From BillA: Maya Warriors, Characters and Peasants (85 pts)

 After a week where it was too cold to sit at my basement workbench and paint, I'm back with more finished figures for my ongoing Mayan project. Following up on my last batch with spears, this week I've got their companions with clubs and flint-bladed "swords," as well as a few more character figures and some peasants

Group shot - everyone smile!

First up, the warriors. In "Tribal" terms, these are armed with Short Weapons. Short Weapons (one-handed clubs, swords, axes, etc.) favor straightforward tactics of running up and bashing the other guy, versus the feints that spears give a bonus to in game. These are once again divided into two formations of five, and color-coded with red and blue being the dominant accent color (or just flat out dominant color, in the jumpsuited figures' case!) to signify which formation is which. These are, once again, Jaguar Tribes figures from Lucid Eye.

Next up, a pair of character figures - a "Mayan General" from Paymaster Games, here in the USA, who do a lot of indigenous American figures, both historic and mythological, as well as a second shaman from Gringo40s. I'd previously painted another copy of this shaman in different colors as part of the Challenge. The General is holding a two-handed weapon set with a pair of flint axe heads - I'm not sure how historical this weapon is, but it looks like it'll ruin someone's day! 

Finally, four more Gringo40s figures - these are Maya peasants carrying bundles of cotton cloth, based two to a base on 40mm rounds from Renedra to serve as objective tokens in Tribal. 

All together, that's 16 28mm figures, for 85 points. No new squirrel points. And that's 34 Maya painted as part of the Challenge total, with four more primed and awaiting paint as well as another six objective tokens. After that I've got another 10 figures to assemble, prime and paint, but it remains to be seen if I'll get those done during the Challenge or not. 

From DaveD l now they are a colourful,bunch alright . I do like the Gringos Shaman , Ged does some lovely pieces . I make 16nx 5 as 80 points , but I’m rounding you to 85 for that wonderful group shot and overall brightness of scheme . 

From BillA - Warriors with Spears (60 pts)

 I'm hitting the "boring" troop stage of my Mayan project - the ordinary warriors there to fill the ranks, mostly without fun accoutrements like feathers and jewelry. The nice thing is that units in Tribal are five figures, so I can batch paint a couple at a time without hitting the burnout sensation that trying to work through 20-30-figure regiments can trigger. 

This week, I've done two units of Warriors with Long Weapons - Tribal splits Warriors (melee combat units) into "Long" and "Short" weapons, with long weapons being spears and polearms, while short weapons are swords, clubs, axes, etc. The different weapon types gain bonuses when used with different tactics during play - long weapons being better at hindering your opponent and making it harder for them to win a round of combat, while short weapons favor straight forward bashing. 

These figures are once again from Lucid Eye, and are listed as "Jaguar Tribes" on their website. I've differentiated the units with red and green detailing, because otherwise they're almost the same sculpts across both units.

I like the variety, from nearly nude to quilted shirts and the brightly colored "long johns" style outfits, which are laced up the back. They do have shields, but those are going to wait for warmer weather to prime and paint. 

And a group shot of both units together, in case I'm ever using these for a game with ten-figure units:

 Yes, the guys wearing the quilted shirts are bare-assed. I guess they're too brave to worry about turning around and getting shot in the butt! 

And finally, I've finished a pair of Gringo 40s Maya casualty figures, painted to use as Panicked markers in Tribal. As you can see, trying to flock under and between their legs was a bit of a fool's errand; next time I'll flock the bases first and then glue the figure down on top of it. 

So that's 10 28mm figures at 5 points apiece, plus two prone casualty figures... call that 55 points all together? And no new squirrel points. 

===================

Sylvain: What a great project. I was always fascinated by precolonial warfare in central and south America because it seems so "exotic". And you bring it all up on the table top with very well painted and based miniatures. Excellent travail!

From BillA: Maya Ajaw and Ah'kin (30 points)

 This was a project I didn't really plan on starting, until my buddy Chris gifted me a pair of figures he'd commissioned and had cast up - a Maya king and queen (whom you'll see in my Empire theme round entry). Well, now I needed to do something with them! Looking at my options for Maya miniatures, the options out there aren't as varied as there are for Aztecs. At Chris' suggestion, I ordered about a dozen packs of "Jaguar Tribes" and "Maxzans" figures from Lucid Eye Publications. Sculpted by Steve Saleh, formerly of Wargames Foundry, these figures are a little bit generic "Mesoamerican Fantasy" but work well as representatives of the Maya people, pre-European contact. 

Current plan is to paint up enough figures and terrain to put on a game at a local one-day show, six months from now; I'm mostly thinking Mana Press' "Tribal" ruleset for these, which uses units of five figures and a unique playing card-based mechanic, but I'm going to workshop this with Chris. 

I started with some of the more richly dressed and ornamented figures; these five I'm treating as ajaw, members of the noble class in a Mayan city-state, fighting for personal glory and social status.

I misplaced the shields for this group; if I find them or buy more (or more likely, buy more and then find them), I'll get them painted and glued on. 

I also picked up some 28mm Maya figures from Gringo 40s to accompany my Lucid Eye figures and fill in some gaps. One such is this priest, or ah'kin; He wears a Chaac mask, putting on the persona of the god of rain, agriculture and (sometimes) warfare, with a plume of quetzal feathers. 

This is one of two copies of Gringo 40s' priest figure I bought, so you'll see another one in different colors later on in the challenge. 

Six 28mm figures on foot gives me another 30 points, and I claim a second Squirrel Point for Maya.

Total Squirrel Points: 2 (Modern Horror, Maya)

============================

Sylvain: "Colorful" is the first quality I can say about your paint job. You are regaling us with a subject not seen much during past Challenges and I hope you will keep showing us more of this stuff. Joli travail!