'74s to 88s' - A Model and Wargames blog: October 2016

With my WW2 projects coming along nicely, and the Napoleonic Naval stuff for Aboukir Bay all done, my thoughts have been turning to new projects. Playing at a club like NBHW is very inspiring in terms of the collections, size of games, quality of painting and terrain and the sheer variety we play down there. However, it can also be difficult to find something to bring which is a bit different! I inadvertently managed it with the Naval game, but when it comes to land based warfare, there are already many, many wonderful collections from Ancients to Vietnam/Cold War in a variety of scales and sizes to choose from.

Recently there have been several games looking at the colonial wars; Isandlwana was fought, and someone is working on a big Sikh wars collection. This got me thinking about some of the other European conquests around the world and I started to read up on the Mexican conquest of 1519-21. The mismatch in numbers on the one hand and technology on the other grabbed my attention and the more I discovered about the Aztec (or more correctly, Mexica) culture and their style of fighting the more I found it interesting.

I'd also been looking for something that would be different to what I've already done from a hobby point of view. So, a move to 28mm, with a splash of colour that I haven't really had since I gave up on the world of GW. The intricate designs of the Aztecs will give me a good challenge.

I've painted a few test models from Gringos40, and very nice models they are too. Little flash to remove and a few nice details.

For source material, the two failsafes of Osprey and Google have helped me a lot! There is a historical document called the Codex Mendoza which gives lots of detail about Aztec outfits. This has been summarised really well here: http://balagan.info/painting-guide-for-an-aztec-army

So, here we go: the Aztecs were split into several military orders, dependent on the number of captives the warrior had taken in battle. This was a really unique aspect to Mesoamerican warfare, in that the Warriors would not necessarily try and kill their opponents, but instead would try to take captives to take back to the temple to be sacrificed.

The Macehualtin were the peasant levy. Like all Mesoamerican cultures, they wore cotton armour and had weapons made from wood with sharpened obsidian blades.

I've painted three Macehualtin Warriors - two archers, and one with a spear. Aztecs made great use of the Atlatl, or spear thrower, but these miniatures don't have that represented. I've used some rigging techniques to thread the strings for the bows!

The next miniatures I have are three warrior priests, who have taken 4 captives in battle and so qualified to wear the 'starry night' decorated full bodysuit with a pointed conical hat. This style of uniform was associated with warriors who had taken 2 captives in battle, but the starry sky pattern was only worn by these priests.

The final two figures are perhaps those most associated with the Aztecs - the Eagle and Jaguar warriors. These suits were not real animal skins, they were made of cotton and coloured. The most common 'jaguar' suit was not the jaguar patterned suit, but rather a blue one with black, spotted pattern. However, there were some who had suits designed like the big cat, and I've gone with that for this one. The jaguar warrior also has a back banner - very commonplace on the Aztec battlefield - which would serve as a signal to the rest of the army.

Both the Eagle and Jaguar warrior orders required warriors to have taken 4 captives in battle. There is some debate as to whether or not they were of equal standing, or whether the eagle warriors had a slight seniority over the Jaguars. This is unproven.