Clearly, 500 years ago, the Catholic Faith of the Spanish Conquistadores was a huge part of their culture. One only need look at The Banner of Cortes to see that. As such, they were accompanied by priests that said Mass for them and worked – and did fight – alongside them in Mesoamerica 500 years ago. Remember, for them, in 1518-1521 it had only been a little over 20 years since they had successfully had the Reconquista and reclaimed the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors after 700 years of occupation. More recently, the Conquistadors had seen success in the Italian Wars. Much of that success was attributed to Providence to be sure.
For my Civilizations Collide scenarios for games of Feudal PatrolTM , I have updated my rules for priests on both sides. The updated supplement is soon to be made available for download, as is a planned 16-scenario booklet. In these games, the beneficial effect of Catholic Priests is that they can help reduce the number of Morale Checks that the Spanish might need to take as a result of combat and casualties, as they motivate them to fight on. They can also defend themselves, albeit understandably less effectively than a traditional Sword and Buckler Man.
While I have many Sword and Buckler Men figures, no appropriate figures to use as priests were in my unpainted mountain. After a good search I did find a few at Badger Games from Gripping Beast/Saga and Conquest Games. These looked quite medieval, but to my knowledge I would not think that religious garb or holy garments really changed much over the centuries back then. These were probably designed for the era of Viking raids. Plus, the two that I got that were from Conquest games were monks. And yes, as a practicing Catholic, I am familiar with the differences! Still, these looked the part as best as I could tell, so I bought them. They are 28mm and metal. As for painting research, I used the only plate I found in John Pohl’s Aztecs and Conquistadores(page 168) showing a priest as a guide for painting. Clearly, a monkish look – in black – was going to be fine for the tabletop.
With Historicon and some upcoming gaming looming as early as three days from today, I painted the three up quickly right after I finished Hernan Cortes. I’m fairly happy with them for gaming the period.
The two Conquest Game figures were both monks, the Gripping Beast/Saga one was called a priest:
Catholic Priest/monk figure from Conquest Games Ecclesiastics/Monks Line via Badger Games (#CG CGMM121f Monk in Cowl) – designated CCP2 by me
Catholic Priest/monk figure from Conquest Games Ecclesiastics/Monks Line via Badger Games (#CG CGMM121g Monk with Holy Cross) – designated CCP1 by me
Catholic Priest figure from Gripping Beast/SAGA Priests Line via Badger Games (#SPR06 Christian Priest 2) – designated CCP3 by me
The three as receivedI removed the slotted bases from the two Conquest Games figures and based them all on good old steel washers. You can see a glaze on the steel washers – that’s Gorilla Glue, which I use to improve later paint adhesion on them (especially the rims).
As I was hurrying to get these done, I took few WIP shots, but here you go below:
Primed upPainted (base coat) and ready for some final touches
I want to mention a few areas of, well, let’s say minor challenges in painting these. First – and as someone without this condition I want to be sensitive. Two of them have shaven and/or bald pates. Painting shaved heads/bald heads was a new one for me and took a bit of experimentation to get acceptable results. After all, I would expect that these men of the cloth would have tanned up a bit facially. Still, the head and face on CCP3 (the Gripping Beast/SAGA figure) was not that easy to get right. Secondly, for all three you can imagine that their cloaks would have been less than pristine. I used some pigments for that. Lastly, highlighting black robes with gray was something I did want to play with here.
CCP1, 2, and 3. My three Priests. CCP3 actually has a sword in addition to his staff.
I like CCP 1 the best and CCP3 the least – mainly because of the face being a bit mushy. CCP2 is quite mysterious.
Well, now they have joined the ranks of the Conquistadores. Off to gaming with ye!
I hopefully have one more pre-Historicon post to share with you later today on gaming aids – if I can get it done before I have to pack. Then I’ll be silent for a bit and hopefully get a good post-weekend post on the gaming.
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE CATHOLIC PRIEST FIGURES:
Or, let’s just call him Cortes for short – to avoid all the accent marks, surname confusion, and titles!
I got this figure from Gringo 40’s excellent collection of Conquistadores. It is from Gringo 40s Conquistadores line (#CONQP1 Cortez). The figure is 28mm in size, metal, and overall an excellent sculpt. I will be heading back to them for more figures. I had not painted a figure since I completed the war wagons back in August (also from Gringo 40’s), and really not a soldier since February. I am surprised at how much terrain took up the intervening time – as well as my garage (and now if you’ve not seen these you can see all of my garage+ project posts all in one place – here). But, let’s get back to Cortes.
In his early 30’s, Hernan Cortes made his way into the history books as a Conquistador and the vanquisher of the Aztec Empire. He lived to his early 60’s. Now, there are plenty of negative things to say about his life – and by no means am I considering him a “good guy” – just as I would not do that for Montezuma or any Aztec either. Both combatants were pretty damn brutal in so many ways. They were all men of their time – not today – and if you want to check out the Wikipedia page on Cortes you’ll get a flavor. He was remarkable in many ways, good and bad, and he was complex. I wanted a true Cortes figure for my Civilizations Collide scenarios for games of Feudal PatrolTM .
Of course, Cortes played a major role in the Spanish Conquest 500 years ago, especially as a combat leader. He also is bearded, and my good friend Roger over at Rantings Under The Wargame Table threw out a challenge for Mo’vember around such guys. Therefore, he is my submission for Roger’s challenge.
I was able to paint him up pretty quickly – and it felt great to paint again.
Primed and ready for Mo’vemberEarly work on base coatBase coated Cortez before washes and highlights addedHighlighted and washed – and very shiny – though I knew the matte varnish would help tone this down) some. I played with several metals here.Flocked and varnishedFinished off with some grass and some touch up shading
And add a label:
I enjoyed painting Cortes. I tried to give his armor different shading and tones while maintaining an overall proper look. The photo gallery below is not as good a group of shots as I’d like – it was tough to get the lighting correct – he’s thankfully not that shiny (as you saw above).
Cortes
I thought I’d add a picture of Cortes and Montezuma II. Cortes will get a lot more play in my scenarios anyways, but his picture is a little less shiny and better here, so here it is.
The two major figures in the Aztec Empire’s Fall
I hope that you enjoyed this – I have one more related post to do prior to this week’s Historicon game (I’m running it there on Saturday morning).
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS HERNAN CORTES FIGURE:
Lucky week 13 was October 10-16 on the project. Some really beautiful progress – though the delay in windows and doors has kept interior work from progressing. Therefore, for this post I have mostly deck updates plus a few hobby tidbits at the end for my dedicated hobby crowd.
On Monday, deck proceeded on the deck stairs and fascia.
Cutting up and moving up PVC fascia for the garage deck. Decking being enthusiastically installed over the Trex rain gutter system you saw last week.Monday progress at the end of the day.
On Monday, our new Weber gas grill was delivered from Home Depot. It’s for natural gas so we can avoid the hassle of propane tanks in the future (though Lynn wants to use both). This is to be mounted on the new gas line on the back deck. We also got a nice drip mat and a cover for it. On Tuesday, Lynn and I put it together with the help of the manual and the Weber app. The process took us just under 4 hours (Weber says it should take 90 minutes – no way), and we worked well together to get it done. That means we are still happily married and no murders occurred or were even contemplated – which can be side effects of joint assembly! Of course, we can’t use it until the gas line is put in for it from the house.
Happy wife, happy life – and the new grill.
The rest of Tuesday saw work on the stairs to the garage deck and the deck itself.
Deck and stair work on Tuesday.End of day progress on Tuesday.
Wednesday saw more of the same.
Morning work Wednesday.Now we had stairs all the way up on Wednesday!
Thursday saw a couple of things happen. First, Jonny Victor got a boom truck in and all the blue board got delivered – though work on it can’t start until – yes – windows and doors are in. At least this saves time climbing the new stairs.
Boom truck delivery of blue board upstairs. Some went below as well.
The deck and stairs just got more attractive as the week went on.
Work began on the columns sheathing.Different angle view, Thursday mid-day.View from the back mid-day Thursday.
It was too dark to get a good shot of the total work – but Friday came and the fog, but it looked like this below.
Happy Friday morning showing fog and Thursday progress.
National Grid showed up and added loam and seed to the gas line excavation of last week.
National Grid repairing over the gas line excavation to the garage.
Our plumber was prepping to do some work, and asked about a vanity size. We also needed another solar cap for the deck posts (they are solar and are really cool at night – no pic yet as we needed 1 more). So, off to Home Depot for both and some more shelving for the cellar.
Before we left for Home Depot, this was the progress. You can also see the new grill on its new home.
More Home Depot shopping – last of the solar caps and the small vanity for the upstairs bathroom.
On Saturday, I got to get a shot of the completed work. Not only is it amazing, but the views from it are as well. The deck height is higher than our home’s second story windows.
Week end progress!
Now, I mentioned I would add a couple of hobby items. Well, I have a few – three to be exact.
First, I was able to finish writing the update to my Civilizations Collide supplement for Feudal PatrolTM. This is a way to wargame the Spanish Conquest and do it quite historically. I am working on a book of scenarios for that too. When either is available for download, I’ll share that.
Second, as I was working on the supplement, it became clear that I needed to have a way of tracking damage on Cortes’ war wagons, as after enough Aztec slings and arrows and more have hit them, they would disintegrate into scrap lumber. I saw these nice Litko markers and got 4 for my war wagons.
Just in case you missed what a war wagon is!These markers count down from (or up to) 20 – which is the amount of damage each war wagon has before they got into combat in one game scenario.
Lastly, I mentioned that we also have gotten shelving from Home Depot and have been assembling them and redoing storage in the cellar. We have put together 3 of these, 1 of these, and 1 of these. The last one replaced an old particle board printer stand that had been used for laundry soap, bleach, etc. It was messed up, and had a storage area under it. In the storage area were a couple of yearbooks from junior high I had not seen in a while, plus under the stand was a big lint-encrusted pewter figure of Marshal Michel Ney, the Bravest of the Brave, that I bought in France in the 1980’s! I was always fascinated by his story. However, I had zero idea how he ended up there.
Come, see how a Marshal of France can gather lint and dust!
Buck suggested that he would be a cool giant for a Wars of Ozz game, and Chris Palmer suggested that he could be a moss giant. I thought maybe a lint monster…but no, I’ll clean him up and put on a shelf as is.
Anyways, next week should have even more progress on the project – so thanks for looking and hope you found this interesting. Now I have blogs to read! (likely yours).
The project continues! Although I was so late with Week 10 that I decided to combine weeks 10 and 11. As you will see from this post – a lot went on from September 19-October 2, 2021. Some of it involved construction, some not – as you will see. I’ll do my level best to make this interesting by including not only some construction photos, some other stuff, to include golf and a bit of hobbies!
There are a lot of pictures here – click on any of them for a bigger view.
Let’s start with electrical work and some progress around the cellar. Wait, the cellar? Why there? Aren’t you building a new garage and house deck Mark? All valid questions that I am presupposing that you may be asking! So let me attempt clarification.
To power the new building, I needed to get the service upgraded from 100 amps to 200 amps. Our electrical service meter and box was in the back of the house over the old (now removed) house deck. Previously, electrical power came from the National Grid pole out front on the street to the house then went along the soffit and into the cellar at the back right-hand corner of the house if you will. The plan was to make this bigger and better by moving the meter and building a new box for it at the front left corner of the house. A new hole had to be drilled for the new power cable, and that needed to be run to a new replacement distribution box in the basement. This work occurred on September 21st.
Here you see he old distribution box mounted on whatever lumber the previous homeowner had available – back in the 50’s? 60’s? – to include a piece of trim! We had a series of shelves built by the previous owner long ago (probably 40+ years) along this wall. We had put an old bureau (left over from my childhood actually) under the shelf planking that was attached to the monstrosity that the distribution box was mounted on. The dryer vent snakes up to the wall as you see.Here you see the electricians (Mike and Paul) trying to determine the sill height to drill for the power cable by using the window as a reference for outside. The actual hole would be far to the left. The other end of the old shelving/cabinet that I referred to above is seen here on the wall under the cassette cases (future yard sale items).
Drilling the new sill access.
Heavy duty cable!
Drilling through the old sill was a bitch. The sill was quite thick – 13″ – and made of solid oak. The hole drilling destroyed two hole saw bits.
The view through the sill access hole from inside. This was 13″ of solid oak. Mike Astrella (electrician) can be seen here peering through the other side.
Outside, work went on the new meter box and running the cable and hooking it up to the power grid.
First the box was mounted and secured.
Power cable being pulled through.
Completed. The box on the left is an old Verizon landline box (now removed) and the one on the right is our Spectrum cable line.
Back in the cellar, the old distribution box mounting monstrosity was removed and a new sheet of plywood and some lumber from the garage build was used to build a suitable mount. The new configuration is bigger and we will need to move the dryer to the wall to the left of the distribution box so that the vent hose is not right next to it. But, as we were using the old the shelves I never got around to paint it as you can see – and it looked like hell.
New box.
New distribution box opened.
The inside electrical work . You can see how ugly the flaking paint was.
Also, I need to back up a bit. It had been necessary for me to clear a lane along the wall for the electricians to run the power cable prior to their starting work. After I did that, I got a good chance to look at the wall and the crappy homemade shelving/cabinet. I noticed a lot of old paint flaking on the wall near the dryer vent and some puckering where I had painted the corner in the front left of the house. The puckering was due to efflorescence, not water leaking, even with the excessive rain we have had this summer. An old dry well that I had built over a decade ago in the front left corner of the house was no longer doing its job, so the rain water outside the basement wall was not properly draining – leading to the efflorescence bubbling up behind the paint. We decided that the shelving cabinet needed to go and the wall repainted.
Before I did that, I rebuilt the drywell. When I originally built it, I had dug down about 3 feet and hit sand, so I had then assumed that the soil was free-draining. When I dug this time, I went a bit deeper, and to my surprise I found that there was yet another soil layer under the sand. This one was a loamy clay – that does not drain well. So, I dug down another 3 feet and backfilled it all with sand from the excavations in the backyard. I replaced the downspout extensions and doubled the length. The we covered the area with a filter fabric and then covered that with river stones.
Dry well excavation (would have been a good infantry fighting position)
Repaired dry well.
Dry well repair
I then spent the time to take down the shelving/cabinet with my wife. She was able to recycle the doors as shelving in another section of the cellar. I scraped off any flaking paint and exposing any efflorescence. Then, I used a mildly acidic product, Drylok Etch, across the wall to clean and prep for painting with bright white Drylok Extreme (both from Home Depot). This took a while, but came out well. We are taking the opportunity to clear out some stuff and have a yard sale this weekend to get some new homes for some good stuff we don’t need anymore. Plus, I can’t do any hobbies as you can see below!
Wall done
Opposite angle on wall
Yard sale needed to get to my hobby bench!
Back in the garage, the septic line was stubbed up in the floor with a cleanout.
A very exciting septic line beginning…
On the 24th, it was time to place the concrete floor in the garage. I say “place” and not “pour” because that was drilled into me in the US Army Corps of Engineers as the appropriate terminology – and that stuck.
Prepping the garage door entrance for concrete.
Steel!
The crew arrived early and was ready to go.
Installing the vapor barrier (ok a sheet of plastic over the compacted sand).
The plastic is secured, and the steel is wired together.
Placing steel on vapor barrier.…the concrete truck chute cannot extend far enough into the garage.
Evandro cuts a slot.
And on the other side..
…et voila, access!
Getting access for the concrete truck.
This was no problem as this plywood will be removed eventually when the door is installed.
Concrete truck delivering.
Working the concrete.
Then the sky opened up…
…necessitating a temporary rain cover.
Final finishing.
Concrete work.
Because of the many rain days, Andy Cormier arranged to get help to finish off the septic line installation.
Finding the tank!
Line ready for backfill
View towards the tank.
Septic line work.
Ready for backfill.
Having the septic line in the ground and attached to the septic tank allowed for its backfilling as well as work to proceed on the driveway excavation.
On Monday, September 27th, Lynn and I participated in the annual West Point Society of New England’s annual charity golf tournament, along with our friends, Lisa and Jim Kularski. This year, the beneficiary was Homes for our Troops. It was a nice break while construction work continued.
Me, Lynn, Lisa, and Jim. The sign is a hole sponsorship I did for the charity event.
When we returned home, there was a lot of dirt moved around. It turned out that the soil under the driveway had the same layering issue that I found in my dry well excavation – so a lot had to go, and be replaced with clean fill.
Excavation showing the soil cross sectionBetter view of the soil layers.
Most of the septic line was backfilled.
Of course, Tuesday the 28th brought yet more downpouring rain. Therefore, earthwork and any other work could not happen. We only got a delivery of deck material for the house deck.
Deck lumber delivery.
On Wednesday the 29th, the skies cleared and work could proceed. The driveway was excavated and brought to grade. Old asphalt, and interfering roots and stumps (including a 4-5 ton maple tree stump) were removed in this process.
Asphalt removal
Massive stump!
This was a huge stump with a lot of roots under the old driveway. Andy had to bring in a bigger machine to take care of it.
At the end of the day, the driveway was filled, and all the holes were filled in.
Driveway base in.Top view.No more stump.
The next work skipped a day (rain), and that involved the framing of the replacement house deck. This was October 1st. Jonny also got ready to install the rain gutter system for the garage deck.
Jonny prepping for the under-deck rain system installation.
House deck framing begins.
Deck framing on October 1st.
To make up lost time to rain, work continued on the deck on Saturday the 2nd. This weekend I had not one but two competitive golf tournaments. The first was on Saturday which was the Finals of the Tour of the Brookfields. If you are on Facebook, the group link is here. I am a member of the committee. My team was in the lowest division, but we did not come in the top three. Still, congrats to the winners!
Better luck next year.
After the tournament, I returned to see progress on the house deck.
Saturday progressDifferent angle view.
So, a lot of progress was made over the two weeks!
(Lastly, I previously mentioned a couple things that I need to circle back to – the first being the Sunday Founder’s tournament at Quail Hollow Golf and Country Club (where I am a member). This was an individual event and I played better, but not well enough to be the winner (only one male and one female winner out of dozens of players so no big deal). However, back during the annual club championship (a two-day 36-hole tournament of individual medal play from the back tees) on July 31-August 1st – I was able to play my best golf of the year (98/88 for a net 2 over par for the event) and win the D flight against 11 others. So Sunday, I got my reward.
In my office!
What you see here left to right is a comic statue that belonged to my grandfather Marcus (a WWII vet who gave me a love of golf), my unlucky conquistador “Franco”, my trophy, and as it’s October, my Halloween mini-diorama with Ral Partha 25mm figures of classic monsters from the 30’s Universal Studios movies.
Ah, but I digress – week 12 is well underway and I will have much more to share. I hope that you enjoyed this and thanks for looking!
Yes! It’s finally time for the FINAL REVEAL of my Aztec cityscape. It’s been a labor of love – to recreate this tabletop for gaming. What game you ask? Why of course – Buck Surdu’s Feudal Patrol™! I wrote the gaming supplement for Feudal Patrol™ games during the period of the Spanish Conquest. The supplement involves the Conquistadores, the Aztecs, the Tlaxcalans (and more Mesoamericans who fought the Aztecs), the Maya, and the Inca (in South America). I called it Civilizations Collide, and it’s a free download from Buck’s website or from Sally4th in the UK. If you have not checked this excellent game out – do it!
This is Part 5 of my series on “Building an Aztec Cityscape”. There are a lot of background history and WIP details in these posts that for brevity I won’t repeat here. However, if you have missed the other parts, they are listed below with their links:
Building an Aztec Cityscape – Part 5: Tenochtitlan – THE FINAL REVEAL (this post)
As for wargaming the period of the Spanish Conquest 500 years ago, I want to be clear. It was brutal to be sure, and as I have stated often, there were no good guys on any side. I did not aim to glorify any aspect of the time, but to raise awareness and knowledge of it through wargaming.
From the start of this project, I wanted to create a unique and hopefully stunning tabletop for these games. I had a vision of creating a nice cityscape – an encompassing panorama that I had not seen anyone else do at any convention. Also, the cityscape needed to facilitate a fun gaming experience, so visually, I felt that had to go big. I had already painted 230 figures for the period. I had built many buildings too. Therefore, I wanted something that had the “flavor” of Tenochtitlan. However, with the tabletop designed for 28mm skirmish figures, (about 1″ tall), building a true-to-life and historically accurate Tenochtitlan would have required a gymnasium-sized playing area. I have seen stunning photos from SALUTE in the UK that were for 15mm gaming, but that scale went far beyond what I envisioned – or what was feasible for me. For travel to gaming conventions, the cityscape needed to be able to be broken down and transported easily. It needed to be useful for multiple games. This post will reveal my solution, for better or for worse.
I started out with historical research into several sources, and thinking about what I wanted and what I could do. After I had my initial concept, I then refined it into the two plans that I put on paper below.
First rough draft of the plan.Then, I refined the plan.
The previous posts describe in more detail how I got here. So, let’s show some eye candy – and I will be posting on the Combat Patrol Facebook page and sharing a link to my IGTV page where you can view a video of the cityscape.
Here I set up some figures on the cityscape – many of these images were shown in previous posts – but here you get to see the whole thing!
Ta daa! Click on the images for a bigger view.End view – the mat is from FLG.Opposite lengthwise viewAngled view from the end.
As before, this is DEFINITELY (I think anyways) my last entry into Dave’s Season of Scenery Challenge! Thanks Dave for running the challenge and letting me be part of it. At least it’s the last part of the cityscape posts.
I also want to especially thank my wife for tolerating this bit of my madness. And of course I thank my old West Point comrades Buck Surdu and Dave Wood, Greg Priebe, Chris Palmer and the HAWKS, Chris Abbey at Sally4th, Dave at The Imperfect Modeler (especially for the chinchilla dust tip), GED at Gringo 40’s, IRO (for inspiration), Joerg Bender at Things From The Basement, the Uxbridge Historical Gaming Club and the Mass Pikemen Gaming Club.
A SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL the bloggers listed below who have taken the time to encourage me over this project. I am indebted to you all – you kept me focused, and motivated.
I’m not an award-winning videographer – but I hope that you enjoy the video.
What’s next? I will be going to my first HISTORICON and bringing both my cityscape and my rural tabletop. I will also be adding the two naval types (brigantines and war canoes) to the next version of my Civilizations Collide supplement – along with new scenarios and scenario-specific rules. I hope that you will like these. Yes, I have more work to do!
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section – and thanks for looking!
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
War wagons were wooden carts for deploying missile troops. They had slits in them for crossbowmen and arquebusiers to be able to fire from while having some protection against enemy missile weapons. I think of them as wooden APC’s (WPC’s maybe?). Hernan Cortes used them as he was besieged in Tenochtitlan in 1520 – yes – over 500 years ago now.
This is Part 4 of my series on “Building an Aztec Cityscape”. The war wagons were so integral to the events in 1520 that I needed to have some as part of my cityscape. If you have missed the other parts, they are:
The first use of a war wagon in medieval Europe is ascribed to the Hussites during the Hussite Wars (1420-1434) in Bohemia. They were horse-drawn and would be linked together like a mobile fort.
Nearly 100 years later, Cortes would build some similar ones. These would be constructed as a measure of desperation to escape the Aztec capital. Cortes’ war wagons were thrown together during the time when they were besieged by the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan.
I need to give you a condensed chronological synopsis – the history of this time is quite full of twist, turns, and intrigue. The timeline is confusing but important for context. Therefore, listed here below is a condensed chronology with respect to the use of war wagons and a couple of possible wargame scenarios that I am working to build:
November 18, 1518 – Cortes departs the Spanish colony of Santiago de Cuba with his expedition – before he could be detained by Lieutenant Governor Velazquez (who had originally commissioned his expedition). Cortes leaves abruptly so that the Governor (who had justifiable suspicions about Cortes and his motives) could not relieve and replace him prior to his departure.
February 1o, 1519 – After fitting out in Trinidad and San Cristobal de la Habana, Cortes sails for Mexico.
March 22, 1519- Cortes arrives in Mesoamerica. He will fight and win several battles with both the Maya and the Tlaxcalans up until later in 1519. By that time, his victories will have given him a few key assets. One of these, from the Maya, was a slave girl named Malintzin aka La Malinche who was to serve Cortes as a key translator, and later, his mistress. The second was a post-conflict alliance secured with the Tlaxcalans, whose warriors would provide the bulk of Cortes’ forces.
November 1, 1519 – Cortes begins his march to Tenochtitlan to try to meet Montezuma II.
November 8, 1519 – Cortes arrives at Tenochtitlan and meets Montezuma II. He and his contingent are welcomed to the city and stay in it.
November 14, 1519 – through a ruse, Cortes successfully seizes Montezuma II and makes of him a puppet/hostage.
March 5, 1520 – Meanwhile, back in Cuba, Lieutenant Governor Velazquez sends an expedition led by Panfilo de Narvaez to intercept Cortes
April 19, 1520 – Narvaez and his troops arrive in Mexico. Cortes, with some of his Conquistadores, leaves Tenochtitlan to deal with this internecine threat. He leaves behind a trusted lieutenant, Pedro de Alvarado, in charge of the remaining Spanish/Tlaxcalan forces in Tenochtitlan.
May 16, 1520 – The Aztec nobility and elite troops in Tenochtitlan celebrate the Festival of Toxcatl. It is a large assembly of all the elite and elite military of the city, who are unarmed and dancing in a city square or plaza. Alvarado, afraid that the celebration is a prelude to an attempted massacre on them, seals off the plaza where the dancing/celebration is taking place. His Conquistadores methodically move through the throng and murder or capture every possible Aztec. One of the captured elites is Cuitlahuac, Montezuma II’s brother.
May 29, 1520 – Back on the coast, Cortes defeats Narvaez (despite being outnumbered by Narvaez by 2:1). He incorporates Narvaez’ surrendered troops into his forces and returns with them to Tenochtitlan on June 24th . (This Conquistador-on-Conquistador fight would be a good possible scenario for a wargame (using my Civilizations Collide supplement to Buck Surdu’s Feudal Patrol™rules).
June 2, 1520 – The Aztecs have been fully enraged since the festival massacre – and the situation is dire for the Conquistadores.
June 25, 1520 – In an attempt to mollify the Aztecs, Cortes releases Cuitlahuac. This was a rare strategic error. Immediately, Cuitlahuac, who rightly viewed his brother to be no more than a Spanish puppet, assumes Montezuma II’s powers and takes command of the siege of the Spanish as the new Aztec Emperor. The Spanish are besieged and are holed up in the Palace of Axayacatl. The Aztecs attempt to burn the Spanish out of the palace, but are repulsed by cannon and arquebus fire.
June 27, 1520 – Cortes forces Montezuma II to go to the roof of Palace of Axayacatl to plead with the Aztecs to stop the fighting. He is struck in the head by a rock from a sling and is gravely injured. At the same time, Cortes instructs his troops to scavenge wood from the Palace of Axayacatl and build several war wagons. His hope was that by using war wagons he could protect his own missile troops from the slings and arrows of the Aztecs – and make it easier for the Conquistadores to escape Tenochtitlan and survive.
June 28, 1520 – Cortes makes his first attempt with his war wagons to reach the causeways. He loads them with crossbowmen and arquebusiers, and supports them on the ground with sword and buckler men, and cannon (probably falconets and maybe lombards). Their movements are not powered by horses, but by the Spanish themselves. The Conquistadores fight bravely, but are pushed back. (This would be a possible scenario for a wargame on the cityscape with the war wagons).
June 29, 1520 – Cortes decides that the Temple of Yopico, a tall structure, was enabling the Aztecs to be able to hit his troops with enfilading missile fire from above. This is his second use of his war wagons, and he literally used them in a half-circle (yes, “circling the wagons”). He uses them similarly as before to help the Conquistadores to reach the Temple. This time they were tactically successful. However, the war wagons were to take so much damage that they are destroyed in the process. Cortes, beneath his personal banner, successfully leads his troops to ascend the 100 steps of the temple, killing many war priests and setting fire to the structure. But, the Conquistadores cannot hold the position against the Aztec numbers and are pushed back. (This – the assault on the Temple of Yopico – would be a second possible scenario for a wargame on the cityscape with the war wagons).
June 30, 1520 – Montezuma II either dies of his head wound, or is killed by the Conquistadores – accounts differ.
July 1, 2020 – La Noche Triste (the Night of Sorrows or the Sad Night) – the Spanish break out of Tenochtitlan at a high cost in lives, materiel, and looted treasure. (This – La Noche Triste – would be a possible scenario for a wargame on the cityscape and/or just the causeways with or without the war wagons).
Of course, then followed the Battle of Otumba, where Cortes used his cavalry to save his entire force against overwhelming odds. Eventually, he was able to regroup and with the help of brigantines, make a successful assault and conquer the city of Tenochtitlan. And yes, I have brigantines in the queue, along with war canoes. Plus I will be adding the two naval types (brigantines and war canoes) to the next version of myCivilizations Collide supplement – along with these two scenarios.
The only good image I can find of war wagon use comes from the cover of Sheppard, Si. (2018). Tenochtitlan: 1519-21. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, shown below. It is an excellent resource, and I do recommend it. There is a larger blow up of the same picture in the book – and you can see the war wagons in the lower right hand side at the base of the temple.
Enough background information (at least I hope). In looking for war wagons, I was challenged. I did consider scratch building some until I discovered these at Gringo 40’s in the UK in their 28mm Conquistador section.
Yes! I had found my solution! I ordered four from them, and the company was great. They even gave me a free Cortes figure (which I will paint soon I hope). Even better, these were solid METAL. Assembly was just adding the undercarriage axle supports, the wheels, and a wheel spacer. There are two benches inside and I can get two figures into the wagon. One challenge faced me that was new – no brush or angled brush would reach under the benches for painting. They do look nice though.
On the left is my 28mm Cortes figure, and the war wagons as received. The one with the figures in it is dry-fitted with the other pieces. While I have three figures in there, after painting them I’m now limiting that to two. A close angle of the same shot as above. The only brush access to the bench undersides was restrictive through this end.I gave the war wagons a spray prime – and then after a curing period, a brush prime – swirling a few cheap brushes like mops on the insides – getting as much primed as I could. This destroyed those brushes, but that was fine. Then I glued on the undercarriages and pressed them down.After the previous step, I attached the wheels and spacers/holders for the wheels, and reapplied primer which as you see here was needed.
I then used various browns (I list all my paints and more at the end of this post). to approximate a used wood tone. After all, these war wagons were made from old recycled lumber. At this point in the project, I still wondered how I was going to get paint etc. under the benches, as well as how I was going to varnish them. As you may imagine, these are heavy! I decided that they needed a “dip” – in some Army Painter dip. To retrieve them without a huge mess, I used a pot I bought from a Salvation Army Thrift store, some twine from the hardware store, and an old piece of balsa.
The war wagons in brown, and the pot, dip, and twine.How I was able to suspend the war wagons into the dip in the pot. I just had to restring each one after the dipping process.After the dip.
I needed to do more shading and some dry brushing after the dip, and then I spray varnished them outside (as I could for once).
Nice enough to varnish outside! Not common weather in New England year-round, but it’s summer.War wagons finished!
As this is the penultimate (love that word) post in the series, I will share some action shots below of the war wagons on the cityscape.
Battle in the Cityscape! Cortes tries to break out!Trying to escape Tenochtitlan with their lives – and their gold – the Conquistadores fight towards the causeways. Close up shot of a war wagon with an arquebusier and a crossbowman at the ready. The poor sword and buckler men get to push.
I think these will be very fun in a game. I just need to write rules specifically for their use.
The next post will be….(insert drumroll)…the FINAL REVEAL.
I hope to have a video link as well as pictures of the cityscape for you. These, because they are “vehicles” and were completed in July and August, all count as more of my entries into Dave’s Season of Scenery Challenge! Thanks so much for looking. I hope that you enjoyed the brief history and the war wagons themselves.
Please let me know your thoughts and ideas in the comments section! And the FINAL REVEAL is coming!!!
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE TERRAIN PIECES/MODELS:
The city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, rose out of Lake Texcoco on an island. This island was connected to the mainland by a series of causeways. Reclaiming land from a water body usually involves building up a surface of large stones on its bottom. These would build up into a dry surface, and would usually be supported and protected by revetments. In the case of my Aztec cityscape, the pavements’ sides that I made of MDF had nothing on the edges (except paint) next to the waterline – and I thought that needed a bit of work.
Speaking of work and the pavements, if you are new to this 5-part series on my Aztec cityscape build, you can view the previous two parts by clicking on these links:
This post will cover the revetments that I made for the cityscape, as well as some HO scale lily pad and cattail bases that I added as eye candy (and possible obscuration of gaps and even MDF warpage). As before, I will similarly share my WIP photos as well as my lessons learned.
Readers of this blog know that I like a plan before building anything. I needed to figure out how many revetments to build – as I may or may not use all of my causeways or even my pavement tiles. Also, I had to figure out the sizes of inner corners versus outer corners (since they are differently sized up against the pavement tiles – so you just need to measure the side against the tiles).
My updated plan for building the cityscape.
I ended up following the same type of build and painting scheme as I did for the causeways – after all they had to match too aesthetically. As far as quantity, I ended up deciding to build 48 on 1/2″ strips of balsa. The breakout from the plan above came out to be:
6″ sections (10)
5″ sections (10)
4″ sections (10)
2″ sections (4)
1″ sections (2)
External 1″ x 1″ corners (8)
Internal 1″ x 1″ corners (4)
I made templates from 3′ x 5″ cards and used them to size and cut up some basswood (balsa like but stronger and denser) into the strips for gluing the rocks.
The basswood.Here you can see my templates, and the WIP. My inventory is building up in the top left.After I cut a few, I dry-fitted them around a couple of pavement tiles and compared them to the causeways as well for width. It looked good at this juncture to continue.
Once the bass wood pieces were all cut, the gluing began, similar to the process I used on the causeways. Each pebble had to be glued one at a time in 2-3 courses of different sizes – while letting each course dry before moving on to the next one. In terms of pebbles, I estimate that for the 184 linear inches that I put about 10-15 pebbles per inch. That means for the revetments alone I glued an estimated 1,840 – 2,760 pebbles/rocks!! Add in the six two-sided foot-long causeways, and that makes an estimated 4,720 – 7,080 pebbles that I glued down. Ok, now I know why these took so long!
Mid-project showing different levels of rock-laying completion. Here are 48 – including two more 6″ prototypes.Close up shot of progress later on in the project.
After all had dried, it was on to painting the two-tone colors, and adding slime and shade to the rocks.
After the two-tone priming.Completed revetments.
Next, I made some lily pads and cattails on some acrylic bases. These were HO scale from JTT Scenics that I got on Amazon. The link for the lily pads is here and the link for the cattails is here. I wanted to be able to further differentiate the lake and to have some verticality of structure along the waterline – such as you see in the picture below.
A painting of Cortes at the Battle of Tenochtitlan (from Britannica). Note the cattails.
I bought some 2″ clear acrylic bases years ago (2017), and had some in storage. I thought they would work well for the lily pads. They come with removable protective paper over them so that they had no scratches.
Acrylic base – there are many suppliers on Amazon. Here is where I got mine.The lily pads here are upside-down. The lily pads and their flowers are made on thin wire wound together – so if you cut the wire they all just fall apart. Initially, I used Gorilla Glue on the prototype, but decided to change course and fill the bottom of the wires and the holes with Vallejo “Transparent Water” Environmental Effect. Being careful not to overfill, this worked well and allowed me to cut the wires afterwards with no problems. I then used the water effect on the surface of the lily pads’ discs.The lily pads after the surfaces got the water treatment. They are still pretty clear, and will be good on either a water or a swamp mat.
The cattails bases were basically half-moons I cut away (removing the center hole) with my scroll saw. Then I drilled holes to put 4 in each base. I used the Vallejo “Transparent Water” Environmental Effect in a similar way as the lily pads, and after I cut the cattail wires I placed the excess on the base as cattails that had fallen over.
The product – I had 24 cattails that I put on 6 discs.
Cutting the discs
Randomly drilling the discs
Very clear acrylic even after drilling.
Making the cattail bases.Finished cattail bases.
Now, let’s see how they look on the gaming mat!
The revetments help fix the gap – here before…
…and after placement.
Revetment comparison.Pavement with revetments.Revetments, lily pads and the cattails on the mat.Extreme close up shot of the intersection of pavements, causeways, revetments, and cattails.
My goal with these was to create a visual distraction form the MDF edges. I think that they work fine – and of course you can let me know in the comments section if I am off-base (really, you can) or how you might have proceeded differently. Again, I tried meet the Aztec criteria of symmetry.
Thanks so much for looking – I hope it was helpful or at least interesting!
My next post will cover Cortes’ War Wagons that he employed with his troops in their breakout/ escape from Tenochtitlan during La Noche Triste.
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE TERRAIN PIECES/MODELS:
Basswood (1/16″ x 3″ x 24″ pieces) (on revetments)
Ashland Decorative Filler (rocks) (on revetments)
Elmer’s PVA Glue (on revetments)
Vallejo “Surface Primer Grey” (on revetments)
Reaper MSP “Black Primer” (on revetments)
Citadel “Nuln Oil” (shade) (on revetments)
Vallejo Environment “Slime Green Dark” (on revetments)
JTT Scenery Products HO Scale Lily pads
Gorilla Glue
Clear 2″ Acrylic Bases with center holes
Vallejo Weathering Effects “Transparent Water” (on acrylic bases)
An Aztec cityscape gaming table would be incomplete without the use of proper pavements. Tenochtitlan was not built to look hardscrabble. These pavements would need to go under the massive buildings I had to represent the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. This post will cover the pavements I made for the cityscape. As I shared in my previous post, Building an Aztec Cityscape – Part 1: Causeways, Lifting Piers, and Removable Bridge Sections, I will similarly share my WIP photos as well as my lessons learned.
Many contemporary images of Tenochtitlan show a brilliantly white city. I am not convinced that this was its actual appearance. Much of the rock used would have been basaltic or limestone-like in quality. Both are subject to oxidation, and turn brownish-grey over time. That would be particularly true for pavements that were exposed daily to the intense rays of the sun. The painting below reinforced my decision not to go with a white/bleached appearance of stone structures for this project. I went more brownish/grayish.
A painting of Cortes at the Battle of Tenochtitlan (from Britannica). Note the brownish appearance of the masonry.
As with the causeways that I built, I used the MDF sheets I bought from Home Depot. They were 1/4″ thick sheets of 2′ by 4′ that Jeff Smith helped me to cut into ten 1’x 1′ and ten 6″ x 6″ sections. Then I laid them out to see if my initial layout concept would work. It did. But, unlike the causeways, I had an idea that the pavements should look weathered, and have some patterns sculpted onto them – Aztec patterns.
The initial plan
Jeff cutting the MDF
Dry-fitting the MDF on a swamp mat
A few months prior I had learned from a friend in Maryland (Greg Priebe) that he had a surplus Aztec Roller from Green Stuff World (see it here). I was deep into painting the figures that I had at that point – but I traded some Ral Partha Vikings to him for it – with some idea that I would use it when I got to the point of building a cityscape – somehow. (THANKS GREG!!)
I was not going to like just having the MDF just be painted, I wanted a more tactile, almost 3D effect on them.
However, we are talking about 15 square feet of surface! I considered using green stuff and Apoxie Sculpt (both too expensive and potentially difficult for a huge build like this). I considered using modeling clay and then baking it and passed as that would end up potentially with either MDF on fire or a cause for my wife to terminate my existence for using her stove or both. After perusing YouTube for some ideas on sculpting on the MDF, I found this video from a guy named Luke in the UK where he used DAS clay mixed with PVA glue to use with Green Stuff Rollers. I decided that I would give that approach a go. I bought this DAS in white at Michaels.
Before I started, I needed to test and practice with the roller itself. It has a rectangular pattern, but it is a roller. Therefore, I would need to know where to start and where to stop. The solution came in borrowing some of my granddaughter Tabitha’s Play-Doh and marking a start and stop point on the roller with a Sharpie (and then returning the Play-Doh of course). This also let me figure out how large the imprint would be.
The roller pattern on Play-Doh as a test pattern.
The next step was to figure out the marking/sculpting plan for each pavement. I decided that having 3″ x 3″ squares would work well with both the larger and smaller MDF tiles. I needed to have a properly-sized template for the Aztec roller such that I could center it on the sculpted tiles. I planned to do 6 large tiles with the roller imprint, 4 without, and 9 small tiles without the roller imprint, and one with it. The roller imprint would be approximately 3″ x 5.5″.
Designing the larger (1′ x 1′) tile with the roller imprint centered.
It was now time to, well, get all messy and sticky with DAS and PVA. I used a smooth pastry roller (my own thank you not my wife’s), and a carpenter’s square (also mine!) to smooth out the DAS/PVA as well as to score lines in the mix at 3″ intervals. I used separate plastic tubs to mix the DAS/PVA and to clean my tools.
A tile without an imprint.This shows how I sculpted the tile surfaces for the roller. The DAS/PVA mix is on top – and I used a roller and wet fingers to smooth the top. Then I marked off 3″ squares and drew the edge of the carpenter’s square across as a tool. If there was to be an imprint, I placed and traced the template as you see here. Then, I would use the Aztec roller to make the imprint.An example of the rolled imprint. It was not always perfect, but I was able to smooth out the edges as best as I could. I expected to be able to make them work – and in the end they did. This was the worst example – I got better over time. In any case, when I was dry brushing I was able to make all look pretty good (though you can be the final judge).
The roller worked fairly well, though there was a learning curve to be sure. I definitely needed to have a tub of water, a brush, and microfiber towels to clean it (and my tools) constantly. The DAS/PVA on the MDF was left to dry over 24 hours. On a few of the larger tiles, I was surprised to see some of the MDF had a bit of warp from the drying clay/glue combo. The smaller pieces had none. Lesson learned. Certainly, finding enough flat surface for all 15 square feet to dry was not easy. I ended up using multiple card tables in the cellar. Yes, the wife was annoyed again. This whole process used up three packs of DAS – that’s 3 kilograms/6.6 pounds – of the stuff.
Drying tiles.
Once they had dried, the next question was how to paint them? I decided to use up my cans of Army Painter Strong Tone and Soft Tone (the dip), as they would be otherwise gathering dust in my paint shed. They theoretically would provide a bit of protection as well. Again, I also needed 24 hours of drying after application – yet again.
The Army Painter “dip” drying.After the dip dried. I was happy with the way the pavements looked, except for the glossy effect.
Normally, I do not use spray varnishes, but these large pieces were good candidates for a spray of Krylon matte varnish. It was warm outside, so I gave them a coat. All went well – until some of the pieces – mainly one – started bubbling up like a cheese pizza. AHHHHH!
From what I could figure out, that was caused by the aerosolized solvent in the can vaporizing in the DAS and trying to release through the varnish and the dip surface. Luckily it was only on one large tile, but that tile took a rework and made this last at least a week or two longer as I tried to find the right combination to recreate a similar color. This took me into mid-July.
More drying time needed! Hell, drying SPACE. 15 square feet to go on a 24 square foot mat is a lot!
I then brush varnished and shaded all of the tiles. At this time I moved on to dry brushing the imprints with Citadel “Astorath Red”. I also darkened the edges with DecoArt “Raw Umber”. The tiles line up together on the lines nicely. Though some warp is visible, it is not horrible. I also went over all of the tiles and shaded them as needed so that the colors were similar and no untouched DAS/PVA was visible.
A comparison of the imprints before and after on the pavement tiles.All six tiles with imprints.Close up shot of a completed tile.An imprinted tile with some Aztec warriors for comparison.
Of course, when you see the completed cityscape, you will be able to better judge how all of these came out. As they are modular, I should be able to use them in many ways. They certainly meet the Aztec criteria of symmetry. Also, these all can be part of Dave’s Season of Scenery Challenge!
At this point in the project, I noticed how the edges of the tiles were a distraction and needed some attention. I thought that seeing bare 90 degree edges and MDF sides coming out of a lake (or swamp) was a less than aesthetically correct situation for my cityscape. People would have built the city up from the lake – and that would have involved reclaiming the lake as dry ground. How? Well, I am sure that the Aztecs would have used slave labor to haul and deposit tons upon tons of rocks on the water’s edge.
My fix was to build some revetments around the cityscape’s edge plus some lily pads, and cattails – which will be the next installment in this series!
I hope that you enjoyed this part 2 and that you stay tuned for the rest – let me know your thoughts in the comments section and I appreciate your giving this a read!
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE TERRAIN PIECES/MODELS:
I have been working through July to build a representative 6′ x 4′ cityscape gaming table that would evoke the flavor of the city of Tenochtitlan, which was the capital of the Aztec Empire. On the arrival of Hernan Cortes in 1519, Tenochtitlan was populated by an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 people – making it even larger than contemporary London. It was built on an island in Lake Texcoco, and was linked to the mainland by multiple causeways. These causeways also had removable or liftable bridge sections. In effect, Lake Texcoco formed a “moat” around the city, making it impregnable to enemies for hundreds of years (until the Spanish Conquest occurred anyways). The causeways would be of major importance during all phases of the Spanish Conquest. Cortes met Montezuma II on a causeway for the first time. The Spanish and their Tlaxcalan allies would fight desperately at different times to both escape Tenochtitlan (La Noche Triste) and to return to conquer it afterwards. The nature and importance of the causeways were major aspects of these battles, so any representation of the city of Tenochtitlan needed to have causeways.
A 1524 map of Tenochtitlan showing the causeways (from History Today).Detail of a Tenochtitlan causeway (from Learnodo Newtonic).Cortes meets Montezuma on a causeway for the first time (from Pinterest).A painting of Cortes at the Battle of Tenochtitlan (from Britannica).
To build a city of such size would be massive – and certainly beyond the scope of a reasonably-sized gaming table. My goals were to make something special – while ensuring that it was something that could be used in games of Buck Surdu’s Feudal Patrol™ in Mesoamerica (using my Civilizations Collide supplement). I wanted a diorama that could be played on. To that end, I have built many buildings and figures that have been previously shared in this blog. What I needed to add was the underlying structure of the city – “the cityscape”.
The work that I did to build and paint this cityscape was extensive and would overwhelm a single blog post. Hell, it almost overwhelmed me just building it! Therefore, I have decided to break my work on it into 5 posts that I will share over the next few days. There will be a lot of WIP shots on each category, leading up to a final reveal. I am also continuing with my weekly garage+ build posts (like here and here), and I have some golf stuff to add as well. This is “Life, Golf, Miniatures, & Other Distractions” after all! My blogging drought is coming to an end! As for the cityscape posts, here is the listing of what is on deck:
Building an Aztec Cityscape – Part 1: Causeways, Lifting Piers, and Removable Bridge Sections (this post)
Building an Aztec Cityscape – Part 2: Pavements
Building an Aztec Cityscape – Part 3: Revetments, Lily Pads, and Cattails
Building an Aztec Cityscape – Part 4: Cortes’ War Wagons
Building an Aztec Cityscape – Part 5: Tenochtitlan – THE FINAL REVEAL
To build the cityscape, I started off with building the causeways, but work on all of these components overlapped. Please enjoy them and hopefully this is useful for my fellow gamers, modelers, and hobbyists. Luckily, these all can be part of Dave’s Season of Scenery Challenge – which is fun as well.
Initially, I wanted to plan the cityscape layout for a 6′ x4′ mat. I drew a rough sketch, and decided that I would get two 2′ x 4′ sheets of 1/4″ MDF from Home Depot. My friend Jeff Smith (a fantastic woodworker) has a lot of tools – to include a nice table saw, which I do not have. As I needed more precise cuts than I could achieve with my Black and Decker skilsaw, I enlisted his help. He was able to cut all the pieces in no time at all (and again, thanks Jeff!!!).
My initial rough concept of how to use the MDF sheets. They would be the basis of all of the cityscape construction. The pavements and causeways are both planned here, as well as where I wanted it all to go.Jeff cutting some causeways.
After the MDF was all cut, I laid out the pieces that I had on my FLG swamp mat, and arranged my buildings. Later, I would get a water mat from them, as I thought the swamp would not work as well. After the MDF concept layout, I was on to the building of the six causeways. I usually went through the process of doing one phase of work on one piece (like a prototype), and if that worked, moving on to the rest in similar phases.
My initial concept laid out on a swamp mat.
My causeway section prototype would be 5″ wide and a foot long. I spaced out some 6″ craft sticks evenly across the bottom and used wood glue to affix them. These would be to support the wooden piers and stones around them on the sides of the top surface. This worked ok, so I did all six with the cross-glued craft sticks.
Lining up the craft sticks on the bottom of the first causeway. At the top you can see some wood I was planning to use as piers – more on those shortly.After I glued all the craft sticks across the bottoms, I weighted them down and let the glue set overnight.
While the glue was setting on phase I of the causeway undersides, I built the two removable bridge sections. These are 6″ long and the same width as the causeways. These would be analogous to a medieval drawbridge. I broke up craft sticks irregularly and dry-fitted them to the top of the bridge sections. Then, I weathered the wood by beating a small chain on and into them with a ball peen hammer. After this, I glued them on with wood glue and let dry overnight. I did not press these with weight as I wanted a less uniform surface of the bridge to represent wear and aging.
My chain and ball peen hammer weathering of the craft stick wood surface.The weathered wood ready for gluing.
Then, I went back to the causeways. The cross-sections were ok, but I needed to have a way to add the revetments along the sides – so I added more craft sticks longitudinally on each side. They would jut out about 1/2″ on the side of the causeways.
Here you see four of the six causeways after the first gluing – and before adding more on the sides for the rocky revetments.Here are the longitudinally-added craft sticks set with binder clips for overnight drying.
Once dry, I covered the surfaces with glue and then chinchilla dust.
After adding the chinchilla dust and allowing for drying. Next up would be the painting and shading of the causeways’ surfaces, then onto adding the piers and rocks.
I finished painting the removable bridge sections and build and painted 4 lifting piers out of square dowels and 1/8″ plywood.
The masked causeways ready for painting, along with the 4 lifting piers and the 2 removable bridge sections. I masked the sides as I wanted to have a clean gluing surface for the piers and rocks. Having an airbrush sped this process – especially relative to all of the gluing!I base coated the causeways, lifting piers, and removable bridge sections (ignore the WIP pavements behind – that’s a sneak peek at the next post!)All painted and shaded – except I wanted to add a bit more to the bridge sections……which you see here – I added some contrast to the planks.
Next, I moved on to the side piers and causeway revetments. The following day I grabbed a dry oak branch from the woods behind the house and cut it up. As each causeway section would need 14 wooden piers (seven per side), I figured I’d need 84 piers. So, I initially planned on using some birch wood discs I had plus the oak sections. I cut up the wood in sizes I thought would work well. However, as I laid it out (dry fit), I was not happy with the appearance. At all. Clearly, compared to a 28mm figure, the wood size was far in excess of what would have been used as piers along the causeways.
The oak and birch wood pier candidates
Laid out, I saw that these were not the right size or appearance. The finished surfaces of the causeways that you see here were ok though.
It was time to regroup. For piers, I then decided to use 1/8″ wooden dowels instead. I cut them up roughly to represent timber and glued them together in threes – and if you are doing the math, yes, that is cutting up and gluing together 252 pieces for the 84 piers. This project had a LOT of gluing and drying stages! I also found a nice source of rocks at Michaels – those little filler stones that some people use in glass vases. These were much cheaper than any hobby talus would have been. The time downside was that for effective placement I needed to glue one course of rocks at at a time – one rock at a time – with PVA – more gluing and waiting for drying…
Detail of the pier and rocks gluing. I cut the pier wood pieces irregularly as possible to add realism.The first side of a causeway glued up with piers and rocks and a 28mm Conquistador for comparison. The PVA would dry and “suck” up nicely into the crevices.
I then painted the piers and added some shade to them.
Painted piers
For the rocks, I painted them with Vallejo “Grey Surface Primer, followed by a layer of Reaper “MSP Black Primer” on the bottom (where the rocks would have been by the lake), and added some slime to them there as well. After that, I added an aggressive layer of shading with Citadel “Nuln Oil”. The effect on the rocks was excellent. You can see a list of all the paints and other materials that I used at the end of this post.
Adding black primer to the bottom of the rocks over the grey primer in an irregular pattern to represent the water line.After adding grey and black primers to the rocks.Finished causeway with the Conquistador. Note the effect of the shading on the rocks.Top viewA finished causeway, lifting piers, and removable bridge section on my new FLG water mat.Tlaxcalans assault the city from the causeway (another sneak peek!)
With the causeways, removable bridge sections, and lifting piers, I now have terrain components that I can use for the cityscape. I also could use them for a causeway battle, and add war canoes in the lake with Aztecs shooting bows, slings, and atlatl at the Conquistadors and Tlaxcalans from the water.
I think you can see why I am breaking up this into multiple posts! This started in June and ended in July. My next post will focus on the design and building of the cityscape pavements. I hope you found this useful and will keep following this series – and please let me know your thoughts in the comments section.
Thanks so much for looking!
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE TERRAIN PIECES/MODELS:
It’s been a very busy time here at home since my last blog post in early June. Some of you have wondered if I had gone past my expiration date. Rest assured, I, for better or worse, am still on the top side of the fairway (or maybe the rough anyways).
This post will be a bit different than the standard fare I usually offer here. Yes, the title of my blog is “Life, Golf, Miniatures, & Other Distractions”. Too often, however, I neglect everything EXCEPT miniatures here. But as I now have a good deal to share on all of these, well, I guess for once I’ll give equal billing. You see, I have been building my Aztec cityscape. It’s a tabletop wargame set up that needs its own (and probably multiple separate) posts.
That is NOT the subject of this post – you did read the title friend?
No, this time instead, I’ll ramble through each of the aforementioned title topics about “stuff” that has gone on in the last month. I’ll share some hopefully interesting photos and a few observations that will (maybe) make you say wow! Or Hmmm! Or Huzzah! Or WTF? Or a combo? Your choices of course. Chuckling is allowed and strongly encouraged
As its been over a month since my last post, sit back and enjoy – I think that I did for the most part.
Life
This section is dedicated to the more important parts and events of my life – you know, the ones that I don’t usually write about. But they are important – and yes, even more important than minis or golf (oh please don’t make me write that again but it’s true). Most of this section is organized chronologically, but not aligned with the other sections – a lot of this is about family, vacations, and food!
Let’s start here with my wife Lynn and I celebrating her birthday back on June 12th. We got a pair of 2.5 pound lobsters and had a great meal at home!
As the pandemic really kept the planet at home, and as I am often remiss each summer in taking my wife to the beach as often as she’d like, I felt that it was important that this year I make an effort – especially as she was to be on vacation – to get her to the beach. Now, she likes Newport, RI, but I’ve always preferred Hampton Beach, NH. And she likes it too by the way – so I’m not a total ass! As her vacation weeks were fixed (I’m always off so no big deal for me), we looked at the calendar and June 28th looked like the only day of her first vacation week that would not be rainy. It also was hot as hell – so, we made the 90 mile trek to the New Hampshire coast.
Looking out towards my UK friends from under my umbrella. You are over there somewhere.Beautiful day at the beach.The north end of Hampton Beach.As New Hampshire is The Granite State, it was nice to see these old rocks at low tide. We were just sitting behind these by 100 yards.Same area as previous shot. looking at the ocean.
Now please understand, the water here is truly cold – usually not warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 10 degrees Celsius for you metric types). No Gulf Stream here to warm the water. As this day the air temp was 89 degrees Fahrenheit with a slight breeze (that’s 32 degrees Celsius for you metric types) – it felt like we were in a convection oven even under our umbrella. I took a couple mile walk to get the photos and some exercise and despite sunscreen got a (mild) sunburn and a couple blisters from the hot sand! Amazing to experience such heat with such cold water so close. Yes, I know that it gets hotter in other places (and I’ve lived down South too plus some time in the Sahara), but for us this was really hot. Lynn and I decided to head out for the boardwalk and some old (like us) video games, shade, and a snack, and some shopping. Oh yeah, and especially shade.
I think we were fully cooked.
After our little saunter along the boardwalk (which was much cooler), we decided to head out and grab dinner. Years before we met, unbeknownst to either us, both of us were aficionados of Brown’s Lobster Pound in nearby Seabrook, NH. We both had gone there since we were kids. It was nice to discover we had that in common when we met, and have been there every time we went through the area. We always get steamers (steamed clams) and lobsters. It’s a BYOB place, so we grabbed a few adult beverages and grabbed a nice spot on the picnic tables inside and waited for our orders.
LOVE THIS PLACE!The place does a LOT of business – here is the outside takeout line for fried food.Always good to park at low tide…The causeway by the restaurant – soon in a future post you’ll see how it inspired my Aztec causeway colors – but not now! LET’S SEE FOOD!Start with steamers…End with a couple of 2 pounders!
That was a fun day. The rest of the week was rainy, to include the weekend. On the third of July, we managed to gather to celebrate Buck Surdu’s birthday…ok, we did not do that… 😁 – but we did get in a belated Father’s Day for me, a partial belated birthday for Lynn, and a day early Independence Day celebration. I got some cool gifts and cards! As it was my second Father’s Day celebration without my Dad, it felt better, especially with family.
Me, my Mom, my daughter Ellen, my wife Lynn, and the cute little one (no, besides me) is my granddaughter Tabitha who is four and a half now.
A week later Lynn and I were again having seafood withdrawals, so we hit a favorite place of ours, Red Crab Juicy Seafood in Worcester, MA (just 10 miles away). It specializes in Cajun seafood.
What a menu! And you can order every special on any day!
Spicy hot seafood, a gorgeous wife, and a Corona!
Ok, enough about food. We have been working on replacing our garage since before the pandemic. It looks like a Dr. Seuss house, only less useful. The previous owner of our house had won the Massachusetts State Lottery back in the 1970’s when it was a $50,000 drawing once a week (now it’s made up of dozens of games and much bigger payouts). He’s long dead now. In any case, my understanding is that with his winnings he bought a new car, one that was too big for his garage. The easy fix for him was to cut off the end of the garage, cut the stringers on the left side, and use scab lumber to extend the garage in both directions. As you will see from the photos below, while his fix lasted his lifetime, it was not going to rival the pyramids.
The garage as seen from our house’s 2nd floor. If you look closely you can see the roof’s deviation at the back where the extension was done. I have spent a lot of effort with a roof rake over many winters trying to keep the roof from succumbing to the weight of snow on this bad roof. Our septic leach field is under the grass and goes right up to the driveway – so a two car garage replacement was not practical. The electric door still works – but barely. The door itself was shaped to the ground underneath instead of making the ground level. The door panels are particle board and warped due to exposure to moisture. This project will also encompass replacing the driveway, and installing a second floor and deck on the new building. We are also replacing the current deck we have now attached to the back of our house.Door on side rotting away.Roof and stringers rotting away.Here you can see the warped door panels and the siding barely hanging on (I nailed it back on after a winter blizzard nearly took it all off).The inside is totally NOT critter-proof, and structurally suspect. We have not stored a car in here for years – it’s been a shed basically. Mice did significant damage (>$800) to one of our cars in it, and after that no more was it a true garage for us.It is a mess. We just emptied it out as the demolition starts soon.The structure is put together somewhat haphazardly – and again it is a critter home.The extended area with recycled lumber is shown here – and somehow there is no ridge pole – unless you count that thin piece of plywood masquerading as one. Structurally, the left side is supported by a huge beam (approximately 7″ x 5″), which supports the weight of the left roof extension as the stringers were cut and sort of renailed together. All that weight rests on a pair of 2″ x 4″s – set in…I think the ground. I can’t see any proof of a footer at all. Again, not built to any code I ever read about.The other end of the beam is supported by a 2″ x 6″, that also has the wiring coming in from underground…somewhere…probably under the driveway.
Now our good friend IRO is converting a carport into a shed using recycled materials, and is doing a FAR better job than was done with this monstrosity. In any case, it needs to go. We knew we wanted to do something extra here as we wanted some entertainment space and a deck to overlook the pond in back. Before the pandemic, we hired an architect, Lasse Aspelin, to design us a new garage with a second floor and a 16′ x 16′ deck, plus a new deck for the back of the house. We now have cleared the Town’s Conservation Commission, Building Inspector, and Zoning Board of Appeals (not going to bore you but that took a long time – over a year), and demolition starts this week. Here is what we are going to build:
Garage front.Side viewDeck detailSecond story roomThe garage interior. The new building will have all utilities, to include gas, water, and a mini-kitchenette and a bathroom on the second floor – perfect for entertaining.The new house deck as will be seen from the garage deck.
It’s a big project, but one that will allow us to fully benefit from our home and property for years to come. Plus, now at least one car can come out of the snow in winter! We have hired Ready Installs of Shrewsbury, MA to do the project – and they are working with subcontractors like Andre Cormier of Cormier & Sons out of Fiskdale, MA.
News Flash!! As I write this post, Andre showed up with the excavator and we are excited! He even might let me take the first whack! Have some preliminary silt protection (for the pond) installed and the power cut to the building, but we are that much closer to starting!
The cavalry has arrived – or at least Andre and his excavator!As stated in Blade Runner, for the old garage, “Time to Die”.
Golf
I play golf at least two-three times a week. 18 holes on Tuesday in a scramble format on Tuesdays, 9 holes of medal play on Thursdays, and 18 competitive holes of some type on the weekend either in the club sweeps or a tournament. I have taken a couple of lessons this year and am making some swing changes which is not an easy process. I have also been hitting range balls at least once a week.
In May, I got fitted for new clubs (my last new set was 10 years ago). I got on the launch monitor and was fitted for Ping G425 MAX driver, 3 wood, and 3,4, and 5 hybrids. For irons, Ping 710’s. Basically, I’m brand loyal to Ping. More on that in a bit.
I played in two tournaments – one was a scramble in the monthly “Tour of the Brookfields” on June 19th. I did not lead my team to victory, as we ended up only -4 (67) and 63 won our flight. It was another rainy and cold day too, so a tough scoring day.
The final scores – my team was in the Palmer flight on the far right at 67.
On July 1st, I got good news and bad news on my new clubs. The good news is that the G425’s finally arrived. The bad news was that the irons would take until mid-August – remember they were ordered in MAY!!
My old woods – Ping K15 driver, 3- and 5 wood, and two Cleveland Hybrids (a 2 and a 4), and a 5 iron go in as trades.
My new toys!
These new sticks were available for the second tournament, the Member-Member at Quail Hollow in Oakham, MA on July 11th. I played with Dan Befford as a partner. I shot a 96 (net 79) so I felt like I could have done better, but the new clubs were a help. We did not win anything, but we did have a good time.
Miniatures
Some of you are saying YES, finally!
Again, I have been working on my Tenochtitlan cityscape components over this timeframe. They will be my entry into Dave’s “Season of Scenery” painting and modeling challenge – but I did get a few things done in June miniature-wise that would not count towards it.
I decided that based on my last post, where I showed the raid scenario I ran at the Mass Pikemen, that I needed a few things made. Both were fairly easy. The first was a cornfield that could provide some nice tabletop scenery as well as potential Aztec cover. Inspired by Chris Rett’s creation, I stole his HO scale cornfield idea and built one for myself.
The JTT Creations corn stalks – I had two boxes of 28 so 56 in total.I decided to have a blank row between the rows of corn to allow the figures to be place in the field. I used 6″ popsicle sticks and marked 7 holes equally spaced on each for 1/16″ drilling with my Dremel (after painting).Used Vallejo texture paint and some others to highlight and shade the sticks, then drilled and glued the cornstalks.Finished cornfield! This is the 15 row configuration with spacers.I could also leave one space out and do 7 sticks x 2 as you see here.
I also wanted a few magnets for affixing to my steel figure bases in games of Feudal Patrol™ using my Civilizations Collide supplement for the Spanish Conquest. These would be for situations such as loading the falconet, figures losing a shield or a weapon, or just getting away from the leader for any reason (see below).
The magnets I have for my games clockwise from the upper left: figure that is captured and being dragged off, “READY” and “AIM” for falconet prep to firing, “UNARMED” for a figure that drops a weapon or has it broken, “OUT OF COMMAND” for an individual figure that has strayed too far from its leader, “NO SHIELD” for when a figure has a broken shield, and “WEAPON MALFUNCTION” for a sling, bow, crossbow, or arquebus that has a repairable issue.
On June 26th, I took that game (replete with my new magnets and the cornfield)on the road to Great Stories in Uxbridge, MA. There, I reran my rural “Surprise Raid on Outpost” scenario again.
We had 5 players, and the randomness of the setup put the Tlaxcalan archers on the left flank of the defenders. The Aztecs had better luck this time but still fell short of victory due to their incurring excess casualties. You can see a lot of the pictures of the battle here and here (I was too busy as GM to take more than the one’s below):
The raid begins. Even Chris Rett and Mike Paine and Ted Salonich got in the action!Ryan is happy (his Tlaxcalans did a lot of damage), While Chris is waiting to unpin her Conquistadores – which eventually happened.Aztecs full of arrows…The sole Aztec to survive the trek to try to get into melee with the bow-wielding Tlaxcalans!
As a result of this game, I will be adjusting the victory points and making some “BERSERKER” markers.
I offered a raffle prize from my stash and Ryan won it. I wanted it to have a good home.
There was also a store raffle, and I won – and got my grandaughter the Minnie below!
After the game, Minnie for Tabitha!
Lastly, on the miniatures front, I was happy to see a couple of my ideas and posts shared! One was a What a Tanker game shout out (in English) from Naval Gazing, and one was a French post from Small Maya that was dedicated to this blog! Check out these posts! Very nice and thank you!!
As I wrote, as my cityscape is finished, I will start posting about it!
Other Distractions
Ok, I did not know where to put this, but “Other Distractions” seemed to be about right.
I walk a lot for exercise – especially if not a golf day. One of my favorite hats has been a gray “Aussie Chiller” hat that works well for a sunny walk or golf. On a windy day, because it’s one size too big, it can fly off my head in a stiff breeze. I’ve had the hat for several years.
Two days ago, a Sunday golf tournament I was to play in had to be canceled because the course was too wet – we’ve had nearly 5 inches of rain in July and 1.7″ came Saturday night. The weather broke, and I went for a walk with my Aussie Chiller on as the wind was low.
However, during my 5-mile walk, a dump truck drove by and the breeze it made took off my hat perfectly like a frisbee. Unfortunately – this happened as I was walking over the spillway for Lake Lashaway. Helplessly, I watched it land in the torrential spillway’s dead center, never to be seen again.
RIP Aussie Chiller hat.
The watery spillway grave of my Aussie Chiller hat.
I did order another one, but as you can see, they are NOT cheap.
Oh well, until next time dear reader – I now have a month of followed blogs to read!!!
But, as always, let me know what you thought of this post! Happy Summer! (OK Happy Winter Aussies!)
Mark A. Morin 
