The Reduced Aztec Show

Some of you may recall, a few weeks ago, my concerns over downsizing my collection of toy soldiers. I invited The Estimable Mrs P. to examine the problem, and she did have a few comments. The first one was to suggest, as gently as possible, that I perhaps had too many soldiers. Given that the labels had fallen off some of the boxes, it was not unreasonable to suppose that I had forgotten what was in them. In point of fact, of course, I had not, but the suggestion remained on the table, as it were.

Taking my concerns to the blogosphere resulted in some suggestions. Firstly, some smaller boxes, in terms of height, were suggested. This is well taken, but remains to be implemented, although the Estimable Mrs P. has authorised further investigations. In truth, I have only just measured the height of a lot of my troops and started to determine which armies will fit (basically, those without pike or lancers) and which will not. The results suggest that a considerable saving in height could be achieved, with the subsequent ability to pile the boxes up higher and reduce the footprint of the collection that way.

The main effort, however, has been aimed at rebasing some of the troops. A number of target armies have been identified that could straightforwardly have the quantity of infantry bases halved by doubling the number of figures on the base. A quick survey of the armies suggested that most of my ‘barbarian’ would benefit from such treatment – Celts, Germans, Spanish – as well as the two versions of Romans – late Republican and early Empire. The early Persians and the Greeks, too, could be moved down this road. A lot of space would be saved, I think, and, after years of denial, I have to admit that I am somewhat won over to the idea of having more figures on a base. There are pros and cons.

The cons, as it were, are my questions about how deep the formations really were. A six or eight-man deep line of musketeers or pike, or hoplites or legionaries, is not actually that deep compared to the depth of the base, or the ground scale of the game. On the other hand, a single line of troops does not really convey the feeling of a unit, perhaps more a skirmish line, and, despite what some people I’ve met over the years might claim, pike, at least, did not skirmish.

So, deep breath time, and the project is on. Despite what I just said above, the initial target was not Greeks, Romans, or barbarians, but my collection of Aztecs. It was going to be just the Aztecs, while I pondered the fate of the Inca armies (which are much smaller). Painting the Inca is what finished me with using condensed scale DBR, incidentally. I painted 28 strips and then worked out that I needed as many again to create the armies according to the lists. Morale collapsed, and it never happened, which, given the present conundrum, is probably just as well.

Still, the Aztecs and Inca were stored in 3 box files and had taken over the top of the cupboard in which some of the armies are stored. This was unsatisfactory, as that is also the surface on which I run the wargames, so some reduction would be welcome in both the shorter and longer terms. I also forgot to count the number of bases, but it was something like 28 Inca, as just noted, 14 Aztec ‘knights’, 62 Aztec militia types, 20-something archers, and 20-something skirmishers.

As a result of my despairing post, someone kindly suggested building a shelf within a box file to add more storage. As I proceeded with rebasing the Aztecs, The Estimable Mrs P. bought me some nice coffee (to sustain the process, you understand. I’m not addicted. My days of 6 cups in a morning are long gone). This coffee was ‘Machu Picchu Blend’. The fate of the Inca was thus sealed. They were staying as well.

The process of rebasing turned out to be not that painful, although it was rather lengthy. I found that as the basing material is poly-filler, sealed with PVA glue, and then painted, it would break off if I gave the plastic card bases a slight twist. The strips of soldiers could then be removed and rinsed to get rid of the filler dust, while half the bases were recycled for the purpose of rebasing. The result is a much smaller, although still substantial, horde of Aztecs.

The reduction in footprint is substantial. The Aztecs and Inca now fit into one box file, as shown above, with my own interpretation of the shelf suggestion, as shown. The Aztecs are on the lower portion; you can see the generals, skirmishers, porters, and the edge of the archers above. The Inca and the singly based officers are on the upper portion on the right. The shelf was created using half a sheet of plastic card and a sheet of steel paper, as all the bases have retained the magnetic strip they had to start with.

Undressed, as it were, you can see the details of the construction. The rest of the Aztecs fit around the legs of the shelf. I added the fifth support to prevent the shelf from sagging, but I am not sure whether it would have done so or not. In the best tradition of a former Blue Peter watcher, the supports are made from things I had lying around, in this case some corks from our wine-making operation. Fear not, they are unused, because the quality of corks has declined over recent years. They are unusable for their original purpose because they tend to stick in the neck of the bottle. My Aztecs will not start smelling of wine, although you might consider that a bad thing.

Now, this has a number of consequences. Firstly, I need to think of a campaign using the Aztecs, and then one using the Incas. And then I need to start to tackle the Romans and Celts. The footprint of the Aztecs and Incas has been reduced by two-thirds. I doubt if the rest will be that spectacular, but I am determined to diminish the storage problem, not the number of toy soldiers I have.

It’s Grim Up North

Although the flow of blog posts has been fairly uninterrupted, there has been a behind the scenes hiatus in wargaming here at Castle Polemarch. The reasons are mostly too dull to go into, except to mention that one of them has to do with rebasing the Aztecs. This project is nearly complete, but I am still wondering whether it is worth rebasing the Inca, as well. I am not sure; I think the Inca have only been on the table once in their career.

Still, existential angst aside, I did, on an insanely hot day in June, while the final batch of Aztec bases were drying, I undertook the next move in the War of Stuart Succession. Mostly, the sides took to diplomacy, without too much happening in the outcomes. James VI’s armies, however, advanced, which brought his western army to the border with England, and his eastern army, commanded by himself, to the North Riding of Yorkshire. There, James failed his GOOS roll, and the trained bands were called out against him.

The map showed that the Spanish, under Isabella, were actually in Hull, also known as the East Riding, next door. A little dice rolling saw them offer support to the trained bands, but a failed GOOS roll meant that the Yorkshire lads decided to tough it out for themselves. The Spanish therefore, stayed in Hull, awaiting the outcome.

The setup is above, the Scots to the left. The Scottish light horse is deployed at the end of a hill, as are the English in the right foreground and those in the enclosure on the far side. I suppose that, sometime, I should get around to making fields and hedges and stone walls which actually fit together, but my rationale is that the enclosures are a set of small fields, with lots of hedges or walls, rather than neat super fields as we have today. That’s my excuse, anyway.

The English plan was simply to stay on the defensive across the line, relying on their infantry superiority and positions on hills. The cavalry (they rolled 2 demi-lancers) was to plug any gaps. James pondered his plan deeply, and decided to direct two infantry formations (he gave up on doubled formations after last time) to assault the hill on his right (nearest the camera) while everyone else kept the English entertained in the centre and on the left.

The picture shows how the plan evolved. The Scottish light horse have had some nasty encounters with English musketry and are more or less out of the game at present. On the far side, the Scottish advance has somewhat stalled, again due to straight shooting from the English side. In the foreground, however, the Scots are arriving in numbers. While the English position on the hill is quite strong, it is not clear that it is strong enough to stave off a 2:1 assault.

It just goes to show how wrong I can be, I think. Above, you can see that the Scottish centre and left have stalled against the English. But James’ plan always included the flank attack. Well, that did not proceed as well as the King hoped, shall we say. The English got the drop on the Scots and attacked downhill. The English pike saw off the Scottish musketeers while the English musketeers gave a severe fright to the Scottish pike.

A bit of a swirling infantry combat ensued. The English musketeers were then flanked by their Scottish brethren and lost, being removed from the fight. However, the English pike flanked their already shaken Scottish cousins and caused them to flee, before turning to attack the Scottish musketeers still recovering from their fight, and routing them. See? I said it was swirling.

The combat in the centre and on the Scottish left has more or less settled down into a long-range musket duel, which the Scots were, in my estimation, most likely to come off second best. After all, some of the English are behind stone walls, which makes them fairly invulnerable.

The above slightly fuzzy image shows the end of the game. The Scots are still stalled in their centre and on the left, but have now lost three out of four bases on their right, due to the heroics of the two English bases, of which only the pike remains. Having now lost another base, James had to make an army morale roll. In keeping with quite a lot of his rolling on the day, this went badly, meaning that his army morale slumped to 1, and the whole lot withdrew.

Well, that is another blow to James’s hope of obtaining the English crown. I have to admit that I was not sure about the Yorkshire lads' ability to beat the Scots. Not due to any misplaced admiration for the Scots, but simply because of the disparity of cavalry. As it happened, the musketry nullified the Scottish light cavalry, and the demi-lancers (on both sides) never got into the action. The terrain rolling gave the English some nice hills to hide up, however, although the defeat of the Scottish flank attack was not in the script at all. It should have worked!

As James’ army did not rout but withdrew from the battlefield, it is still extant, and so Isabella’s army in the East Riding will need to keep an eye on it. There is also the question of what happens when the western army crosses into England. James’ GOOS score is now so low that it is likely they will have some tough fights going south.

In other news, the Dutch have raised a new navy, although to what end no one knows. And in the south, there is three way diplomacy going on between Isabella, Arbella, and Edward Seymour. None of them seems to be willing to make concessions, nor to come to some agreement about the throne. There could be more to come on that. If Arbella weds Edward, she will forego her very good GOOS score, and Edward’s is much lower. Isabella, on the other hand, already holds London and is starting to boss the English armed forces around.

I wonder what will happen next….

The Charge of the Love Brigade

 Aside from Isabella of Austria, whose army is now firmly ensconced in London and who is starting to order the English armed forces about, the other major contender for the English throne at the moment is Arbella Stuart. She has marched from Derbyshire, defeating local resistance as she went, and is now in Buckinghamshire. She arrived there without resistance, then moved to Berkshire to join up with Edward Seymour, and then moved back to Buckinghamshire. Unfortunately, Seymour seems to be a bit unpopular, and this time the trained bands rallied against her.

This being the start of the Seventeenth Century, Arbella had to let Seymour command her army, rather than her own specially selected general. After all, she reckoned, it was his fault the locals had turned hostile, so he should sort it out at the point of a pike, as it were. Seymour, who has been languishing at the foot of the ‘most likely to be monarch’ table since the start of the game when he fumbled a GOOS roll, was not going to reject the chance to revive his fortunes.

The battlefield was ‘interesting’. The river and bridge on the far side were not really relevant except for slightly cramping Arbella’s left. The large patch of rough ground on the near side, too, was only really there to cramp the right, and the woods, though pretty, were a bit out of the field of interest. The real issues were the hills, upon which the trained bands are deployed. On the right, towards the river, is a ridge with nearly half the infantry. In the centre, there is a hill (I rolled a double six for location) with a load more, and the general. From Arbella / Edward’s point of view, this looked like a very tough nut to crack.

From the trained band’s side, it was a bit tricky too. The ridge and the central hill looked a bit too far apart for comfort, and as the trained bands had rolled a light horse and demi-lancer, as opposed to Arbella’s two demi-lancers, I was a little concerned about the salient by the bridge. Mind you, so was Edward, who put himself at the head of Arbella’s cavalry, positioned to trot into the gap.

The opening moves were very chess-like. Edward advanced the cavalry into the gap, having to make a detour to the river bank when the trained band demi-lancer threatened to flank him from the hill, and then he withdrew in the face of the advancing trained band infantry from the ridge. Arbella’s right had advanced into line with the rest of the foot, while her left had advanced to succour the cavalry and also threaten the central hill in the flank. As just noted, the trained band infantry from the ridge had decided that they were too far away from the flank of the central hill to protect the infantry there, and the light horse and left flank infantry were probing Arbella’s right.

At this point, Arbella was seriously concerned, as she could not see much future in storming the central hill, and there seemed to be no way of flanking it. Given Edward’s unpopularity, she hatched a scheme to negotiate with the trained band leadership. In her first go, she offered to let them go home in return for not disturbing them (or pardoning them when she became queen). This was rejected. Her second offer was to arrest Seymour as well, and this was accepted.

Whether Seymour was aware of Arbella’s treachery is something future historians will have to debate. Nevertheless, he was aware that something heroic was necessary for a future king of England. The advancing trained band foot gave him a fleeting opportunity.

Sensing the danger, the trained band general had rushed to his right flank by the bridge to recall the infantry there. He did so, but not quite far enough, and Edward’s cavalry was still to the flank, just about. Edward charged home, crushing the arquebusiers and routing them, who carried away their own pike and the general in the rush. Ouch.

While shaken, the trained bands did not give up. Edward’s cavalry had charged, so it was now pursuing. One base ran into some more pike and routed them, but the attached musketeers survived, albeit just. Edward’s demi-lancer base charged on, up the hill and hit the trained band cavalry. Trying to go uphill against formed cavalry was never going to go particularly well, and Edward was lucky to get away with his troops being recoiled, shaken, from the hill. He was able to withdraw them from the fray to reorganise. He also survived himself. Arbella’s thoughts about that are unrecorded.

The trained bands were still not giving up (good morale rolling) and even had some tempo points to spare. These they used to advance the infantry in the centre on Arbella’s men. Here, the trained band's luck ran out. Arbella’s musketeers shot away the wings of the trained band formation, while the trained band pike pushed back hers.

This meant that next turn, when Arbella was a bit more flush with tempo, she could turn her own lifeguard pike and some of the left wing foot onto the flanks of the trained band pike with almost inevitable consequences. At this, the trained bands had had more than enough, and the army routed.

That was a fascinating combat. I really did not think that Arbella would come out ahead on that, and her dumping of Seymour was the best I could make of the job. Seymour had other ideas, however, and seized a fleeting opportunity. In the photograph above, you can see the results of his labours fleeing behind the trained band lines, while the man himself is just finishing rallying his base of demi-lancers.

In terms of the campaign, of course, we now have a fairly solid alliance between Arbella and Seymour, while Arbella is still allied with Isabella. My guess is that interest will now switch north, to both of the invading Scots armies. One is in Durham, moving south, with the king, the other is aiming for the west coast route. One of the issues is whether Isabella can move the English army in Dublin to north-west England to oppose them.