Slitherine

Soooo Just how balanced would a Conquistadors army be IF it were made as a "what if" army for a "what if" battle against a European foe? THAT is what my old fart opponents and I are thinking about doing.

rbodleyscott wrote:

khurasan_miniatures wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote: This is more or less what happens to the Spanish Conquistadors in Cities of Gold, they do not have a list of their own. They are Superior but they only form very small proportion of an army which is otherwise mainly Tlaxcalan or Inca.

Oh my God!

Thank goodness I read this thread. I literally just last night commissioned Spanish troops to be sculpted, and now I have to de-commission them.

I was all ready to make them but will not make them if I also have to make a full line of Tlaxcalans or Inca. The American armies are very poor sellers and I'm not going to sink $2,000 into making another one.

Don't panic, the Spanish colonial list that we discussed still exists, it just doesn't start until 1526 in Mexico and 1542 in Peru. The earlier armies of the conquistadors are covered by the Tlaxcalan, Inca and Arawak lists.

Thanks for the reference links pippohispano.
Do you also know of any sources regarding the Colonial Portuguese in Malacca and/or South East Asia?

pippohispano wrote:

Try to read the descriptions of Castanhoso and Ribeiro. They seem to have no trouble with numbers, particularly Ribeiro, who puts allied Sinhalese numbers in much higher figures than the Portuguese.

The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543 As Narrated by [Miguel de] Castanhoso
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9135 ... d-by-casta

History of Ceylon: presented by Captain John Ribeiro to the king of Portugal
http://books.google.pt/books?id=D6M2AAA ... &q&f=false

Some times Western sources do take into account local auxiliars, as in your examples, but even in this case of first hand, balanced accounts, they simply don´t have accurate figures of the enemy, and they tend to grossly exagerate their numbers. That is why we get always the impression, even in the best Western sources, that Europeans are always heavily outnumbered.

The question as always is our European perspective. Did the Moluccans see themselves as subordinate allies of the Portuguese or did they see the Portuguese as useful subordinates who brought different ways of fighting allowing them to to finish off opponents. It would be unusual if the accounts of the time by western adventurers did not trumpet their successes and underplay the actions of the locals.

atatnet wrote:Thanks for the reference links pippohispano.
Do you also know of any sources regarding the Colonial Portuguese in Malacca and/or South East Asia?

Sorry but no, at least not in English.
Jorge de Lemos (a contemporary) wrote a book about 16th century sieges of Malacca, and of course there must be some stuff regarding the 1641 siege made by the Dutch.

Aryaman wrote: Some times Western sources do take into account local auxiliars, as in your examples, but even in this case of first hand, balanced accounts, they simply don´t have accurate figures of the enemy, and they tend to grossly exagerate their numbers. That is why we get always the impression, even in the best Western sources, that Europeans are always heavily outnumbered.

Of course, or course! For instance, there's an account of a battle (a skirmish, actually) between some 120 Portuguese and some 50.000 Mollucans! I don't say that it didn't happen (I wasn't there!), but I find it a little hard to believe.
Ribeiro, on the other hand, seems very trustable.

Aryaman wrote:

pippohispano wrote:

Try to read the descriptions of Castanhoso and Ribeiro. They seem to have no trouble with numbers, particularly Ribeiro, who puts allied Sinhalese numbers in much higher figures than the Portuguese.

The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543 As Narrated by [Miguel de] Castanhoso
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9135 ... d-by-casta

History of Ceylon: presented by Captain John Ribeiro to the king of Portugal
http://books.google.pt/books?id=D6M2AAA ... &q&f=false

Some times Western sources do take into account local auxiliars, as in your examples, but even in this case of first hand, balanced accounts, they simply don´t have accurate figures of the enemy, and they tend to grossly exagerate their numbers. That is why we get always the impression, even in the best Western sources, that Europeans are always heavily outnumbered.

We could say the same for most of the armies in the FOG AM lists when civilized armies fight "barbarians", but still the lists trust the sources that make the civilized «superior armies vs the inferior barbarians», it seems there's only mistrust on the reports of colonial battles. And if we speak of sources, what are the sources to make so many superior native troops ? for example what souces there are on Hawaian battles? Are those better than the sources for portuguese or dutch battles? more reliable? Please forgive my ignorance if that is so, but I just don't think so.

atatnet wrote:Thanks for the reference links pippohispano.
Do you also know of any sources regarding the Colonial Portuguese in Malacca and/or South East Asia?

I have forwarded your request for a bibliography to a friend who works in the history book business, and he came up with this list (I wasn’t aware that there were so much material in English), it is a little broader than your request, but I will leave it in case there are other people interested:

Anthony R. Disney, The Twilight of the Pepper Empire: Portuguese Trade in Southwest India in the Early Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1978.
Artur Teodoro de Matos, «The Financial Situation of the State of India during the Philippine Period, 1581-1635», in Indo-Portuguese History: Old Issues, New Questions, ed. T. R. de Sousa (New Deli, 1985).
Bailey W. Diffie, A History of Colonial Brazil, 1500-1792 (Malabar, FL, 1987).
Bailey Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580 (Minneapolis, 1977).
C. R. Boxer, Salvador de Sá and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola, 1602-1686 (Westport, CT, 1975).
Charles Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750: Growing Pains of a Colonial Society (Berkeley, CA, 1964).
Caio Prado Jr., The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil (Berkeley, CA, 1967).
Capistrano de Abreu, Chapters of Brazil’s Colonial History, 1500-1800 (New York, 1997).
Carl A. Hanson, Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal, 1668-1703 (Minneapolis, 1981).
Catherine Lugar, «The Portuguese Tobacco Trade and Tobacco Growers of Bahia in the Late Colonial Period», in Susan Socolow (ed.), The Atlantic Staple Trade: The Economics of Trade, vol. 2 (Brookfield, VT, 1996).
Celsa Pinto, Trade and Finance in Portuguese India: A Study of the Portuguese Country Trade (New Deli, 1994).
Colin Maclachland, «The Indian Directorate: Forced Acculturation in Portuguese America, 1757-1799», The Americas 28 (1972).
Dauril Alden (ed.), Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil (Los Angeles, 1983).
Dauril Alden, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil; with Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquis of Lavradio, Viceroy, 1769-1779 (Berkeley, CA, 1968).
David Grant Smith, The Mercantile Class of Portugal and Brazil in the Seventeenth Century: A Socioeconmic Study of the Merchants of Lisbon and Bahia (Ann Arbor, MI, 1985).
Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith (eds.), The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (Londres, 1978).
George Winius, The Black Legend of Portuguese India: Diogo do Couto, His Contemporaries, and the Soldado Prático (New Deli, 1985).
H. H. Keith e S. F. Edwards (eds.), Conflict and Continuity in Brazilian Society (Columbia, SC, 1969).
Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade – New Approaches to the Americas (Cambridge, 1999).
James Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Hapsburgs, 1580-1640 (Baltimore, 1993).
James Boyajian, Portuguese Bankers in the Court of Spain, 1626-1650 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1983).
John J. McCusker, Rum in the American Revolution: The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments of the Thirteen Continental Colonies, 1650-1775 (New York, 1989).
John M. Monteiro, «From Indian to Slave: Forced Native Labor and Colonial Society in São Paulo during de Seventeenth Century», Slavery and Abolition 9 (1988).
John Vogt, Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast, 1469-1682 (Athens, GA, 1979).
Joseph Miller, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830 (London, 1988).
Leslie Bethel (ed.), Colonial Brazil (Cambridge, 1987).
Lyman Johnson and Enrique Tandeter (eds.), Eighteenth-Century Price Movements in Latin America (Albuquerque, NM, 1989).
Mathias C. Kiemen, The Indian Policy of Portugal in the Amazon Region, 1614-1693 (Nova Iorque, 1973).
Niels Steensgaard, Carracks, Caravans and Companies: The Structural Crisis in the European-Asian Trade of the Early Seventeenth Century (Copenhagen, 1973).
Niels Steensgaard, The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade (Chicago, 1974).
P. K. O’Brien and Leandro Prados (eds.), The Costs and Benefits of European Imperialism from the Conquest of Ceuta, 1415, to the Treaty of Lusaka, 1974, Revista de História Económica 16 (1998), n.º 1
Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.), Africans in Bondage (Madison, WI, 1986).
Philip D. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa – Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade (2 vols., Madison, WI, 1975).
Pius Malekandathil, The Germans, the Portuguese and India (Munster, 1999).
Rene Barendse, The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century (Armonk, NY, 2002).
Richard Bonney (ed.), Economic Systems and State Finance (Oxford, 1995).
S. B. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia 1550-1835 (Cambridge, 1985).
S. Sideri, Trade and Power: Informal Colonialism in Anglo-Portuguese Relations (Rotterdam, 1970).
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700 (Londres, 1993).
Sanjay Subrahmanyam (ed.), Merchants, Markets and the State in Early Modern India (New Deli, 1990).
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500-1650 (Cambridge, 1990).
Susan Socolow (ed.), The Atlantic Staple Trade: The Economics of Trade, vol. 2 (Brookfield, VT, 1996).
Francisco Bethencourt and Diogo Ramada Curto (eds.), Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400-1800 (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2007).
David Birmingham, Portugal and Africa (Ohio University Press, 2004).
Oliveira Marques, Daily Life in Portugal in the Late Middle Ages (University of Winsconsin Press, 2006).
Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues and Tessaleno Devezas, Pioneers of Globalization: Why the Portuguese surprised the World (Centro Atlântico, 2007)
Martin Page, The First Global Village: How Portugal Changed the World (Casa das Letras, 2002).

IMO, we should include every book written by C. R. Boxer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._R._Boxe ... shed_works

Great list to peruse and try and find some to read.

Many thanks for the list of reference books!

Thanks Pippohispano for your thoughtful comments on this list. I was pretty disappointed when I first saw it too.

Have you worked up a version of the List yourself that you could share? I would be extremely interested to see it.

Nik and RBS really need to have a serious rethink on this list. I for one found their responses to your postings not all that helpful. If a list is to be included in a set of historical wargames lists like FoGR, there should be a minimum of serious effort to get them reasonably correct, otherwise I truly wonder what the point is.

cheers
Mark

Cawdorthane wrote:Thanks Pippohispano for your thoughtful comments on this list. I was pretty disappointed when I first saw it too.

Have you worked up a version of the List yourself that you could share? I would be extremely interested to see it.

Nik and RBS really need to have a serious rethink on this list. I for one found their responses to your postings not all that helpful. If a list is to be included in a set of historical wargames lists like FoGR, there should be a minimum of serious effort to get them reasonably correct, otherwise I truly wonder what the point is.

cheers
Mark

Hi Mark!

Today I've played a test game. My CP army was made of:
3 BG (Warriors, Superior, Arquebus, Impact Foot, Swordsmen), 6 bases each;
6 BG (Warriors, Average, Arquebus, Impact Foot, Swordsmen), 8 bases each;
1 BG, Medium artillery
1 BG, Light artillery

I faced an huge Indian army and from the onset it became clear that both elephants and cavalry would give me a hard time. My best hope was to attack and… hope for the best!

To be honest, I must say that I wasn’t very lucky with the dice (actually, in terms of luck, these last few weeks have been almost a Greek tragedy!) so, in a way, perhaps the test game suffered accordingly, but some things were made quite clear:
- In the Impact phase I hardly managed to inflict any casualties (that was cheer luck);
- In the Mêlée phase… was not for the additional “Swordsmen” (which is not in the official list), the Portuguese would fight evenly vs their opponents (something that usually didn’t happened).
- As expected. Elephants did gave a hard time (so much for the “fire lances” the Portuguese usually used against these beasts, see Ribeiro, for instance).

Where’s the arquebus “advantage” in all this? As it turned out, it’s not such a great advantage after all. As a rule, I managed to fire only once before my enemies charged (my opponent isn’t dumb!) so mêlée, rather than shooting, was the main determinant in this game. Without swords, the Portuguese are no match.

Should I use the original Colonial Portuguese list against the Javanese or the better still, the Maori, for instance, I would have faced up to 3 BG of Warriors, Superior, Impact Foot, Swordsmen, and huge numbers of their Average kin. I believe that, under those circumstances, The Portuguese would stand no chance.

If you’re willing, please test the above list and let us know.

Vasco also stepped forward with the idea of considering them as Warriors, Superior (up to 1/3) / Average, Salvo, Swordsmen.
It would still be accurate (they actually tended to fire a salvo and then charge, as I’ve written above) and it would mend that “we’re good at Arquebus, Impact Foot, Swordsmen” thing that some people may frown upon.
Try this out and let us know.

Thanks

Hello.

As you can see, I'm new to this forum, but on reading this thread I felt I had to speak my piece, as the subject is dear to me.

I'm Portuguese, and proud of it. I'm also an avid wargamer. As such, when I first saw the great ruleset that FOG offered combined with the oportunity to play genuine Portuguese historical armies, it was love at first sight.

As most people from the nations routinely regarded in the rulesets don't know, it's a sad feeling not being able to defend your own country's proud history on the table. FOG fixed that for me. I absolutely love my Medieval Portuguese army, and the feeling it gives me battling it out against my opponents. It's not a uber list (far from it), but you get the right feeling that it's close enough to historical accuracy, and that's great.

So, it was with great anticipation that i waited for the lists that belonged to the golden period of our history, when our small nation built an incredible global empire against all odds.

The first kick in the teeth was the lack of any kind of Portuguese list in the "trade and treachery" book, which, quite frankly, was a stunning overlook. Still, i perservered and waited for "Colonies and Conquest", since it covered some of our most glorious victories in history. Surely the list would reflect that?

Then the book came out, and I was quite speechless... This is supposed to be the list portraying the men that fought the English and the Dutch, the Turks and the Arabs, the Asians and the Africans, most of the time, heavily outnumbered, and still perservered?

Needless to say, I wasn't the only one with this feeling, and as such, Felipe took it upon himself to (quite rightly) expose this glaring mistake, only to see the author of the list, in a somewhat cavalier way, write it off as "didn't have enough research material, sorry, better luck next time?"

I understand that under pressure, some mistakes can happen to the best, but just tell me, how would you feel if it was your country?

Seeing the countless feats of bravery and prowess that are recorded and documented (often by our adversaries, as in the case of the battles against the Dutch) dismissed so?

Let me tell you that this is not a nice feeling. Furthermore, since this is a HISTORICAL game, the very least you could do is deliver historical correct armies, as you did in most cases in FOG.

So, far, I have to say that I'm not seeing the same level of work in the FOG:R lists, and as such, will not become a FOG:R player in the foreseable future.

Glaringly mystakes don't encourage people to play your game, dear sirs.

Thank you for reading.

HistoryGamer

Perhaps you could help me.
Use the "home list" I made and play some test games. Then let me know how it went.
Also you may try to substitute the "Warriors, Superior/Average, Arquebus, Impact Foot, Swordsmen" and use instead the combination "Warriors, Superior/Average, Salvo, Swordsmen".

Please beware that, just like the FOG Team, I don't want to make the Portuguese an "uber-army". I want them to be as good as they should, not as good as I would like them to be!

Best Regards,

pippohispano wrote:HistoryGamer

Perhaps you could help me.
Use the "home list" I made and play some test games. Then let me know how it went.
Also you may try to substitute the "Warriors, Superior/Average, Arquebus, Impact Foot, Swordsmen" and use instead the combination "Warriors, Superior/Average, Salvo, Swordsmen".

Please beware that, just like the FOG Team, I don't want to make the Portuguese an "uber-army". I want them to be as good as they should, not as good as I would like them to be!

Best Regards,

Good idea, pippohispano! I would also like to see a more historical Portuguese list.

Like HistoryGamer, I was waiting for "Colonies" to be released before buying all the FoGR books. However, I am currently putting this on hold pending more reviews/opinions on the "Colonies" book, as this is my main interest of the Renaissance era.

pippohispano wrote:
Use the "home list" I made and play some test games. Then let me know how it went.

Hi, have you tried using the list as written in a few games? If so did it do worse than the modified lists you are putting together?

By the way, work is proceeding on the 15mm Colonial Spanish I ordered to be sculpted. It might be a while before they are available, but work has begun. Frankly it would be great to have them ready by July, when the book comes out!

They look basically like the spanish in Ian Heath's Armies of the Sixteenth Centuries -- The Americas book. The crossbows and arquebusiers are a mix of pared-down European dress and the quilted garb that was adopted in the Americas, hats are a mixture of broad brimmed and narrow-brimmed sun hats, 16th C. bonnets, and helmets. The sword and buckler men are pretty much straight out of Heath, Fairly well protected, but will be in fighting poses. So the models are really not suitable for combat in Europe, which I know limits the versatility of the models, but AFAIK no one makes a whole line of dedicated Spanish for the Americas (might be wrong though?) and I wanted to just get that covered. I'll be making Spanish in typical Tercios for a later period anyway (the TYW period, in 18mm, to fight Nordlingen along with my TYW Germans), so I didn't want to make the same type fellows for the previous century.

Anyway, my question is, would these be suitable as Portuguese as well? Was Portuguese dress in the colonies markedly different from Spanish in the Americas? Thanks.

khurasan_miniatures wrote:

pippohispano wrote:
Use the "home list" I made and play some test games. Then let me know how it went.

Hi, have you tried using the list as written in a few games? If so did it do worse than the modified lists you are putting together?

Hi,
The list was so obviously flawed that I simply put it asside. Would you use 100 Years War English if they were classified as Average Crossbowmen?

khurasan_miniatures wrote: By the way, work is proceeding on the 15mm Colonial Spanish I ordered to be sculpted. It might be a while before they are available, but work has begun. Frankly it would be great to have them ready by July, when the book comes out!

They look basically like the spanish in Ian Heath's Armies of the Sixteenth Centuries -- The Americas book. The crossbows and arquebusiers are a mix of pared-down European dress and the quilted garb that was adopted in the Americas, hats are a mixture of broad brimmed and narrow-brimmed sun hats, 16th C. bonnets, and helmets. The sword and buckler men are pretty much straight out of Heath, Fairly well protected, but will be in fighting poses. So the models are really not suitable for combat in Europe, which I know limits the versatility of the models, but AFAIK no one makes a whole line of dedicated Spanish for the Americas (might be wrong though?) and I wanted to just get that covered. I'll be making Spanish in typical Tercios for a later period anyway (the TYW period, in 18mm, to fight Nordlingen along with my TYW Germans), so I didn't want to make the same type fellows for the previous century.

Anyway, my question is, would these be suitable as Portuguese as well? Was Portuguese dress in the colonies markedly different from Spanish in the Americas? Thanks.

Yes its suitable.
Portuguese and Spanish fashion followed the same trends, but perhaps the Spanish were a little bit more flamboyant.
I don't record any quilted vests but they surely wore brigandines.
The Portuguese and the Spanish used the same sort of hats and helmets, but unlike the Spanish, by late 16th century the Portuguese in the East dressed curious "balooned-shaped" trousers (you may check Jan Huygen van Linschoten's drawings to see what I mean).

pippohispano wrote:Hi,
The list was so obviously flawed that I simply put it asside. Would you use 100 Years War English if they were classified as Average Crossbowmen?

The rules writers usually say that the game is top down so it is designed to get the right effect. That might explain why the list was written as it is. Sometimes you look at a list and say, "huh?", but then when you play the army you see that it actually works. That's why I was asking. Perhaps a list which talks about the models the way we want it to might actually not make the models fight the way they actually did.

So if designating the English as crossbowmen makes them fight the way they did at Crecy, yes, I'd take it.

Yes its suitable.
Portuguese and Spanish fashion followed the same trends, but perhaps the Spanish were a little bit more flamboyant.
I don't record any quilted vests but they surely wore brigandines.
The Portuguese and the Spanish used the same sort of hats and helmets, but unlike the Spanish, by late 16th century the Portuguese in the East dressed curious "balooned-shaped" trousers (you may check Jan Huygen van Linschoten's drawings to see what I mean).

Ah ok, thanks. Well when they come out you can see if they work. As to the balloon trousers, my models are more for the 1530s-1570s anyway.

Just as an aside I think both the Colonial Dutch and Colonial Portuguese are the more competive armies (or allies) in the C&C book.

They can have their own combination of troops with interesting allies. Particularly the Elephant allies of India, Ceylon and Molucca area. What I haven't figured out is are they better as allies or with allies.

This doesn't fit the descriptions that people are looking for of small band of quality troops fighting and winning against the odds. But they "may" be competitive armies and are certainly numerous and have a number of tricks up their sleeve.

Depending on the Tupi list the portuguese in the western hemisphere could be interesting as well.