Meso American Supplement ?

[Rudy_Nelson]

Tell me again why Commoners and Ordinary warriors should be drilled? I may have overlooked the reason earlier in the thread, Manuals on such troops being drilled?

Jaguar and Eagle Military Orders, I can see, even some mercenaries.


With my commoners / peasants I gave an option of either Average or Poor but Undrilled. The Subject troops would be less willing to fight, so I had them as Poor. mercenary archers I had as Average.
Allies
Tlaxcalan allies – See “???”
Tarascan City-State allies
Toltec City-state allies

[eldiablito]

"Azteca" list.
Jaguar or Eagle 'suits':

"Arrow" 'suits

I like it... You already mentioned how there is a fair amount of debate about IF there ever were Arrow suit units. On the other hand, almost all warriors, suit or otherwise, carried slings, atlatl or bows with them, in addition to their obsidian "swords". I could see them getting the equivalent of Javelins or slings as well. If anyone was to get Swordsmen, it would be these guys. That said, I would NOT give them Skilled Swordsmen and I will explain later...

These warrior stands are great except that they should NOT be swordsmen IMO. They should be Impact Troops, but I have an issue with the fencing aspects of being Swordsmen. Additionally, you listed Veterans, I'm assuming that you are refering to the Cuachic warriors that had 3 mohawks?

No HF cos it doesn't seem at all likely in context/definition.

I would simply state that the rough terrain of Meso-America made it difficult to fight OUTSIDE of the rough and difficult ground. It would be too hard to simulate legonair blocks while trapsing through the Yucatan (for example).

Impact Foot cos of various Spanish accounts relating the absolute savagery of their charge....

Skilled swords for some of the 'suits' cos of a number of 'fencing' accounts of captured prisoners being able to use wooden unedged swords to beat off other suited attackers (then choosing to be sacrificed anyhows !); that, and the pretty clear focus on gaining prisoners (at least in 'later' azteca times) must have lead to higher-order 'fencing' skills against contemporaries (?). Plus, there seems to be little doubt that at least some of the 'suits' spent a fair chunk of their time training in the martial arts.

I like your argument and against contemporaries (ie. Tlaxcallans versus Aztecs) it would make sense. Unfortunately, this just does not hold true for metal versus obsidian. Although I did not try this out myself, there was some History channel documentaries about the Cortez/Aztec skirmishes and they even did a sample parry of the Meso-American macuahuitl against a replica Spanish sword. Even a single parry destroyed any use of the obsidian blades. This is the beginning of my issue with calling any of the troops Swordsmen. The obsidian blades were never designed to do anything past that initial blow. It was expected for them to capture someone quickly, bring them back to a holding pen, repair their weapons and return to the fight.

Your last sentence catches my eye because very few people seem to understand that every Mexica boy went to a military school. You could equate it on some levels to Spartan training of their own boys. There they learned how to fight with all the available weapons. They were trained to fight loosly, but with an awareness of different roles and how to set up ambushes and what/not.

Beyond that... I believe that the ONLY reason that the Aztecs appeared to be so numerous was because you have heavily biased accounts from Bernal Diaz's journals (a soldier within Cortez's expedition for those who do not know). Within his accounts, the spaniards tried to make their situation seem even more tenuous and over-inflate their self-worth. So, if people thought that the hundreds of Hd stands was a good representation of the number and quality of the Aztec warriors, perhaps they should re-think the acutal number of stands.

Have ignored 'Light Spear' for the atatl cos it seems to have left a considerably lesser impression than the charge itself.

Interesting... I sorta thought that the Aztecs fought a bit like an orderly mob. There were ranks of mixed weapons and abilities instead of clearly armed pikemen (for example). The mixed weapons would mean that when charging or being charged, the men would through sling stones, javilens, and ready their spears; much like the Romans would throw their pilums. One could argue that the Aztec army further moves into the relm of impact troops, but it could also make them have a slightly defensive aspect to them; hence a Light or Defensive Spear trait...

All in all, a great start for discussion!

[Montezuma49]

I'm really glad I started this thread, it seems to have got a bit of interest going.

"Your last sentence catches my eye because very few people seem to understand that every Mexica boy went to a military school."

This is one of the reasons why I could never understand the Horde classification in DBM. Any other nation that followed this policy would have had significantly better grading for their basic troops, hence my comments regarding systemic bias.

I tend to agree that the "Arrow" Knights as a body are probably not historical, but that individual suit wearers may have used the bow, and this is where the idea came from.

Nearly all the commoners would have had a sling, and all of the fighting men would have been equipped with a missile weapon of some sort.

The grading as swordsmen would depend on the context of the book, when it is published. If it is written from the point of view of native Americans only, then they should be swordsmen. However, if the Spanish are to be included, a bit late, but possible, then at least when fighting them then maybe they should lose the ability. I also think that the suit wearers and veterans should be skilled swordsmen when looked at from a native American point of view.

Of course these are all a matter of opinion.

regards
Paul

[SirGarnet]

One of the more important bits of design philosophy about lists in the rules, after mentioning the 250 man/base approximate average on p124:

"but in practice we recommend ignoring this and treating each army as a coherent whole, represnting whatever full-sized army its prototype usually fielded. Our companion list books are specifically designed to create the correct SHAPE and feel of each army, allowing a good historical representation of how it fought."

This ties in with the top-down performance-oriented approach to troop classification to put behavior and tactical dynamics in focus rather than details of actual equipment, and to do this in the context of the overall army and its opponents rather than on a bottom-up troop type basis.

What this means is that presence of numerous hordes of indifferent troops of no great tactical value can be represnted by a single BG of Mobs. Troops of a particular kind that would have always been used in a single body even if numerous might be be limited to 1 BG while those routinely divided between the flanks might be set at 2 BGs. It's the shape and feel then -- not the actual numbers in a particular recorded instance.

In terms of capabilities, an example would be to look at the tactical significance of Skilled Swordsmen: it cancels the Heavy Weapon plus in Melee and the Swordsmen plus as well, and counts positive except against elephants, mounted swordsmen, and Steady Sp/Pike. Spanish swordsmen had an advantage. Other Mesoamericans similarly equipped would have been about equal - this might be represented by giving no Swordsmen factor to the Aztecs or their opponents, provided the troops involved still interacted with other types correctly. Classification should match up to the interactions we are trying to model. The notes/arguments documenting the rationale for each troops type can cover both historical equipment and how the classification models behavior and relative capabilities against its opponents.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled very interesting Aztec/Inca thread.

Mike

[Rudy_Nelson]

Monte is right. Some classifications will be based upon designer guidelines for ALL army lists provided by Mr Scott. Some of this is to keep game mechanics operating correctly and some is to keep armies realistic in the overall context.

[lutonjames]

Ian Heath - armies of the Aztecs, Incas etc. p33- regarding Aztecs ' no standing army' 'Howerever, they remained collections of individually courageous warriors rather than properly constituted, formally administerred and displined companies, and outside of the their service either on campaign or in a civil administration capacity- their time appears to have been effectively their own'

So no drilled rating in my opinion- or all medieval knights should get drilled ratings!

p35 'They had no style of fencing, neither did they charge directly, but skirmished and rushed back and forth'

So no heavy infantry, but medium infantry- and no skilled swordsmen- if swordsmen at all.

Don't think any native americans such get heavy weapons- as armour seems to have been effective against all native weapons.

Troop Ratings;
Peasants- poor
Warriors- average
Suit wearers inc. Cuachic- superior- with Cuachic as impact.

[eldiablito]

Well, the new book came out for Imperial Romans. In it, we can see how untrained, warbands (coining a DBA/M term) are represented in FoG. This gives us new insite into how we can create theoretical Meso-American army lists. Today, warbads might be described as:
Medium Foot, Average, Protected, Undrilled, Impact, Swordsmen.

Well, since the Aztecs were no way worse than Dacians and early British we can assume this for your normal citizen warrior:
Medium Foot, Average, Protected, Impact

Now, warbands would simply rush forward and crush their opponents. Some elite groups might be able to charge, retreat and charge again, but undrilled makes sense. Fortunately for Aztecs, they attended a military school, were trained in the use of all weapons and were especially trained in laying wait in ambush. These types of actions might improve them, but I would say that Drilled would be more appropriate. So now, we see them as:
Medium Foot, Average, Protected, Drilled, Impact

Now swordsmen seems to work, IF you assume that they only fought contemporary enemies. Once you bring in Spanish Conquistadores, then all heck breaks out. So we assuming we ignore the limitations of obsidian weapons:
Medium Foot, Average, Protected, Undrilled, Impact, Swordsmen.

We can discuss the psiloi type troops later...

[SirGarnet]

Representing weapons which, brittle or not, are effective at slicing and dicing unarmoured or lightly armoured targets but not against metal armour, I would suggest

Swordsmen* - treated as Swordsmen except that it does not count as a POA against Swordsmen, Skilled Swordsmen, Armoured or Heavily Armoured troops.

Thus it does count against Unprotected or Protected targets, and for what it's worth against Chariots, Artillery and Battle Wagons, Elephants already neutralizing this POA.

Mike

[carlos]

Representing weapons which, brittle or not, are effective at slicing and dicing unarmoured or lightly armoured targets but not against metal armour, I would suggest

Swordsmen* - treated as Swordsmen except that it does not count as a POA against Swordsmen, Skilled Swordsmen, Armoured or Heavily Armoured troops.

Thus it does count against Unprotected or Protected targets, and for what it's worth against Chariots, Artillery and Battle Wagons, Elephants already neutralizing this POA.

Mike

No armybook so far has created a new PoA to accomodate a new troop type, so I'm not sure it'd happen for the mesoamericans. I guess you could cost the Swordsmen* PoA as .5 AP since all BGs are bought in even numbers anyway. Not a very attractive PoA mind you!

[SirGarnet]

No armybook so far has created a new PoA to accomodate a new troop type, so I'm not sure it'd happen for the mesoamericans. I guess you could cost the Swordsmen* PoA as .5 AP since all BGs are bought in even numbers anyway. Not a very attractive PoA mind you!

It works nicely against everything except alien invaders from another (Old) world. I was assuming it would cost 1 AP, but its value depends on what other POAs for Melee are out there and 0.5 may make sense. I think the idea was to play the army now and worry about the army lists if and when they come out.

Mike

[carlos]

A BG of 8 medium Foot, Average, Protected, Undrilled, Impact, Swordsmen* are 52 points which is about right for what they're worth. They're definitely happy slicing and dicing their contemporaries but would die horribly to Spanish sword & buckler men (MF, Avg or Sup, Armoured, Drilled, Skilled Swordsmen) unless the ferocity of their charge gives them the advantage. So i'm very happy with this classification.

[Rudy_Nelson]

Based on the guidelines that I have seen, I do not see Swordsmen* becoming a troop type.

I had brought up the issue of actual enemy ratings versus late (liek Spanish) or non-actual enemies (in a tournament). A was given some precise and logical guidelines and justifications for maintaining ratings vs actual enemies the same as against pseudo-enemies.

Maintaining rating based on actual situations/ conditions must be the norm when you are talking about covering many regions of the world and eras. If you decide on exemptions for troop types, it will snow ball. The result will be nothing but a series of additional rules and countless revisions of all the charts (combat, point costs, movement, etc) and therefore supplement will have to be revised as well as rule pages and quick reference sheets. The result will be nothing but chaos with a slow ponderous rules system.

Another point: In regards to Meso-American troops with glass or copper edged 'swords', these turn into effective clubs even if the edging breaks on armor. Concusive weapons were effective throughout history on armoured troops.

[SirGarnet]

Based on the guidelines that I have seen, I do not see Swordsmen* becoming a troop type.

I don't yet subscribe to the domino theory that army list special rules (like English billmen and bowmen interpenetrating!) necessarily snowball to chaos, but you are likely right about no new troop type. However, that's the business of the authors and the publishers in several years. Meanwhile, rather than second guess them, all we need to concern ourselves with here is how to properly represent the combats in question.

For Melee factors the choices are:
Spearmen (also Impact POA)
Heavy Weapon (also Impact POA against all foot; neutralizes enemy armor POA)
Swordsmen
None

Swordsmen works against local opponents. For anti-Spanish historical scenarios, I suggest that Swordsmen* works better.

For tournaments and official list, there is an easy fix. Swordsmen works fine with the stated assumption that armies with primitive weapons when matched against more advanced opponents are assumed prior to invading new regions in space and time to have upgraded some of their equipment in culturally appropriate ways by capture, purchase or imitation to achieve the described POA results (i.e., the English sell sword blades and advisers to the Aztecs, who then incorporate them in their weapons, preserving the same overall appearance, then sacrifice the advisers, thereby cutting off further supply of technology from the indignant English and freezing them at the appropriate level of development). Thus the only people to have a major advantage over the Aztecs are the Spanish in early battles.

Problem solved?

Back to the Spanish invasion scenario?

[Rudy_Nelson]

"...However, that's the business of the authors and the publishers in several years. Meanwhile, rather than second guess them, all we need to concern ourselves with here is how to properly represent the combats in question..."

Mike, not all of the members of the design teams have moderator logos. I have been told that a number of members do not have the moderator logo.

[Keef]

hmmmmmm . . . good discussion thread . . .

the list design bug-bear is whether the weight should be applied to "vs contemporary opponents" or to "vs all opponents" . . . someone (above) suggested that the already published lists give us a pretty good feel for the design approach . . . and this seems to have been well canvassed by the authors (et al) . . . ie a leaning towards "vs contemporary" within an overall "army feel" . . .

the azteca had (ish) 150 years 'history' against contemporary opponents and 3 years 'history' against el conquista . . . and, let's face it, the final contest was one of economics and social-politics (like all wars throughout history) - witness the abundance of 'allies' without whom the spanish would likely not have made it . . . (not including the disease factor !) . . . in any event, certainly not a clash between equal points worth of BGs of toy soldiers, however equipped! . . .

so, for my money, the core azteca mix in FoG terms would be warriors as MF, unprotected or protected, average, undrilled, impact foot, swordsmen . . . still doesn't play too out of kilter for anti-spanish events . . . and for the 'suits', I feel that MF, protected, superior, drilled, impact foot, skilled swordsmen gives them a distinct lift from the masses <and> sets them apart in terms of potential contemporary opponents . . . skirmishers categorisation isn't so important (really) though should reflect a mix of slings and bows (neither particularly predominant) and maybe a few atatl throwers . . .

all that remains, then, is to add some 'colour' to the mix . . . for example, a BG of arrow 'knight' with, say, bow* . . . a BG each of, priests or cuahic as undrilled skilled swordsmen . . . a BG of otomi as undrilled heavy weapon . . . a BG of chicimec as drilled, bow . . .

the core mix I have outlined is still reasonably balanced in a toe-to-toe match vs spanish . . . the azteca MF suffering at the hands of mounted (no skilled swords for a POA, and a cohesion test minus for MF in open against mtd) . . . the spanish armoured foot will carry a melee POA . . . so, the azteca will need to make their weight of numbers and impact charge count for something . . . overall, not too 'unhistorical' I suspect . . . and, this mix will give the azteca 'suits' some advantage over contemporary opponents . . .

[eldiablito]

so, for my money, the core azteca mix in FoG terms would be warriors as MF, unprotected or protected, average, undrilled, impact foot, swordsmen . . . still doesn't play too out of kilter for anti-spanish events . . . and for the 'suits', I feel that MF, protected, superior, drilled, impact foot, skilled swordsmen gives them a distinct lift from the masses <and> sets them apart in terms of potential contemporary opponents . . . skirmishers categorisation isn't so important (really) though should reflect a mix of slings and bows (neither particularly predominant) and maybe a few atatl throwers . . .

While I agree for the most part, I still think that the complexity of their strategies would make them Drilled (more often than not). All the same, Undrilled is not going to overly change the feel if they have enough access to other Drilled sources. I do think that there should be plenty of Bow, Bow*, javelins, and slings. These should (mostly) be light foot, but I don't see why they cannot get access to medium foot as well. Also, I do have some issue with skilled swordsmen being applied to anything Meso-American (I'll explain later)

all that remains, then, is to add some 'colour' to the mix . . . for example, a BG of arrow 'knight' with, say, bow* . . . a BG each of, priests or cuahic as undrilled skilled swordsmen . . . a BG of otomi as undrilled heavy weapon . . . a BG of chicimec as drilled, bow . . .

While I do agree in theory, would think that cuachic as skilled swordsmen nor otomi as heavy weapons. I'll explain later. Essentially, the Aztec berzerkers should be a different set of BG of MF, protected, superior, undrilled, impact foot, swordsmen.

the core mix I have outlined is still reasonably balanced in a toe-to-toe match vs spanish . . . the azteca MF suffering at the hands of mounted (no skilled swords for a POA, and a cohesion test minus for MF in open against mtd) . . . the spanish armoured foot will carry a melee POA . . . so, the azteca will need to make their weight of numbers and impact charge count for something . . . overall, not too 'unhistorical' I suspect . . . and, this mix will give the azteca 'suits' some advantage over contemporary opponents . . .

I too, think you have something fairly "realistic" for the aztec/spanish conflicts (this is a good thing). However, what if the Aztecs had a larger population of superior and elite swordsmen and all other Meso-American nations had more Average and only a few Superior? That way there would be a reasonable advantage for the Aztecs. Likewise, if the Spaniard BGs all had Armored and Skilled Swordsmen, then they would have 2 POAs that would make them resemble the romantic descriptions found in Bernal Diaz's accounts of the Spanish Conquista. Likewise, if the Conquistadores were all Drilled, Superior (maybe a single Elite) and Heavy foot (and Cavalry), then they would be very expensive and small (again, very historical and fitting in with the romanticized historical perspective as well).