Why not add East Africa, India and Southeast Asia Sultanates miniatures to this range?
While Aztecs are a well known media choice against the Spanish, the Portuguese Adventurers and Conquistadors were making advances on the India Ocean:
Foe example
Expanding the Renaissance range
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@Vitor Correia Expecially East Asians, either as human foes and supernatural ones, given how big is their Pantheon.
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Renaissance range is historical, but mythical forces fitting the theme can be easily put under Fantasy line. I'd definitely like more in the range. Japanese and other european nations could work too, there's a plenty of fancy units that are rarely touched by producers. Early artillery sets maybe?
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I think we could do with some Incas as well, as they could certainly have had different equipment to the Aztecs.
Also, how are WA going to deal with the lack of Eagle Warriors in the Aztecs box?
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I agree with all that was said. This is a range with a lot of potential that could be expanded either with more historical stuff and more fantastical!
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@Caratacus Yeah there are not many eagle warriors in the Aztec box. I wonder if we'll get other Native American tribes that were well known for being active during the Rennaisance? We also need Ottomans as well since they were a big motivator for Europe's expansion to the west. We also need the landshneckt mercinaries.
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@Charles Tottington There aren't any Eagle Warrior options in the Aztec box at all. There are heads for Jaguar Warriors, and heads with pointy hoods that fans of the Medieval II Total War Americas campaign like myself would say are for Arrow Warriors, but no Eagle Warrior heads. I pointed this out with @Lord Marcus a while back and he just virtually shrugged and said they couldn't fit Eagle Warrior heads in, which I'm not impressed by. Eagle Warriors were just as important a unit in the Aztec army as Jaguar Warriors, and one would think that it would be obvious to represent both in the box.
A 'Northern Indian Tribesmen' box would be great too, for representing early Apaches, Chichimeca and the other less advanced but more adaptable tribes further north that posed a completely different challenge to the Spanish and other early European colonists to arrive in the Americas. Indeed an expanded box of the Mississipians Digital set might work, if more action poses and weapon arms were included.
Ottomans are certainly a market full of promise that has not been tapped into in plastic yet, as are Indians, Chinese and other eastern kingdoms at this time which many know little about, but I think we can push Landsknechts down the priority list given that Warlord have those pretty much covered, not to mention GW's Empire range is an entire expanded army based around the concept. The rabid Empire fanatics on here have had their moment in the sun with the ghastly Landsknecht Ogres, now it's time other fanbases had a say.
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@Charles Tottington While I agree that we need Ottomans I must correct you.
It was not the Ottomans that pushed European Exploration.
Unfortunately it's a terrible bit of "bad" History that has been taken as gospel.
I'll leave this quote from reddit:
"'Spice must flow' a.k.a 'Ottomans stopped the spice trade and started Age of Discovery' myth"
I have already done several posts about this topic in sister subs, but I have recently again stumbled upon a few posts over on /r/history claiming again the age old fact which everyone knows: that Ottomans blocked Asian goods and spices from reaching Europe and that prompted Iberians to go around Africa and across the Atlantic.
And i just had to do a big post here as well.
So here are some of the sort of comments that pop up all the time
First one is simple:
Well we all know that america was discovered during the search for new trade routes (cause the ottomans blocked the old ones). That is also what inspired most colonization - wealth. Gold from america and spices from asia
While his second sentence - that wealth inspired most colonization - is sort of true (it was infinitely more complex than that) the first sentence, especially the remark in the brackets is totally wrong.
Another post is even more incorrect:
Mediterranean countries benefitted hugely from trade with Asia. With the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire, they lost their link to the east, and had to find new routes. The Portuguese began sailing around Africa, and one Genoese man thought he could get there by sailing directly west.
This post in particular shows the full extent of the wrongness. It proposes that by loss of Byzantine empire, Europe “lost the link” to East, and “had to” find new routes. And only after this preconditions happened have Europeans began exploring.
The appeal of this myth is of course the simplicity and obvious casualty. One thing clearly led to another, and for our poor human minds looking for order in chaos, this might seem reasonable.
Unfortunately absolutely everything about it is completely and utterly wrong on so many levels that it warrants a lengthy post. Not to be very philosophical myself I will quote Lybyer from all the way back in 1915 tackling this myth:
The entire hypothesis seems to be a legend of recent date, developed out of the catastrophic theory which made the fall of Constantinople an event of primary importance in the history of mankind. The great discoveries had their origin in a separate chain of causes, into which the influence of the Moslems of Spain, North Africa, and the Mameluke empire entered, but not that of the Ottoman Turks.
The reasons why this is so are numerous. Let’s break it down to few key ones. First from Iberian side we have few observations:
1. Atlantic voyages and going down African coast started well before 1453
The Portuguese Atlantic voyages started after 1415 with conquest of Ceuta (Spanish-French expeditions to Canaries even before that). Madeira was colonized in the 1420s, Azores in 1430s. Caravels were used since 1430s and furthest point visited so far - Cape Bojador - was passed in 1434 and regular voyages beyond were being conducted afterwards. By 1450s the exploration down African coast- in actuality more slave raids - on which we have much information, brought Portuguese all the way past Senegal and Gambia rivers, to the vicinity of modern Sierra Leone. Here is a map trying to show the extent of lands already discovered by around 1450
2. Motives recorded by Portuguese themselves for start of exploration never mention any kind of “lack” of spices
We just have to open the The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, Vol. I, on Chapter VII by Gomes Eannes de Azurara who lists the reasons (he considered) why the Prince Henry decided to explore Africa: curiosity and zeal of service to god and king, new economic opportunity (but no mention of spices, just generally opening a new market in Guinea), gauging the extent of power of Moors, and finding allies against Moors (specifically Prester John) and finally spreading Christianity.
Obviously not mentioning the unavailability of spices does not mean it didn’t occur, but still, contrasting with the importance it was supposed to have i think it would feature more prominently.
On the Mediterranean side of things we have other, more relevant, issues
3. Constantinople was actually not the most important point for the spice trade at all, as Venice (and Genoa and French and Catalan) got the vast majority of their spices in Alexandria and Beirut
It shouldn’t really be surprising when you think about it. Spice originated in India and SE Asia, and it went to Europe by ships on the sea route to Red Sea and Persian Gulf where land caravans would take them through Egypt and Syria to ports on Mediterranean.There it would be picked up by European traders and transferred by ships to rest of Europe. Constantinople would be a detour on that route, not the center point. See this Venetian routes to Alexandria and Beirut as recorded by 15th century Venetian sailor Michael of Rhodes(source)
The overland routes from China to the Black Sea, and from there Europe, for which Constantinople was important, were only a part of this Asia trade, and spices would definitely not go through there. To back up these claims, let’s show the table showing Venice pepper imports in years 1394-1405, basically much before ottoman conquest, from Wake: "The Volume of European Spice Imports at the Beginning and End of the XVth Century" (1986) available in full here , page 632
Area Pepper(lbs) Spices(lbs)
Alexandria 1,614,300 221,335
Beirut 414,250 449,987
Romania (Constantinople) 67,920 43,687
As we can see, pepper and spices poured from Levant, not Constantinople in order of magintude larger amounts.
4. Fall of Constantinople had little effect on prices of pepper and spice (and from there we can conclude also the supply)
To show this part, we will reffer to Frederic C. Lane and his paper Pepper Prices Before Da Gama where he lists the prices of pepper through the years in Venice. The expectation being that after 1453, if the trade routes were closed we would see the effect in prices. I’ll post the photo of the table he compiled here. Analyzing this we can see that in the period of 1430- 1490 the price of pepper remained relatively the same. Compare that to events of 1499-1503 when the price of pepper really jumped which is related to both Second Venetian-Ottoman War and Portuguese incursion in Indian ocean that really stopped the flow of pepper. Analyzing previous years, we can really conclude there is no obvious shortage or stoppage of spices coming to Europe prior to 1499 related to Ottomans, or any other Muslim nation, at all.
Interesting detail: Lane’s table shows another very curious incident - sudden spike in prices between 1409 and 1411 and remaining until 1430s. The reason is still unknown but one guess it was the result of the Zheng He expeditions which bought massive amounts of pepper, seriously altering the supply side of pepper for europe resulting in massive prices.
5. Egypt and Syria - the main spice routes- weren’t even Ottoman controlled until 1517 - decades after the Columbus and Da Gama expeditions
One of the most important things is that Ottomans were confined to the areas of Balkan and Anatolia , with Mamluk Sultanate controlling Egypt and Syria. The Ottoman conquest of Levant happened only in 1517 following the Ottoman Mamluk war, which is significantly after both discovery of America and Portuguese presence in Indian Ocean.
Also, but this I can’t prove, it is quite probable the Portuguese temporary stoppage of pepper flow to Egypt, and the unsuccessful expedition to Diu to expel the Portuguese, led to weakening of the Mamluk state and ultimately it being consumed by the Ottomans
6. Ottomans, Mamluks nor for that matter any other Muslims never ‘stopped the spice trade’ to Europe, nor would they want to (for a longer period)
This is an important point and one which too many people just don’t think about. Why would the Ottomans stop the trade to Europe in the first place? Just because they were Christians? It would make no economic sense, and accomplish nothing. Even in times of conflict with some of the nations, like Venice, there were plenty of other traders filling the void: French, Ragusan, Catalan, Genoese, later English and Dutch also. I will only mention and hope I don’t have to go into details of the French-Ottoman alliance and capitulations granted by Ottomans as I am really not an expert in Ottoman diplomatic and trade relations. However their very existence is the ultimate proof that trade was never stopped.
Edit Whoops. I forgot here to add some key data
Table 2. Venetian galley import average annuals for years 1496 - 1498 from Wake: "The Volume of trade ....", page 633 (13/16 in the link)
Area Pepper(lbs) Spices(lbs)
Alexandria 1,754,480 2,140,880
Beirut 603,150 563,231
Basically, this data in the table above shows how much pepper and spice did the Venetians import by the end of 15th century. The total amount is even larger then in the beginning (table for 1394-1405) indicating not only the trade never stopped but that it even increased (but this might be just Venetians muscling out competiton). To be fair, just this data alone still allows the possibility of stopping the trade in mid 15th century and then recovering but a) that's unlikely as we have zero indications for this and b) if it even recovered than the point that Muslims stopped trade is still moot
/Edit
Even in the 16th century, when the Ottomans really did control the Levant, and Portuguese the Indian Ocean, the trade through Egypt and Syria was ongoing. There are even some indications the spice route through Levant superseded the Portuguese route around Africa in the2nd half of 16th century. See this table compiled by Reid showing pepper and spice imports to Europe. The values for 16th century indicate there was an ongoing trade through Ottoman areas to Europe. This theory (of Levant route being larger then Portuguese route in late 16th century) is very widely accepted, but some authors, like before mentioned Wake, made some IMHO very compelling counter arguments. However I do not think this is the appropriate time and place to go into this discussion. Suffice to say, whatever those details are, trade goods have always passed through Levant to Europe
To come to some sort of conclusion.
The statement that Ottoman stoppage of trade caused age of discovery is totally unsupported and also unreasonable statement reducing all of the parties to ridiculous simplifications.
If we are to believe it we have to forget that Mamluk Sultante existed, and Ottomans were clearly some spiteful haters who would rather not earn money then simply trade with Europe.
The Portuguese, and Spanish, aren’t that vilified to point of cartoonish, however their motivations are still reduced to simply responding to the complete absence of spice and trade. Instead of the more truthful version of them simply trying to open an alternate, more profitable, line of supply next to an already existing one.
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Thank you for your clarification, which is very interesting and relevant.
The historical vision focused on Europe often leads to approximations or shortcuts (raccourcis). The civilizations of China, of the Turco-Mongolian steppes, of Persia or India also had their spheres and modes of influence, as well as direct and indirect effects on the "Western" civilization (diplomacy, war, religions, economy).
We often "forget" that for two centuries (from Genghis Khan to Timur Lang), the Mongols and their Turkish-speaking vassals, allies or successors, made sure to leave the Silk Road open, for example...
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@Vitor Correia I loved this history lesson! It gave a lot of insight as to how the kingdoms of the old world related to each other. And with your mention of the French-Ottoman alliance it certainly turns the gears in my head for a potential age of discovery era game where French or Ottoman players could take allied units from each other.
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Personally, I would really like to see the renaissance range expanded. Especially the first part of the 16th century. Its the pinnacle of Feudalism and medieval warfare with in my opnion, the perfect mix of all elements of pike and shotte and renaissance warfare. Gunpowder was still in early stages and pikemen dominated the battlefield. Heavy armoured knights or men at arms in full plate, fully articulated and covering many spots previously unprotected, the knights were night invinicble to all but close range gunpowder or well place blows. The period also had many great wars like the italian wars and the great wars against the ottomans.
Generic early renaissance infantry, Armoured knights, Landsknechts, all can make vast and varied armies. An Ottoman range, or eastern european range, if convertable with the rest of the range could let them be comubned to represent various border nations or allied forces. For example, Armoured knightly cavalry could be converted with ottoman cavalry bits to represent, Martolos, Balkan nobles, wallachian nobles, and other ottoman allied noble cavalry, even hungarians, who might have adopted helmets or swords or elements of Ottoman armour.
This whole range could be bright and colourful, with bright and decorated armours.
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Lord Marcus Moderator@Caratacus I didn't virtually shrug.
Eagle warriors would require a different body sculpt to the warsuit available in the current plastic set.
When we designed the aztecs, the goal was to allow for the construction of the most unit/ warrior order types possible.
Adding in a 7th body, with a warsuit that featured feather sculpted details, was considered. The current sprue was decided upon because it allowed for the most unit possibilities, as the eagle warrior body would basically be exclusive to them, while the current warsuit option can be used by multiple variants.
The pointed caps are for 2-captive rank warriors, and multiple warrior priest ranks.
Eagle warriors are still something that is on the drawing board, but unless someone campaigns for them to be put on vox populi as a stand-alone bespoke set, the likelyhood is that they will be a digital expansion.
Similarly, you can use the aztec backbanner and parts from the aztec sacrifice digital sets to expand on the plastic kit. I made a master of the house of darts last year, and am in the process of using running bodies from the sacrifice scene to soak up extra plastic bits.
Not to mention the extra warrior priest and warrior ranks I'm makking with the back banners.
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I think one decent expansion to the Renaissance range would be including non-Spanish soldiers from Europe to include..... just about everyone else. I myself am wondering what a historical Tudor Era english kit would look like since a recent art project I've been working on has got me interested in the war between the English and Scottish during the Tudors.
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@Charles Tottington they all looked a lot like the spanish at that time though (like the norwegians and English look close enough), heck I am pretty sure the set only has pikes so it can cover most nations in europe since they didn't really seem to use those heavy anti cav stake weapons in the horseless Americas.
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The conquistador and aztec sets are excellent, but zooming out a bit on the Age of Discovery, there were more European nations exploring the world in that broad time span than just Spain, and the areas being explored by those nations covered an astonishing amount of territory, as far north as Greenland and Canada, as far east as Japan and the coasts of Australia, as far south as the coasts of Africa and South America, and far west across North America.
That's a lot of ground that can be covered!
In Europe, some of the bigger players beyond the Spanish included the Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, Italians, Swiss, Swedes... as mentioned above, most of these can surely be covered with the Conquistador set, and probably most of the rest by a broadly northern European set focusing on e.g. the English, but there might still be some interesting variety to be found across Europe in the era, including what must have been a complicated military history of what is now Germany, Austria, and the ever-shifting boundaries of eastern Europe.
In the Americas alone, there would be a bewildering variety of peoples who came in contact with the Europeans, beyond the Aztecs... most are no doubt very niche, but the Toltecs, Incas, Olmecs, Mayans, Comanches, Dakotas, Blackfoot, Apache, Cree, Creek, Cahokians, and Choctaw are just few of the bigger subjects that could be worked with, perhaps starting with some of the Atecs' neighbors/rivals.
In the far east, Japan, China, Korea, and India are just the start of the possibilities... I'm pretty sure that these have been at least touched lightly on through Digital Atlantic sets, and there are certainly a couple of the small-scale sets for Japan either in the works or on the shelves already, but 28mm boxed Renaissance sets for this region seem like a natural next step.
I can't help noticing that Wargames Atlantic's classic fantasy armies - like the Halflings, Goblins, Lizard Men, and Ogres - are essentially costumed in a roughly Renaissance fashions, and as a fantasy gamer I would certainly like to see more like this, encouraging cross-over between the WA Renaissance sets and fantasy sets on the same tables, or for kitbashing purposes. I also really enjoy the possibilities of the "What If?" sets that appear sometimes in Atlantic Digital for what are essentially alt-history or fantasy sets for armies moved out of their historical element into some other historical period - there's a lot that can be done for the Renaissance with this sort of thing, maybe not as hard plastic boxed kits, but at least in Digital: "what iff..." the New World had been visited by the Ottomans, Mongols, or Russians, or what if the big African empires had played a more important economic and military role in Europe, Asia, or even the Americas? And furthermore in science fiction/fantasy, who doesn't enjoy those wonderful, detailed schematics that Leonardo Da Vinci made of fantastical war machines and the like? There might be some 3D-printeable versions out there, but I don't think anyone has made a 28mm plastic kit for these sorts of vehicles yet, and they seem like they'd be a fun addition to a fantasy Renaissance tabletop wargame, especially provided enough optional bits to customize for different factions:
Anyway, fantasy/sci-fi aside, I think the low-hanging fruit for the Renaissance must surely include at least three or four of these:
- English
- Incas
- Mayans
- Japanese
- Koreans
- Chinese
- Ottomans
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@Yronimos Whateley Nah, as they are for their timeframe in the Renissiance the Conquestdor sets cover for most Western European troops including the explorers/colonists except maybe really oddball merc types like the kelt wearing Highland Scots. For European clothing/armor its really more what timeframe in the Renaissance period exactly we are talking about and weather its Western or Eastern Europe history since its fairly same-same in Western Europe due to all the looting/copycating till the 18th century, the main reason to do another Western European force for the exact time the conquestdors would be more types of weapons.
They should move on to Eastern Europeans which are more varied (Ottomen empire vs. Everyone else) or focus on the Ottomen South East Asian tribute states, Inca and Fillipinos for more Age of Sail stuff.
Also despite WFB vision clearly clouding your Judgment, the fantasy sets REALLY ARE all over the map historically theme wise:
Halflings would work best with the Age of Chivalry Baron Wars sets theme wise, more or less the same armor and weapons with a few Roman influnce helmets thrown in.
The skelllies are from the Bronze Age and complement (as enemies or allies) the First Empires Persians and to lesser degree the soon to be released Warring States Chinese the most naturally if we go purely by timeframe.
The goblins are genric LOTR/D&D gobs that could show up as dungon pests anywhere from the Bronze age to present depending on the setting lore your using.
Spiders are even more "era less" than the gobs if you ignore the SciFi bits.
The werewolves are the same deal as the spider in that regrads.
The lizardmen are late 19th to early 20th century if we go by the firearms they have alone and look right at home next to the WW1 sets out of the box.
Of the plastics the only one that is really Renissiance is the aptly named Landsknecht Ogres and the Classic Fantasy line gets even wilder when we factor in the STLs which seem more geared to genric D&D and Anceint era fantasy wise than anything else (Posidon's cavalry? Undead Egyptians? greek Gigants? Connan Style Snakemen? Connan Barbarins? Hydra? Medsua? Minotaurs? Chinese Dragon? Fantasy greek armored Amazons?, how is any of that Renissiance?😆).
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@Brian Van De Walker What you said about the Conquistadors covering most European infantry is interesting. I have a hard time figuring out how to build Conquistadors as the english but that is probably just me.
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@Charles Tottington The Conquistadors should roughly work for the English of the same timeframe of 1519-1590, any exclusive to English armor/weapon/clothing is likely ignorable if these images of English are anything to go.
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@Brian Van De Walker Looks like I know what I'm going to be building half of the conquistadors box as.
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Though granted looking through stuff online and through the Warlord Games Pike and Shotte range (don't know how close English Civil War style is to Tudor Era English style) it seems like there are a few things that a potential English box could add that could mix well with the Conquistador box like different torsos, extra heads, and maybe different weapons.
Though depending on if these guys can go all the way back to the 1500s, the Scots are probably another good option to expand on.
Though Highlanders would certainly be a fun plastic kit to make as well.
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@Charles Tottington frankly Perry already covers most of the Tudors pretty well with their War of the Roses line and Warlord's ECW line is generation or 2 after the Conquestdors who again look pretty much the same as thier English counterparts under Elizabeth I (there is no good reason to do the British of the 1500's for WA that I can think of, particularly given WA added pikes and long swords).
The Highland scots warlord has probably don't match up though and honestly this would be the timeframe to do the more fun less dark ages looking plate and chainmail Gallowglass and kerns which could be used as Irish pirates for the time.
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