Here are the other three light chariots, along with their dismounted solid Blades counterparts. (The outer two men in each stand of Blades match the two men on foot for the corresponding chariot unit.) The keenly observant may note that I have made some substitutions in the chariot crews - the ones Caesar includes look to me to be more suited for an earlier period. Hence, no Dendra armor here. There's also some historical debate over whether Mycenaean chariotry was equipped with bows - mine are, because I had lots of spare archers, and few spare spearmen.

6x Sp

The core of both army lists is a block of Spears - the Achaians can have up to six, and the Trojans up to five. One minor complaint I have about the Caesar sets is that a lot of the shields have a grooved texture that I expect is supposed to represent wood - I'd have liked to have been able to paint more of them as animal hide.

2x Ps

Both armies can deploy a couple of stands of slingers as psiloi. Unfortunately, the sets only contain a single slinger pose. The second fellow from the left is actually a spare chariot driver who has had his limbs repositioned; the one to his right is a Punic War figure that I have borrowed before.

2x 4Pk (Pylians)

The Achaians are allowed to replace two of the Spears with solid Pike (representing troops equipped in an older style with long two-handed spears). I actually got pretty far with painting these before I decided that they really ought to have shields, so I had to go back in and add those. Unfortunately, neither set includes a really proper figure-of-eight shield, so I made do with what was available.

4Wb (Myrmidons)

The Achians may also replace one of their psiloi with a solid Warband unit representing Achilles' Myrmidons. I tried to distinguish these from the regular Blades or Spear by giving them a mix of hand weapons, and black shields and plumes.

3Bd (Lukka/Lycians)

The Trojans are allowed to replace a Spear unit with a fast Blade unit representing Lukka allies or mercenaries. (The Lukka also feature prominently in the lists of the Sea Peoples, and seem to have lived a somewhat piratical lifestyle along the southwest coast of Anatolia.) The figures here are Caesar Philistines.

3Bw or Ps

Finally, the Trojans get a unit of bowmen, as either Psiloi or fast Bows.

Another angle on the whole army

This is probably the largest of the DBA armies I have painted in the last couple of years, so I am ready for a break after these! I do have one more Bronze Age army in mind, but I will need to resolve some supply issues before I am ready to work on them. Fortunately, I have no lack of other miniatures to paint in the meantime - and maybe I'll even be able to get some of these guys on the table for a game!

(Also, if anyone here is not already familiar with the work of Philotep (favored of Ptah, god of artisans) by all means check out his blog! His latest post has me itching to try painting some plaid.)