Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Kelly Wilkinson]

Pardon me for not snipping but for some reason, my web browser will not allow me
to do so unless I erase the whole thing. The truth is that Cortez's men took
their beating on the way out of the interior of Tenochtitlan and in the
outskirts of the same, if you read the account carefully. Since Cortez and his
men were invited by Montezuma to stay in the palace the people had time to
adjust to any fears they might have had to these new "gods of doom." Remember,
the Aztec calender foretold that their civilization would come to an end about
the time of the arrival of the Spanish. Let's say for some reason a less kindly
army of Timurids appear with their nasty cavalry and Elephants bent on conquest.
It would perhaps not be too far from reality to see Aztec units/mobs running for
their very lives upon first seeing such monstrosities. This type of Fantasy
match up happens all the time in Warrior. To say that this would not happen is
perhaps as much conjecture as such a meeting. It certainly
would be intresting if not perhaps comical (for the Timurids at least)!

Kelly


"Holder, Scott" <Scott.Holder@...> wrote:
I'm sure many others would have as well - English
knights?, Russian dregs?, Viking Bondi?.
Other armies have not faced knights.

> Which Aztec army was it that faced elephants. . . ?
> I suspect the Aztecs would have ran screaming with
> abject terror from the first elephant they met on a
> battlefield!

Okay, this is a prime example of what I refer to as "popular wargamer
perception" about some aspect of ancient/medieval warfare that has no bearing on
the reality of the historical record. The whole "Aztec abject fear of horsies"
thing is highly overplayed, not unlike the issue of stirrups and their impact on
warfare or Viking success against anybody other than defenseless monks and
comely peasant girls.

Read *carefully* *all* the accounts of Cortez' two year (or seasons) campaign
against the Aztecs and you'll find that the Aztecs adapted quite well to their
new opponents. Remember, Cortez' contingent was damn near killed in
Tenochtitlan and he had to beat a hasty retreat. Not exactly the result you'd
expect from a warrior culture living in abject fear of 4 footed creatures. What
is true is that Aztec infantry was susceptible to mounted charges, but not
because they always ran away in terror. It's because they didn't have effective
weapons to counter a cav charge that would come on them before they had a chance
to soften up the target with loads of missile fire AND they didn't have
effective H-T-H weapons to deal with the mounted charge, both aspects which were
carefully sculpted into NWW. Another example parallel to this is the effective
of gunpowder on the Aztecs. Yes, the Spanish accounts suggest it scared the
beejesus outta them the first time but thereafter, the Spanish
talk about Aztec tactics designed to mitigate the effects of the small cannons
and such (they would open up their order or attack from various angles so as to
minimize the cannon's effect). If the Spanish were noting this, it must have
been fairly obvious.

These peoples were really smart and had a highly evolved military culture at all
levels. In many ways, they were not unlike the Romans or the Mongols, yes the
technology was different but the end result, in their specific context was the
same.

WARRIOR, and games like it, assume certain things and one of them is the fact
that some things and their real effect on the battlefield have been overstated
and that professional (or other types of warrior cultures) military systems were
adept at ackknowledging certain innovations they faced at one time or another.

scott

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