Misc., Renaissance Skirmish, El Dorado – a home-grown set,  28mm

I’d rather hoped to play a game with Chris Henry’s superb collection of Conquistadors and Aztecs, but that game is still on hold. Instead Colin Jack asked us to playtest his new show participation game – a rather silly affair based on a bizarre event. In 1541 the Conquistador Francisco de Orellana was campaigning in what is now Equador when he became separated from his main force. He decided to build a raft and float down the river to civilization.Unfortunately for him the river turned out to be the Amazon, and what followed was an epic danger-filled 2,000 mile voyage, which lasted the best part of ten months. During the voyage the Spaniards were frequently attacked by the Amazonian tribes who lived on the banks of the river, which is what gave Colin the idea for his game. The Spanish player is allowed to pick his crew, from the vital (Orellana and a helmsman) through the useful (crossbowmen, arquebusiers or bucklermen) to the downright useless (war dogs or even a small cannon). An important decision is how much armour to buy to stave off arrows, and who to give it to.Then his only decision is which course to steer, and therefore which river bank to draw fire from. I went first, and I made it off the table with about two Spaniards, having lost Orellana in the penultimate turn. We ran the game several times, and others were more successful – one player even managing to wipe out all the hostile Amazonians as he swept downstream.As the playtesting went on Colin tinkered with the rules, and added little extra bits of “chrome”, such as rapids (the raft is shown going through the extemporised white paper rapids in the picture below), and better protection. the chances of hitting were also changed a few times, but by the end of the night we think we honed the rules into something we can use at shows. I suspect it will make its first appearance at Partizan in May, by which time Colin will have sorted out all the figures and terrain he needed. For this effort we merely used a brown paper river, and the jungle scenery we usually use for Vietnam games.OK, this wasn’t the Conquistador game I expected, and it was rather silly, but with a bit of work I’m sure it’ll make a great game to wheel out at wargame shows. Incidentally, if you’re even vaguely interested in the story, try to pick up a copy of The Crossbowman’s Story by George Millar (1955), a semi-fictional account of the voyage. I think it has also been published with different titles over the years. It’s a fantastic read, and well worth the effort of tracking down. Of course the incident also inspired the Werner Herzog film Aguirre: Wrath of God (1972).

Tags: Homegrown