Conquistadors?

Are there any lists out there for Spanish in the New World?

My thoughts are 1Knt (or Cav?) 8 Blds, 3 Ps (Guns and Crossbows) and maybe an artillery option. There could also be Native allies (Tlaxcallans, etc...).

[Chris Brantley]

Steve Thomas has a great DBA variant with army lists called New World DBA:

http://balagan.org.uk/war/dbx/new_world/index.htm

I recall one of the DBA army lists (Toltec-Chichimec, IV/19) had a small Conquistador contingent that would be fielded within the list..but I may be thinking of the DBM equivalent.

Rudy Nelson has proposed the following variant list derived from the DBM lists:

SPANISH CONQUISTADORS 1518-40 (IV-19/81)
1 x 3Kn (G), 6 x 4Bd, 2 x 4Bw (CB), 1 x Art or 2Ps (HG), 2 x 4Bd (Ally)

Source: http://fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/Variants/dbmallies.html

If you'll search the Forum for Conquistadors, I recall you'll find a number of postings that touch on this topic.

Hope that helps.

I went with the Humberside orgs, as the number of Spaniards/Conquistadors involved in the conquest of the new world was very small. So Humberside works great and has allowed for some really fun games.
Humberside allows for 4 elements of Spaniards and 8 elements of Indian allies. The four Spaniards are - 1x4 blade, 1x4 shot(arquebusier) or 1x2 psiloi (crossbows), 1 knight (which is also assumed to be the general), and 1 artillery.

Hope this helps,

Terry

I would go with three or four elements of Spanish, the rest Native Allies; At least for formal battles (Whichc is more or less what the DBA Model is about). Use the Tarascan (IV/19), Mixtec (IV/53) or Aztec (IV/63) list as a base, Replace the General with a 3Kn (QK against all the foot)(G), Spanish Bd and one Shooter (Arquebus/Cb); The rest should be native Allies.

Thats what is so amazing about the Conquest, until the microorganisms kick in, the Aztecs own ability to win friends was what defeated them....

Karl G

Thanks. These are helpful answers. I'm inclined to think the guns and CB would work better as Ps so they could support the blades. I wonder if the horses should be cavalry since they would charge and fall back to the blades, but the quick kill of knights seems like a realisic effect. The thing is that knights might struggle against bow armed natives.
Also, would you class the Tlaxcallans as the Aztec list or the Tarascan list? The Tarascan list makes them different from the Aztecs by a heavy bow contingent. The Osprey books imply they relied heavily on bows, while Ian Heath's book seems to indicate a closer similarity to the Aztecs.

By the way, the Ian Heath book is an awesome repository of knowledge on this time period. I got it off of Amazon.com and I highly recommend it.

One more by the way: Does anyone know where I might find accounts of Legazpi and the Conquistores in the Philippines (and elsewhere in the Pacific)?

Il Duce, The Tlaxacans would fall under the Tarascans in DBA, as that is the closest for them. And I agree the Ian Heath book is awesome. FYI, they pronounce their name as T-lash-a-cans, the 'X' always has an "sh" sound to it. For example Mexico would be pronounced Ma-she-co. interesting isn't it and a great history to study. I just finished my Tlaxacna army and am doing the last stand of Conquistadors to go with them now. Good luck, and keep us posted,

Terry

Originally Posted by Terry37

Il Duce, The Tlaxacans would fall under the Tarascans in DBA, as that is the closest for them. And I agree the Ian Heath book is awesome. FYI, they pronounce their name as T-lash-a-cans, the 'X' always has an "sh" sound to it. For example Mexico would be pronounced Ma-she-co. interesting isn't it and a great history to study. I just finished my Tlaxacna army and am doing the last stand of Conquistadors to go with them now. Good luck, and keep us posted,

Terry

Terry,

Phonetically, I'd spell Mexico as May-He-Koh. And Tlaxacans has several variant spellings that make for a different pronunciation. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to pull all my research materials out and spend the time looking this up, as interesting as it would be.

This subject is my current DBA obsession. None of the previously published lists covering the Spanish in the New World is completely satisfying. My notes on the subject are now at 40 pages and climbing, and I may very well have a book-length manuscript when I'm done. As I read more and more on the subject, I'm astonished by the number and variety of battles fought during the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The period seems like it has been badly underepresented in wargaming in general.

Steve Thomas's variant is cool, but I'm committed to keeping the game to 12 elements per side, so that if someone someday wants to run a battle between the Medieval Germans and the Argentinian Querandi, the armies will have the same number of stands. The Humberside Extension lists are a good starting point, and I like using the Jaeger and Shot elements they include. But the single option provided for the Mexican and Peruvian conquests are only vaguely appropriate for those campaigns, and they were written without reference to the full list of elements included in DBA 2.0.

I also find it too limiting to define the Spanish as a handful of armored cavaliers and gunners adrift in a sea of native allies. There are plenty of cases where Spanish troops engaged native warriors with no known aid from allied nations. And there are perhaps as many engagements between the armies of rival conquistadors as they fought with indigenous opponents.

The Soanish were often profoundly outnumbered by the Americans they faced, but since the native armies were unable to affect the Spanish at anything beyond bow range, there was a limit to how many of their soldiers could actually participate in the fighting at once. And even if the Spanish themselves were a tiny fraction of the troops in their combined armies, killing the European leaders was the only realistic way of defeating them.

The lists as published to date, in both DBM/DBR and the Humberside Extension, focus on just the first acts of the Conquest in Mexico and Peru. None of the lists published so far would do a good job of illustrating either side in the Mixton rebellion, Balboa's campaigns in Panama, or Manco Inca Yupanqui's siege of Cuzco, just to name a few examples.

I thought that it would be easy to come up with lists that covered the Spanish effort on a regional basis. But the conquistadors present such a confusing picture of divided loyalties and persistant rivalries that the only method that make much sense to me is to attach each list to a specific commander, many of whom campaigned in several different parts of the new world. I've got about ten of them written up so far; the next step is to work on lists to cover the native American nations that they fought. I haven't even begun to think about what kind of miniatures might be used to represent them on the table....

This is already a long post, so I'll break this here, then write another with an example of the lists I've come up with, along with way too much historical background. Wikipedia is truly a wonderful thing.

Andy Hooper
Seattle

Here's an especially obscure example of my conquistador lists. "Jg" represents a Jaeger element, which moves 3" and fires at +2 to a 3" range.

G) Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon in the Carolinas, 1521-1526
Littoral Aggression: 1
1 x 3Bd (Gen), 2 x 3Bd or 3Ax, 1 x 3Cb, 1 x 2Jg, 2 x 3Ax (sailors & armed slaves), 5 x 2Ps

Historical Notes:
Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon (c. 1475 – 1526) is one of the more obscure figures of the age of exploration, but he has the distinction of having founded the first European settlement within the boundaries of the present-day United States. There is no clear agreement as to where his colony was located, but strong evidence indicates that it did exist, including eyewitness accounts from its bedraggled survivors.

Vasquez de Ayllon was fortunate to make the voyage to Hispaniola in the 30-ship fleet of its new colonial Governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cacéres. Ovando led the first mission to the new world organized to include members of all levels of Spanish society, as well as a cross-section of trades and professions. It was the arrival of Ovando’s mission in 1502 that marked the beginning of civilized life for most immigrants in the colony. Vasquez de Ayllon took enthusiastic advantage of the encomienda system, planted lucrative crops like sugar cane, and quickly became a wealthy man. Eager to explore even more territory for exploitation, and interested in the possibility of a northwest passage to India, he bankrolled a small fleet under the command of Francisco Gordilla in 1521.

Gordilla sailed around the tip of Florida, up its eastern coast, and some distance beyond. He returned with positive impressions of the territory he had seen. This inspired de Ayllon to seek a charter from Emperor Charles V, granting him the right to establish colonies in any lands that he discovered. After one more personal reconnaissance mission in 1525, he gathered a fleet of six ships, recruited 500 European colonists and purchased 100 African slaves to support a new colony on the Atlantic coast. They departed from Santo Domingo in the middle of July, 1526.

Because he shared the then common misconception that the American coastline was either the easternmost extension of Asia itself or a large archipelago east of that continent, de Ayllon held out hope that he would find either Asian settlements or an ocean passage to India somewhere in the course of his exploration. Therefore, he carefully explored the coasts of Florida and Georgia on his way north, finally making his first permanent landfall somewhere in Winyah Bay, South Carolina, on September 29th, 1526.

A considerable mythology has built up around this first settlement, which de Ayllon named San Miguel de Guadalupe. Most historians and archeologists who have worked on the problem now believe that it was located near the mouth of the Pee Dee river in South Carolina. But another tradition holds that the Spanish settlement was on the James River peninsula in Virginia, very near or at the site of the later English colony at Jamestown. There’s no question that Vasquez de Aylllon sailed up the James river later in 1526, and he was also the first European to discover the Chesapeake Bay. It’s possible that he could have founded a second outpost on the banks of the James, but there is no compelling evidence to suggest that he did.

The location on Winyah Bay was not a healthy one, and Vasquez de Ayllon resolved to move the expedition south again. Their ships damaged by rocks and storms, some of the colonists built new boats, while others marched overland. The colony was most likely re-established on Sapelo Island, Georgia.

San Miguel de Guadalupe suffered a steady attrition of colonists as Vasquez de Ayllon searched for his passage to India. There were several battles with indigenous warriors. But de Ayllon probably did not survive long enough to supervise the defense of the colony, as he died of “ship fever” before the end of 1526. The new San Miguel persisted for less than a year. As the despairing Europeans resolved to return to Hispaniola, the African slaves decided that life in the wilderness was preferable to continuing bondage, and they escaped into the forest. Some of them probably survived and became part of the nearby native societies.

Army Notes: De Ayllon’s expedition to Carolina seems to have had more interest in mercantile and exploratory pursuits than military conquest, and so the forces they raised to face conflicts with the indigenous Americans were improvised with the personnel available. However, this also made the expedition well-suited for craft and construction projects, including boat-building, so it is particularly appropriate to take advantage of the littoral invasion option with this army. On the other hand, no account mentions the presence of any horses in the colony, so the list contains no mounted elements.

Andy Hooper
Seattle

Originally Posted by APHooper

I thought that it would be easy to come up with lists that covered the Spanish effort on a regional basis. But the conquistadors present such a confusing picture of divided loyalties and persistant rivalries that the only method that make much sense to me is to attach each list to a specific commander, many of whom campaigned in several different parts of the new world. I've got about ten of them written up so far; the next step is to work on lists to cover the native American nations that they fought. I haven't even begun to think about what kind of miniatures might be used to represent them on the table....

This is already a long post, so I'll break this here, then write another with an example of the lists I've come up with, along with way too much historical background. Wikipedia is truly a wonderful thing.

Andy Hooper
Seattle

Ok, Andy let me pick your brain...

Any ideas on a force make up for:

Pedro Menendez de Aviles' force based in St. Augustine and attack on Ft. Caroline?

Conquistadores are one of my favorite subjects, I have not research them as they are not an army that I can bring to conventions (as they are not tournament legal). Otherwise I would be all up in that.