Conquistadors

The Aztecs’ last great foe was the Spanish, and a conquistador force seemed like an interesting one to model.  Cortez and the others usually had small cores of Spaniards and hordes of allied Americans — the Aztecs were not loved by their subjects.   My conquistador army is less than 12 elements because the various Native American figures can stand in for their allies.

All of these figures are Revell 30 years war figures.

I thought they should have some swordsmen (Blades) and made two elements:

The two fellows on the left end are from the Artillery set.  The one in the rear was walking with a staff which I lengthened to make into a large cross; the guy in front of him had a sword added to his empty hand.

There were also a fair number of pikemen amongst the Conquistadors, although they would not be terribly useful against a foe with no horses and losts of archers, slingers, and dart throwers (Bw, Ps, & Aux in the lists).  I suppose the Blades and Warband would have to think twice befroe charging them, though.

The first picture is almost entirely converted gunners:

Only the guy with his pike straight up is out of the box; the rest were reloading their muskets.  I removed the guns and “12 apostles” from their sashes and drilled their hands for the wire pikes.

The next element is mostly unconverted but the two holding their pikes over their heads were originally clubbing with their guns.

Of course the most terrifying weapon to the natives were the guns and crossbows which so badly out-ranged their bows.  (Actually the Aztecs feared the Spaniard’s war dogs even more, but these are not represented in DBA).
For aquebusiers, I used unconverted soldiers with guns set on rests.  The crossbowmen (which originally outnumbered the arquebusiers) I made from figures holding their guns diagonally:

As I did with the Military order crossbowmen , I melted the barrels of the guns, pinched the blob flat before it cooled, and drilled a hole for a bent piece of wire. I also cut off the powder vials from their sashes.

The general can be a blade or, while he had horses, a Knight.  I’m not sure if Cortez fought on foot when horses were available but I could see him doing it to encourage the men.  Anyway, this is not a conversion:

In reality, the first conquistadors probably did NOT wear Morion helmets, but just like Romans with square shields it’s what we expect to see and I was satisfied to use them as-is.

The conquistador army has:
1 x Kn
2 x Bd
2 x Pk
1 x Cb
2 x Bw (Arquebusiers)
1 x Art (crude trebuchet as they built inside Mexico City or else a cannon)
I have not used them yet but would give them a list that looks like:

Ag4. Arable.
1 x Kn or Bd (gen), 1 x Art or Bd, 2 x Pk or Bw, 1 x Cb, + 7 x (Ps or Aux or Hd)
The enemies would be Aztecs, Incas, Amazonians, Chimu, Chanca, Tupi, and other Conquistadors.  The 7 allied elements would obviously be native enemies or revolting subjects of the Aztecs.

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