Aztec Army

They hail from Central America. They ruled this land for hundreds of years. They are the aztecs. This is my take on a fantasy version of aztecs for Armies of Arcana. I am still waiting on some skeletons and zombies from Alternative Armies, but the rest of the army is ready. All of the Aztec miniatures are from Gladiator Games. They had some deal I took advantage of and shipping to the US wasn't too bad. I've had them primed for about a year and finally motivated myself to paint them. They are, of course, 15mm. These have been painted in my usual style for 15mm: sprayed/primed black, and then drybrushed up with a couple of shades of color. I have gotten quite fast with this method. It takes me about an hour to paint a 25 man unit, puting the time to paint one figure at a little over 2 minutes not including intitial prep time and final basing. Not to go on about it, but one of the reasons I love this scale is not just the cost, but the fact that you can paint an army to a pretty good standard in no time flat. The time it takes me to paint a unit in 15mm, I would only complete one model in 28mm.

The Aztecs are a new army for the game, and thus I have a draft army list for them. I spent a good deal of time reading up on the aztecs to get to this point. They were very into a "warrior caste" system. Therefor the army has regulars, veteran's and then the elite. Warriors could move "up" the caste system by capturing enemies in battle. Thus a 5 capture warrior would be higher up than a 1 capture warrior. It is primarily a skill 2 army, with just a few skill 3 units. The Aztecs didn't really have long spears or cavalry and that is reflected in the list. However, in game terms, this means they don't have long weapons or cav (which can be a big disadvantage), so I have put some fantastical elements in, still keeping with the general Aztec theme and remaining true to the spirit of the army.

You can see the draft list here (you should open this link in a new tab/window).
Aztec Army List




COMMAND and PRIESTS
Aztecs heros are good fighters but not over the top. Their priests have access to Death, Nature, and Earth. Death and nature does sound kind of odd, but they don't have it because they were evil, it was more of a fascination with Death. They were also very into the earth and the sun and basically everything else natural, hence the other two choices.





CORE TROOPS

Clan Warriors
The regulars are in padded armor with shield, thus the armor 1. They are basic grunt type troops. These represent the 1-2 capture warriors and priests.




Veteran Warriors (Suit Wearers)
These are in the body suits that were typical of Aztec warriors. I aquaited it to heavy hide, and with their shield that gives them Armor 2. This unit is representative of the 3 to 5 capture warriors and priests. They have slightly higher morale as well. Finally, as noted earlier, because the Aztecs lack long weapons I thought it would be fitting to give them a little first strike(but at skill 2). The gladiator line offers many different types of suits to make the unit look impressive.




Slingers
I forgot to take a picture of the unit. They are statted out like a normal slinger, nothing special here.

SCOUTS
I added scouts to represent the forestry skills of the people. The addition of infiltrating units also somewhat makes up for the lack of cavalry. There are infantry type scouts, bow scouts, and scouts with atlatl (a device that throws darts). All scouts have the forrester ability.

Clan Scouts
These are the regular scouts with hand weapons. There heavy hide armor and shield give them armor 2. In keeping with the other army lists, I have given them a higher skill attack because they are scouts (scouts typically have skill 3 even in skill 2 armies).


Scouts with Bow
Aztecs did not use bow too much, but they did have an elite order called arrow knights. Not much is known about them, so I have incorporated them as scouts using bows.


Scouts with Atlatl (throwing darts)
This device was used by many central and south american natives. It allows the user to fling a dart with force. They are in padded type armor so armor 1.

You can see the wiki info on the atlatl here.


ELITE UNITS
There were certain orders in the society that were the peek for a warrior. The two biggest were the Jaguar Knights and the Eagle Knights. These were the ultimate Aztec warriors. Since this is a fantasy game, I thought it would be nice to have these units take on the aspects of the animal their order was based on.

Jaguar Knights
This is another unit that can somewhat make up for the lack of cav in the army. They have taken on certain aspects of a large cat. Thus they get more movement, 2 wounds, and 2 attacks.




Eagle Knights
These warriors have taken on certain aspects of the eagle. Thus they get flight, evasion, and 2 attacks.




QuetzlCuatl (feathered serpants)
The dreaded feathered serpants. One of the gods the aztecs worshiped was depicted as the cuatl. This is a great model by Grim Reaper miniatures.