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These were the wild tribes who scratched out a living as hunter gatherers in the desert areas to the north of the Aztec Empire. The Aztecs, and their Spanish successors, where terrified of these people, and rightly so. Fighting naked, painting their bodies and heads or hair red (hence the name Quachichil, or "red heads"), these men were the deadliest archers the Spanish ever faced, and were unspeakably cruel in their treatment of prisoners.
Given a small bow as a young boy and allowed no other toys to play with, the Chichimecs became archers of unparallelled skill. It was said that if a piece of fruit was tossed in the air as a target, it would be riddled with arrows and broken to pieces before it hit the ground. Spanish chroniclers noted with amazement that if a Chichimec archer aimed for a man's eye, and hit his eyebrow instead, he would curse his clumsy shooting. And despite the primitive nature of the arrowheads, these arrows had considerable penetrative capability -- one Spanish arquebusier was hit in the hand by an arrow, which penetrated his leather glove, his hand, and the stock of the arquebus, nailing the man's hand to his gun. Other examples include a horse that was wearing a chanfron but whose head armour and skull were cleanly penetrated by the arrow so that the arrow struck and injured the rider as well. All in all, these redoubtable, savage hunter gatherers held such a moral ascendency over their foes that it was said that they could not only defeat superior numbers of Aztecs in battle, but even superior numbers of Spaniards!
These models portray the Chichimec precisely as they would have looked -- naked, wearing their distinctive cap-top quivers, with long hair and holding a few arrows in their bow hand. The close combat men carry the weapons they are described as using -- small spears, and clubs made of jawbones or stone. They are assumed to have been archers who threw off their quivers and advanced to the attack, so still retain their waist belts for the quiver. The commander figure wears the distinctive feather back banner illustrated. For more information on this army, I strongly recommend Ian Heath's book on the Armies of the 16th Century in the Americas, which was the primary source for this line.
All in all, an exotic army with a terrifying history! And for those for whom time is of a premium, this is a very easy army to paint, and is uniquely suited to the "dip" method of army painting.
Sculpted by Chris Jackson.
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