Guanche army (Canary Islands) for DBA 3.0

Although I have no ancestry from the Guanches, I was born and raised in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and since childhood I have been taught at school about the Guanches, read books and watched documentaries and publications, as well as paid many visits to places such as Castilian castles, Guanche caves, and of course, el museo Canario.

Because of that, I have thought a few times about staging skirmishers with Guanches and Conquistadores, but I was always put off by the lack of models representing the Guanches. Now thanks to 3D printing, I have found a way to get miniatures for them, and I am thinking of building an army of Guanches and another of Conquistadores for DBA. So here it is what I have done.

The Canary Islands are an archipelago off the North African coast. They were known to the ancient Phoenicians and Romans and conquered by Spain in the late Middle Ages. Columbus stayed there on his way to the New World. The native inhabitants, the "Guanches" put up a long and bitter struggle against the invaders, although their technology was only at a neolithic level.

My friend Antonio passed me some notes and also helped me to do the army lists below. There is also an old list he and another friend of him did for Hordes of the Things years ago: The Stronghold rebuilt. 

1) The Baronial Conquest

The conquest was started in 1402 by a band of Norman mercenaries in the pay of Castille, led by the knights Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifier de La Salle. They took the sparsely populated islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and El Hierro and failed spectacularly in Gran Canaria. There is no record of the use of mounted troops.

The mantle was tehn taken by Castilian nobles: Hernán Peraza, his ill-fated son Guillén (who died on a beach in La Palma when his helmet failed to protect him from a well aimed stone throw), and Diego de Herrera They conquered La Gomera, raided extensively and tried (and failed) to establish fortified outposts in Gran Canaria and Tenerife.

2) The Royal Conquest

Since 1478 Castilian armies were organised by the Crown and led by royal apointees, successively Juan Rejón, Pedro de Algaba, Juan Rejón a second time (after he had Algaba beheaded), Pedro de Vera and Alonso Fernández de Lugo. Use of mounted troops was decisive in the battles of Guiniguada, Arucas and La Laguna. Legend has Saint Catherine giving a helping hand to Juan Rejón when he disembarked in Gran Canaria. These armies finally managed to subdue Gran Canaria, La Palma and Tenerife after some initial setbacks.

The lists below are not "Barker-approved" and your mileage may vary. They were drafted by my friend Antonio and later completed by me, so if there are any mistakes, they are entirely my fault.

IV/68g Castilian Army of the Conquest of Canary Islands 1478 AD - 1496 AD

1 x General, the royal apointee and his small mounted retinue (3Kn), 1 x Jinetes (LH), 6 x Castilian infantry from urban militias (Sp), 2 x urban militias (Sp) or some gentlemen adventurers (4Bd), 2 Crossbowmen (Ps) or native (Gomeran) allies (5Hd). Terrain type: Litoral. Aggression:4. Enemies: I/65.

I/65 Guanches from Canary Islands 500 BC - 1496 AD

1 x general (3Wb) or (3Ax), 1 x nobles or warriors  (3Wb) or (3Ax), 10 x Guanches with javelins and throwing stones (Ps). Terrain Type:Hilly. Aggression: 0. Enemies IV/68g.

Apart from the Conquistadores, appropriate "historical" opposition could be anybody who sailed North African waters in antiquity: Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, West Africans. The Portuguese and Norman French tried and failed to conquer the islands before the Spaniards.

The miniatures are 28mm Wargames Atlantic Neanderthals downscaled and modified by a generous friend.

I wanted to differentiate the Warbands from the Psiloi by giving them different weapons. Then, I remember reading somewhere and long ago, something about a Canarian hero, Adargoma or Doramas, who wielded a long and very heavy wooden sword, so I thought it might be one with stone blades in it, similar to those from the Aztecs. I commented this to my friend Antonio who said it was quite possible although we have never seen one, and we decided to pay a visit to el Museo Canario to see if we could find some evidence of any kind of weapons used by the Canarian but we found none.

We also noticed the museum had shrank since our childhood due to lack of funding, but still it is worth visiting it, and we took many pictures. The most eye-catching room in the museum is the mummies.

About four months later I resumed research and found out it was Doramas who wielded a sword: Doramas was an aboriginal chieftain of Gran Canaria who lived in the late 15th century and was one of the principal leaders of the resistance against the Castilian invasion.

He joined forces with the guaire of Gáldar to fight against the troops of the Crown of Castile. He refused to surrender and took active part in numerous confrontations, such as the battle of Guiniguada, the batttle of Tenoya and the battle of Arucas. He died after the battle of Arucas, having treacherously attacked by a squire of Pedro de Vera.

The first chronicles

"The chronicles known as Ovetense and Lacunense, closely followed in wording by the accounts of Francisco López de Ulloa and Pedro Gómez Escudero, offer a vision of the last encounter of Doramas which accords with what may be expected of a late-medieval combat, adding moreover the value of locating and relating the skirmish to toponymy that still endures to this day. For example, the Ovetense tell us on this matter:

At length Governor Vera, with all the men he had and whose newly arrived, resolved very deliberately to make a great raid, whereby to terrify and dismay the Canarians, who were grown so proud; which he did, and it turned out well, for on the very first day he chanced to strike where the Canarians were gathered.

As he took the road to Arucas in order to put them in fear, and, as its customary in the art of war, he wished to represent unto them the battle from a ridge and height opposite to where they stood, which gave clear view, all the people marching at length and the horsemen taking wide ground, so that their numbers seemed more than doubled,

At last, descending into the valley called Tenoya, he mounted by the high ridges that go towards Arucas; and, coming within sight of the Canarians, with great fury he charged, and our horse and footmen together fell upon them. Yet they, with no less courage and spirit, received the attack, and defended themselves against ours while striking back.

And Doramas marked many with his sword of heavy burnt wood, so great that afterwards a very strong man of ours could scarce wield it with both arms, whereas he, with but one hand, handled it more freely. He cleared a wide field around him, for all men kept themselves from his mighty blows, which when they struck a horse, hamstrung it, or cut off arm or leg as if it had been iron  - and worse, for his wounds admitted no cure. Moreover, the lances he and the others cast, if they struck any men-at-arms, he surely died; and the stones likewise, as though they had been shot from great crossbows of ancient times."

It seems that there were two different types of swords: one made clearly of wood and another, a club tipped with sharp flints. According to the account above, I would say the second type was the one Doramas was wielding on the day he died.

I also found the following information quoted below, in a book from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which you can download for free if you are interested: Armas de los primitivos canarios. Enciclopedia Canaria. Aula de la Cultura de Tenerife (1968) by Luis Diego Cuscoy:

"Magado or macado. They were war clubs used in Gran Canaria, with two large balls at their ends, often armed with grinding stones or sharp flints...

...At the end of the sixteenth century, Abréu Galindo, who compiled information on weaponry scattered throughout earlier sources, offered a summary of the subject. He refers to magados as clubs which, according to him, bore sharp stone slabs embedded at one end, most likely at the thicker part..."

...The second type of sword would be the amodagas. They were pointed staffs with tips hardened by fire According to Abréu Galindo, the amodagas, in size and refinement, resembled swords. They were crafted from tea wood (resinous Canarian pine) and cut like steel. It may be assumed that they were not cutting, bladed weapons, but piercing ones, as suggested by the fire-hardened point. These references pertain to the island of Gran Canaria...

...In Antonio de Viana, author of the Poem of the Antiquities of the Fortunate Isles (1604), numerous references are found concerning the weapons of the ancient inhabitants of Tenerife. The citations are abundant - darts, suntas, lances, maces, etc. - yet descriptions are scarce. When he mentions maces, he notes that they contained sharp flakes embedded in them. Since it is known that sharp flakes of obsidian, referred as tabanas, were used, it is reasonable to assume that the maces to which Viana alludes bore inlays of this material."

After reading this information I concluded that it was very possible that Doramas was wielding a sword-club with basalt blades, and that the general of my Guanche army would be wielding one, so I proxied one from the Red Copper Aztecs, Children of the Sun range and glued it to a 28mm scaled down Barbarian from Wargames Atlantic. I also had a cloak added to the miniature to distinguish it from the rest as a chieftain. Then, I gave clubs and banots to the rest of the warriors of the warbands.

Doramas (Gn) on the left with "wooden sword" and Wb with magados and banots.

5 x Ps with javelins.

5 x Ps with throwing stones.

"...Canarians also had a variety of throwing javelins and spears, a popular one was the banot. Among Canarian historians and archeologists, Menghin's original thesis on the banot is well known. This thesis was developed on the basis of a study by Álvarez Delgado and later confirmed by Serra Ráfols in his discussion on Menghin's work. Menghin draws upon the Roman soliferreum, a weapon found in may Spanish sites, whose chronology can be dated between the 5th and 3rd centuries B.C. The soliferreum exhibited a thickening of the shaft which served as a grip, sometimes shaped into a ring for easier handling. The tip was barbed. Menghin considers this weapons as evidence of connections between Iberian and Mediterranean-North African cultures. the indigenous Guanche culture - also referred as the Canarian Neolithic substratum - suggests ties between Spain and Africa, with North Africa as the probable origin of this weapon.

Originally, the weapon was likely made of wood - in the form in which it was first introduced into the Iberian Peninsula - with a thickened grip and barbs, perhaps metallic. Today, similar weapons are still in the use among the Fulani and in Togo, in West Africa and neighboring regions. The dimensions of the soliferreum ranged from 1.60 to 2 meters in length, with tips measuring between 5 and 9 centimeters. 

A study by Figueras Pacheco on the Iberian-Punic necropolis presents examples of phalárica or soliferreum, among which one specimeb measures approximately two meters in length, with a marked thickening in the central portion of the shaft. This specimen closely resembles a weapon of shorter length, made of wood, which is documented in Tenerife. It too bears the same central thickening..."

For the army camp of the Guanches I had two options, either a stone house, often seen near the coast, or a cave up in the mountains. I leaned to the house option so I took a Celtic stone house from 3D Cults and passed it on to the friend who made the Guanches, along with a pictures I took of one at the Museo Canario as a reference, and the produced this.

The woman and the kid are also from 28mm Wargames Atlantic Neanderthals range. The goats are from Thingiverse and 3D Cults.

My friend Antonio Santana Alonso from our visit to the museum that day, posing next to a picture of the idol of Tara.

The Tara Idol is the popular name given to a terracotta figure decorated with red ochre that is displayed in El Museo Canario in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It is associated with fertility cults and with the social role of women among the ancient inhabitants of the island of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, and it has been considered to reflect some form of ritual fattening related to prenuptial ceremonies.

Hürtgen Forest with Five Men at Kursk

I have painted four companies in 15mm during Summer to play Five Core Company Command from Nordic Weasel, but this is my first foray into WWII in this scale and I still need a lot of stuff to paint. Below you can see two houses and two tanks I have just finished, but I have to paint many more plus AT guns for both sides that I have not ordered yet, more infantry and an incoming DBA army that I will paint as soon as I receive it, so I do not think I will be ready to play Company Command until Christmas.

Then I remembered that I also bought Five Men at Kursk from Ivan, and that I tried it just once with my son, and after that I forgot it. As this ruleset is squad level, I decided to play it in the meantime with my 1/72 collection before I sell it. Yes, I am also moving into 15mm in WWII and getting rid of everything else.

I needed scenarios for squad level action or even better, a campaign to play while I am painting 15mm, and then I thought I could continue with the one I started from Nuts! by Two Hour Wargames, The Big Hurt in the Hürtgen Forest by Darby Heckles. I had played only the first scenario, and decided to continue from that point, so today I am playing it, Western Union. I am using this campaign for Nuts! plus its PEF system for enemy encounters, and Five Men at Kursk for combat.

So this is the SITUATION (taken from the supplement).

"September 18th , 1944 - Between Roetgen and Lammersdorf, Germany.

Earlier this morning we lost communication with several outposts. Fearing the worst, a patrol was sent out to check on the situation, and contact was reestablished. Everything was fine, but the landline to the positions has been damaged or cut. Night is fast approaching, and we need to have a good line to them in case they are probed or need support, so we’re sending out a repair team.

The patrol thinks that there might be Germans patrols probing the area too, so we’re sending you along to protect the repair team. Keep them alive, and get the job done."

US forces deploy in the bottom left corner. The black wire is from my phone and the thinner one I could find. There should be 3 PEFs on the table but there is only 2 because I saved the lieutenant in the first mission, in which I had to KIA and several WIA. As I did not feel reading Nuts! rules about recovering wounded and I just played with 10 men from the original squad of 12. The grass squares represent hight grass that gives concealment, but I did not have enough, and all the bottom left and right corners are supposed to be covered in that.

I divided my forces into three groups; six of them including the squad leader and also key guy (+1 in rally), the two men team to repair the line, and the rest of my squad with the BAR. As they did not have enemies in sight, I could activate them in groups.

The two German PEFs turned into a MG team and the worst possible result from the chart, a Puma! I had to read all the rules about tanks as I did not expect any, and neither my men as they did not bring any anti tank weapon!

The Puma fired but missed and only one men resulted Nervous. Blue tokens represent Nervous, yellow ones are Scared and Brown ones Down. My first KIA resulted from MG firing.

I was in deep shit but then I thought my mission was to fix the line and not to kill the vehicle, so we run into the woods and get out of sight of the enemy vehicle. Reactive fire from my men on the other side of the forest suppressed the enemy MG. The tank moved on the flank trying to spot all the infantry that had disappeared behind the woods.

The repair crew fixed the military telephone line, but all the line needed to be checked so it was not over yet! 

A hero tried to assault the Puma with hand grenades but went down.

Germans received another MG team as reinforcements. 

Americans also received half a squad as reinforcement but sadly no AT weapon. The new squad race forwards in a Scurry action and then hug the dirt and disappeared into the tall grass. Another valiant tried to assault the tank as there were the only chance to damage or finish it, but he was also down.

I tried a third time in the following turn and had success! Sadly, I did not take any more pictures but my troops killed both German MG and could check the whole telephone line. The mission was a success.

The Art of War. In memory of a friend.

I discovered this post, that never got finished nor published, when my friend Antonio Santana Alonso and me tried ADLG a few years ago. It brought me memories so I decided to finally publish it in memory of my friend Antonio who got cancer and passed away this last month. Farewell my friend.

"This is my fourth battle of Art of War, a system I am really enjoying, and so far I have played 100 and 200 points games. So today we tried a semi-official rules for games at 120 points which are great as they allow you to deploy two divisions with one general each for almost the same number of units than games at 100 points with only one general and one division.

We could play two matches in an evening, swapping sides in each game. We played Seleucids vs. Romans with Pergamene allies.

All the forces are H&R 6mm armies from my friend Antonio.

Army lists:
Initial deployment. Romans (me) with allies on right flank (bottom left) to the left and Seleucids to the right."

General War Wagon from DBA 3.0 IV/3 Anglo Norman army.

This is the last piece to complete the army. I was holding it until I could find an appropriate printable figure to represent a painted wooden statue of St. Cuthbert. I also made his banner with a piece of paper and then painted it.

Well, so here you have it, and now the army is completely finished. I'm eager to try this little tank on the battlefield!

A friend mocked the size of the eyes of the priest but I painted like that to represent it is a painted statue, not a person.

I hope it is true what it is said about the Standard of St. Cuthbert and that it will give me many victories :-)

Two new companies.

I painted two more full companies with their supports. So now I have two German companies and two British ones, four in total, and right just before holidays end.

I still have enough unpainted miniatures from the same boxes to do one more company of each nation, and I may paint them in Xmas holidays, but for now I already have enough units to play some games. What I need now is buildings and vehicles; so I think I'll finish two Stugs III I have on the desk, and then do all the buildings to have a proper battlefield to play.

BTW, Jack if you are reading this, I tried Crossfire's introducing scenarios with two friends who were mildly interested in the game. One came from Warhammer and told me he'd read the rules but he didn't in the end. Moreover, he was quite distracted during the game, made many mistakes, confused some units and lost almost all of them. He did not ask for another game and I didn't bother to ask. The second one, who came from Bolt Action, sent me a message a day before the game to tell me that he tried to read the rules but they were too difficult and quit. After failing into finding opponents for Crossfire, I've decided to focus on Company Commander as it can be played solo :)

I am in a local whatsapp group with more than 50 members and who call themselves historic players but they only play Bolt Action, Tanks and Flames of War, games I tried but don't like. It's a pity where I live nobody wants to go out of their confort zone and try new things even if I bring both armies, table, and rules translated into Spanish. I suspect Crossfire and similar old rulesets are difficult to younger people, used to more reachable and friendly readable and playable games.

The four full companies ready for battle.

Some officers and specialists on individual bases for Company Command.

I found these boxes for 1.20€ each that are perfect for storing my little armies.

Late War British Company

My first Late British company. After this, I am doing two more German and British, so four companies more in total, and then vehicles and houses.

Full company with 3 platoons and platoon commanders, mortars, MGs and PIAT.

A closer view. Models are fast painted with diluted paint and a wash. No lights.

My first two companies. Germans on the left, Brits on the right.

I am using pigments for the bases but the mat varnish is killing the colours and whitening the bases. Can you tell me of any way to fix that?

15 mm Late War German Co

The latest boxes of Germans in Normandy and Late War British from PSC are good models and a bargain too for a box of 140 miniatures per 30 €. I have bought both boxes and I am planning to build three companies out of each box for Crossfire or similar rulesets. I have also bought both heavy weapon boxes although their miniatures are slightly smaller.

Here is the first one, a German Leg Infantry Company 1944-45 that contains 3 platoons with 3 squads and 1 platoon commander each, plus 1 company commander and company heavy weapons 1-HMG, 1-120mm and 1-81mm mortar.

These ones below are a few extras for other ruleset that I will play while I paint all the companies, Company Commander from Nordic Weasel.

For those who read up to the end, a question for help: Can you suggest me a good and not too complex WWII ruleset at company to battalion scale and with one base representing one squad, other than the following rulesets that I know?: Crossfire, Company Commander, Blitzkrieg Commander, Flames of War, Cross of Iron, Battlegroup, Poor Bloody infantry, Squad Leader, Rapid Fire or Nuts! Big Battles? TIA.