Still, My Beating Heart! -An Aztec Game

 

Regular Readers will know that I have been pursuing an Aztec Game. It has been a long and winding road with False Dawns and near fatal influences. The latter were from games systems that impressed me sufficient to try and stuff the Aztecs into them.  My fault, not that of the game originators. Mind you, useful things were learned.

Anyhow, we have arrived at our destination.

This post gives an initial flavour of the key concepts of Still, My Beating Heart an Aztec Game. Future posts will take us through, unit profiles, encounters and eventually to a complete game. If that works I will offer it for publication.

Unit Sizes

Spanish units are of 12, 6 or 3 figures.

Aztec units are of 18 or 24 figures

Tlaxcalla units are of 18 or 24 figures

Otomi units are of 12 or 18 figures

Figure Scale and Basing- Up to you.

Casualties- Figure removal or tracking is your choice.

Key Concepts

Who's Who? An allied Spanish/Tlaxcala  force should have a minimum of two Tlaxcala units for every one Spanish unit.

Steel swords and Copper Quarrels- Convey advantage.

Armour- Steel is best. Meso-American armour works against Meso-American weapons. That why they, including many Spanish soldiers, wore it.

Mixed Units- The Aztecs, Spanish and Tlaxcala mainly fought in units with mixed abilities. Those units could both melee and shoot. Aztec and Tlaxcala units contained both professional warriors and levies.

Wounds Accrue- Hits insufficient to cause a kill or in excess of that amount accumulate for Spanish units. This has consequences.

Prisoner Lost- A Spaniard taken prisoner has consequences for all of the combatants.

Horse Lost- The loss of a horse will impact on Spanish behaviour regardless of if the Caballero is saved.

Sancta Maria, Pedro Alvarado, Axayacatl – The presence of a Friar, Pedro Alvarado or a Warrior wearing the battle armour of the Emperor Axayactl will boost morale for that side.

You First- Spanish units in combat distance of Aztecs cannot hold back and let their Tlaxcala allies do the fighting.

Hopefully, I have captured your interest. Next time with the Mexica we will look at unit profiles.

Also coming up, Dr James O'Neill has produced the first of two volumes on the Nine Years War for Helion. I'll review volume 1 here. My verdict? Don't hesitate. Then an update on my Billhooks Crusades Game, it's good news. Last but not least hopefully more Maximillian soldiers.

In times like this a fun hobby helps.

An Aztec game

 

The first draft of my Aztec Game is now done.  Wounds and different coloured dice proved to be the way in.  

I use a single colour dice for all Spanish troops and dice of two contrasting colours for all Amerindian units.  The contrast indicating elite or ordinary warriors. 

As an example, a unit of 16 Tlaxcalans gets 8 red dice for its front rank elite warriors and 8 white dice for its archers. Yellow and blue dice for the Aztecs. Easy enough to remember.

How does it work? Wounds and kills reduce a units fighting dice allocation. Armour helps prevent loss. Killing horses or riders and taking prisoners generate extra dice.  It is a simple enough system.

What’s it like?  Well Spanish cavalry are deadly but have to take care.  You can use them in realistically small numbers too.

The units follow what we know.  A sprinkle of missile troops with the swordsmen for the Spanish.  I’ve simplified the Aztec units into two rank affairs, front elite, the back not. Each Aztec unit is also accompanied by a small number of non close fighting skirmishers.  Should you wish, more complex options would also work.

Prisoner taking is done and dusted to my satisfaction.  It has consequences for both sides. Losing your heart after a dance isn’t a metaphor in this game.

It is a card driven game, with a special card each for Aztecs, Tlaxcalans and Spanish.  There is no figure removal and D6 are used throughout.  Any basing system will work.

In short, I’m pleased.   

Let me take you through two combat match ups and you can see what you think.

Three Spanish cavalry figures attack a 16 figure Aztec unit. One Spaniard hangs back in case a rescue is needed.  As the Spanish charge in, the Aztec front rank uses it’s Atl-Atl. One of the cavalry men is wounded but both charge home. The Aztec officer is killed and, in the furious fighting, so is a Spanish horse. The third rider swoops in and rescues his dismounted comrade.

The Aztecs lose 2 dice for their killed commander but gain 1 dice for killing the horse.  They have also used one of their two Atl-Atl shots.  The rescued Spaniard is dropped off with nearest Spanish infantry unit which consequently gains an extra dice. He has now become an infantryman.

Does this sound like Bernal's account?  Pretty much.

Both units are still in the game.  The Spanish feel they have been unlucky - which they were. Two out of three times they would have killed and retired intact.  It could have been worse, had they lost both horse and rider the Aztecs would have come off best.

Here is another one match up.

A unit of Aztec Priests sets out to tackle a unit of Tlaxcalans.  Half the Tlaxcalans are archers and they shoot up the Aztecs.  The elite front rank Aztecs are protected by their armour (Saving throws can apply) but some of the second rank are wounded.  The Aztec units lose a dice and continue to advance.

At close range the Aztecs are shot up again.  This time with both arrows and Atl-Atl (More deadly) from the front rank Tlaxcalan elite warriors. The Aztecs lose another 4 dice.  Their own Atl-Atl inflict a loss of two dice.

The Tlaxcalans now fight at a disadvantage.  Only their front rank is equipped and trained for close combat.  Outnumbered, they get the worse of it and are pushed back losing a prisoner in the process.

The Tlaxcalans began with 8 elite combat dice and now have only 2.  The archers still have all their 8 dice. The unit now needs to avoid close combat.

The Aztec Priests began with 8 elite combat dice and 8 other dice. They lost 4 elite and 1 other dice to missiles and combat. Now they have 7 other dice and 6 elite combat dice having gained 2 such dice for capturing a prisoner.

Both units are still in the game.  The remaining elite warriors of both units only have one Atl-Atl shot left.

That is where I have got to and I still don't have a title.  Should you have wondered, 5 sides of A4 so far. 

Early days then, but not without promise.

As to the toys, my Minifig's Aztecs are decades old and could do with a refurbishment.  I have a newer contingent from Naismith and Gladiator.  These two happily are very compatible with each other. I'll have some pic's for our next Aztec outing.

Why The Aztecs Lost

Why did the Aztecs lose?  The short answer is encapsulated in Jared Diamond’s pithy phrase Guns, Germs and Steel.  There was more to it than that. Above Tenochtitlan, the Spanish had seen nothing like it.

Let me begin by saying Cortez never faced the full strength of the Aztec Empire.  Had he done so he would have ended up stretched on the altar stone of the Great Temple.  That he did not is down to a number of factors, all of them Aztec related.

The Aztecs were not popular with their neighbours and didn’t see any need to be.  Consequently, when Cortez arrived, he was able to recruit whole armies of non- Aztecs.  All of them fully committed to destroying the Aztec State. 

Moctezuma (pictured above and below) equivocated on how to deal with the Spanish.  He tried bribery, he tried proxy war, he probably intended treachery.  We should understand that he would have been fully briefed on the Spanish, their conduct and intentions. 

Did he think they were returning gods?  I doubt it. The correct response would have been to mobilise everything he had and march on them.  This he failed to do.

Fatally, he allowed Cortez into Tenochtitlan with his whole army. It may be that he thought they would be easier destroyed there.  Indeed, when it came to it the Spanish did have a very hard time fighting in Tenochtitlan. They were driven out with heavy casualties.  By then it didn’t matter to Moctezuma for he was dead.

There were consequences to Moctezuma decision.

First the Spanish immediately took him prisoner rendering him a puppet Emperor.

Second deadly disease entered the city.

Third the Spanish took the occasion of a festival dance to mass murder most of the unarmed Aztec officer class.

Fourth the Spanish found out that the Aztecs were rich beyond dreams of avarice.  Gold rich, that is.  Spanish motivation, never lacking, abounded.

Moctezuma was killed during a riot either by the Spanish or his own people.  Once he was gone the Aztecs rose against the Spanish.  Let us now consider how they stood.

They needed a new Emperor and got one, Cuitláhuac, unfortunately he was already infected with small pox. He reigned a short time and died.  Before doing so he presumably set the resistance in motion. The Aztecs were to have a succession problem.

His successor was Cuauhtemoc a thoroughly able man. Today he is a Mexican national hero. Moctezuma by comparison seems mainly to be associated with stomach disorders.  

The Aztec military assembled.  Most of its leadership was dead. All ranks were sick or shortly to be so. Key allies decided to sit it out.  It was not the army Moctezuma had inherited.

These disadvantages notwithstanding the Aztecs walloped the Spanish and their allies. The Spanish called their retreat from Tenochtitlan the Night of Sorrows.  The slaughter was considerable.

The Spanish and their allies would be back.  The Aztecs simply lacked the strength to finish the job. Try as they might.   They had lost too many men and were losing more by the day.  Once they had boasted that they let Tlaxcala survive purely as a source of war prisoners for sacrifice. Tlaxcala endures yet.

Tenochtitlan fell after a most valiant defence. It was mainly destroyed in the process.  There is much to the Guns, Germs and Steel argument, especially if you add horses.  Even so, it is not hard to envisage how different decisions by Moctezuma could have produced other results.

For a moment let us imagine an early decisive Aztec victory. Fought outside of Tenochtitlan by a full strength Aztec Army. The Spanish dead or captured. Their Tlaxcala allies chastened in defeat and now ravaged by disease.  Perhaps too, civil war, for there was an anti-Spanish faction.

Disease, given Aztec prisoner practice, would have come to Tenochtitlan.  So though would have steel weapons, crossbows, metal armour and horses.   

Less centralised polities than the Aztecs managed to do an awful lot with those things.  

The last image on this page is by Diego Rivera.  If you don't know his work, check it out.  There is much to enjoy.

Some thoughts about Aztec Warfare

I’ve been thinking about Aztec warfare and how to represent it on the table top. I'm looking to produce games that read like an excerpt from The Conquest of New Spain written by the Conquistadore Bernal Diaz.  If you are interested in Aztec warfare that is the must read witness account.  You will want the Maudslay edition.

Lets start with the basic Aztec unit.  It contains troops of every quality.  Men who had never fought before, men who had a bit of experience and elite warriors.  That was the reality.  Naturally, the elite did most of the slaughtering.  The others did they best they could.  Motivation all round was high because fighting was how you got up the Aztec social ladder.

A composite unit then, with a mix of weapons. Some of those weapons were short range distance ones. Fighting commenced with a short range barrage followed by a fierce attack.  The elites led the fighting and everyone else joined in to the best of their ability.  Ambitious men, of whatever status, sought to take prisoners.  Those who did so might advance a social rank.

This means that we should rethink our idea of Aztec units. No more serried ranks of Eagle or Jaguar knights in neat units. Instead we should imagine them mixed together and supported by the other men of their neighborhood. 

Priests fought in their own units but again by temple.

I envisage a notional Aztec unit as comprising about one quarter of elite warriors and ditto experienced with the remaining half being more or less untried. All of the unit lived in the same locality.  In a wealthier area it might be one half elite warriors-remember social standing was intrinsically linked to battle field prowess.

 

The elite were the better fighters and also comprised the leadership of the unit.  This had consequences when the Aztecs met the Spanish.  We will get to that later.

For the moment how do we represent the different fighting abilities within our Aztec unit?  I've gone for different coloured dice.  Let's say our unit has four combat dice, one black, one red and two yellow.  The black dice requires a lower score to achieve a kill or wound than the red dice.  The yellow dice has less chance of causing a hit than both. The black dice represents the elite warriors, the red the experienced fellows and the yellow dice the new boys.  Should that prove to be over elaborate I'll move to one third, two thirds 1 black dice, two yellow ones.

Let's take this further.  Our elite warriors lead the fighting and so are more at risk.  Any casualties should come first from them.  As they are better protected and highly skilled they might benefit from a saving throw. Not so the lesser warriors.  If they become casualties that's that.  This all works well enough against other Meso-Americans. That, of course, covers most of the fighting, for allies always hugely outnumbered the Spanish contingent. 

Fighting the Spanish was different.

Spanish weapons utterly nullified Aztec armour.  Our elite Aztec warriors were much more likely to die when leading the attack against Spaniards.  Consequently, our Aztec unit could quite quickly lose its leadership and cohesion.  Morale then sharply diminished and unit withdrawal and collapse became likely. 

How to represent all this is vexatious.  As you might expect easy solutions do not readily come to mind.  Currently, I'm pondering Die Fighting by Bob Jones in this context.  Bob has given us something very elegant and very different.  My previous insight was that wounds were the way in to capturing what happened on the battlefield.  Bob's method which involves dice being gained or lost lends itself to what I have in mind.  A note of caution is needed here.  I can't just try to force what we know of Aztec warfare into Bob's innovative system.  That way lies failure.

I consider the above useful progress.  

Next, I need to think about captive taking and how it influenced the conduct of both Aztec and Spanish troops. Perhaps a winning Aztec unit gets an additional 'captive' dice for the second round of melee or any pursuit.  A score of 5 or 6 results in a captive.  Maybe, may be.  

An alternative might be to to give the Aztecs the option of turning a kill into a captive by way of a dice throw.  A dice throw because there was a chance that fellow Spaniards would rescue the would be prisoner.  That, after all, is how Cortez escaped death.

Here are some Aztec skirmishers should you have thought I'd forgotten them. 

Also, it maybe that Aztec Cuachic veteran warriors formed discrete units. Either operating as a reserve to the warriors of their locality  or leading the advance.  I'm going to go with that concept, not least because I have a surfeit elite warrior figures.

Welcome to an Aztec Game work in progress.  I'm minded to call it Bernal or perhaps Cuauhtemoc.  Will it work?  I don't know, but the journey should be interesting.

The time scale for progress is elastic.  I do want to first write something here about why the Aztecs lost.  There was more to it than Guns, Germs and Steel important as those three were.