For many years I’ve been keen to wargame within the New World. Aztecs and Conquistadores took my fancy, as did Tupi and Portuguese Bandeira when I discovered them later on. But there are a few problems with this:
Conquistadores
Conquistadors (from Spanish conquistadores i.e. “conquerors”) were soldiers, explorers, and adventurers at the service of the Spanish King. They sailed beyond Europe conquering territory and opening trade routes.
Timeline of Conquest of New Mexico
Timeline for New Mexico as the Conquistadores moved in.
Conquest of New Mexico
The Spanish conquest of New Mexico isn’t a very popular period, and certainly not for wargamers, but it does seem to offer some interesting scenarios. It appeals to me for a couple of reasons:
Indian Groups in New Mexico
A variety of Indian groups lives in New Mexico when the Conquistadores moved in. Broadly speaking the Indians included those living in the Pueblo Area and those living in the surrounding Great Plains.
Rules for Naval Warfare from 1500 to 1850
My father, Gary Thomas, has always loved Naval warfare and hand crafted ships for both the Armada and Nelson periods. Although he has long since given up table top gaming and moved to computer games, in fond memory of those 1:1200 scale ships I thought I’d type up his rules. I have slightly edited the text, but the rule mechanisms remain unchanged.
Timeline for Mesoamerica
This Timeline was initially based on Davis (1973, p. xv-xvii). As Davis says “The difficulties encountered in arriving at an exact Timeline are considerable. Most of the later dates are reasonably certain, but some of the earliest ones are much less sure, and what seems the most probable figures has been given” (p. xv).
Painting Guide for Aztec and Texcalan Shields
This page covers the shield designs of both Aztecs and Texcalans (Tlaxcalans). The list below is not comprehensive and I recommend you look at the painting guides for Aztecs and their enemies for other shield patterns, or go straight to the Codices for more ideas. The nahuatl for shield is “chimalli”.
Rulers of the Mexica and of the Acolhua
The following is a list of rulers of the Mexica is compiled from Aztecs / Nahuatl / Tenochtitlán and Davis (1973).
Glossary of Aztec Military Terms
Indian words are in Nahuatl, and specifically Aztec, unless otherwise mentioned. Most references are from Heath (1999).
15mm Wargaming Figures to use for Conquistators, Aztecs and Maya
I’ve seen few of these figures so this page is largely based catalogues and on comments from the Meet the Aztecs web page by Jim Esler. Jim’s web page went through the figures figure code by figure code, but I wanted them sorted by the use of the figure.