Indian horses and Elephants

[Gunjin]

Indian Cavalry and Chariots currently are disordered by Elephants just like other nations Cavalry and Chariots when in an adjacent hex. I would have thought that they would have been exempt this diosordering effect as they were trained to fight closely with Elephants. In most tabletop rules that I have played with, they have been exempt. So why not FOG?

[deadtorius]

On the TT it works differently. The units are bigger. 4 bases of cav is a normal cav unit. Now if you are within a 1/2 base width of an elephant it disorders you, but the way it works out is that being a friendly unit you have only 1 base adjacent who is disordered but the rest are not, since you lose 1 die per 3 you actually don't lose any since only 1 or 2 bases are in the elephants range and you need at least 3 to lose a die you don't lose any.

Opposing cav that contacts the elephant has all 4 bases in range and they will lose dice. A clever idea that did not transfer from the TT to the PC game due to the units in the PC game being one hex and so the hex is affected. Probably too much bother to have the program check for friendly or enemy cav adjacent to the elephants.

[rbodleyscott]

Probably too much bother to have the program check for friendly or enemy cav adjacent to the elephants.

Actually, it would be not at all difficult to program.

[Gunjin]

Probably too much bother to have the program check for friendly or enemy cav adjacent to the elephants.

Actually, it would be not at all difficult to program.

Then I have a petition for Slitherine's FOG PC/Mac developers. Can you please allow Indian Cavalry/Chariots the ability to fight alongside Elephants without becoming disordered in a future patch? At the moment we are missing out on an important part of the flavour Indian armies!

[keithmartinsmith]

Its not part of the TT rules so at the moment an unlikely change at the moment. Keith

[batesmotel]

Probably too much bother to have the program check for friendly or enemy cav adjacent to the elephants.

Actually, it would be not at all difficult to program.

Are you suggesting that it would be good to change FoG PC so elephants do not disorder adjacent friendly mounted? That would get closer to the TT effect.

Chris

[TheGrayMouser]

Hmm, I wouldnt mind Indian armies cavalry being ok(undisordered) being adjacent to their OWN elephants, howver I feel all other lists should still get the penalty.

[rbodleyscott]

Probably too much bother to have the program check for friendly or enemy cav adjacent to the elephants.

Actually, it would be not at all difficult to program.

Are you suggesting that it would be good to change FoG PC so elephants do not disorder adjacent friendly mounted? That would get closer to the TT effect.

Yes

[rbodleyscott]

Hmm, I wouldnt mind Indian armies cavalry being ok(undisordered) being adjacent to their OWN elephants, however I feel all other lists should still get the penalty.

Based on what historical evidence? There are plenty of non-Indian historical armies which habitually included elephants. It seems unliekly that they took no steps to acclimatize their cavalry horses to them.

[TheGrayMouser]

Hmm, I wouldnt mind Indian armies cavalry being ok(undisordered) being adjacent to their OWN elephants, however I feel all other lists should still get the penalty.

Based on what historical evidence? There are plenty of non-Indian historical armies which habitually included elephants. It seems unliekly that they took no steps to acclimatize their cavalry horses to them.

Well, none whatsover!
I guess i feel the Indian armies with an animal native to the region and used not only in war but also for regluar domestic tasks(rolling timber as they still do today) should maybe be regarded as "special"
Correct me if i am wrong , but most of the Succesor states rec there pachs from India as tribute or purchased them.... I would just guess their presence was more ephermal and they were less well amalgamated into those militaries.... Maybe the only other list that would be treated that way would be the Numidians....

Just some thoughts ...



Edit one last thought in terms of logic: If all lists are enabled to have their cavalry not be disordered by friendly pachs, why should they be disordered by enemy pachs (ie if both lists have elephants available)
Isnt the presumption that cavalry are disordered by being close to elephants due to their smell/unfamiliarity?

If so then they should they be bothered by smelly enemy pachs , until they get clobbered in combat with them, but the combat mechanism takes care of that aspect of disorder....
I know what the counter is , the enemy pachs are trying to trample, gore YOUR cavalry but still....

[rbodleyscott]

Correct me if i am wrong , but most of the Succesor states rec there pachs from India as tribute or purchased them.... I would just guess their presence was more ephermal

Hardly. Elephants were an important resource and long-lived. The same elephants saw service for many decades. Why would the army not take steps to acclimatise their horses?

It was partly the traditional simplistic wargaming rule that Indian horses are immune to elephants but other elephant-using armies horses aren't (which had more to do with ease of rules writing than the rather more complex situation that is reality), that prompted us to write the TT rules in the way specified above.

In the TT rules friendly cavalry are not completely immune - if you put elephants both sides of them they will lose dice, and in any case they count disordered for Complex Move Tests. The latter could be retained for the PC game if desired.

[TheGrayMouser]

Good arguments, and i didnt take into account that elephants are pretty long lived creatures

However what about adhoc levy type armies? For example, look at the Persian lists where they have a lot of cavalry but some are Bactirans, Medes Skythians etc, as well as "regular" persian nobles.
This wasnt a regular army , but a levy from all the widespeaed satrapies, tributory Kingdoms and tribes gathered for a specific campaign... Just because a Persian list has an elephant doesnt make me believe all these various tribal cavalry units etc had time to train in joint exercises with the pachs before the battle occured.

Any ways, I dont mind how it is now nor would i mind if only the Indians got the benefit, even if it is naive simplicity

[rbodleyscott]

However what about adhoc levy type armies? For example, look at the Persian lists where they have a lot of cavalry but some are Bactirans, Medes Skythians etc, as well as "regular" persian nobles.
This wasnt a regular army , but a levy from all the widespeaed satrapies, tributory Kingdoms and tribes gathered for a specific campaign... Just because a Persian list has an elephant doesnt make me believe all these various tribal cavalry units etc had time to train in joint exercises with the pachs before the battle occured.

You are of course right, but going through the lists on a case by case basis granting or denying elephant-immunity is a level of complexity beyond that envisaged for the FOG rules system.

[Gunjin]

Good arguments, and i didnt take into account that elephants are pretty long lived creatures

However what about adhoc levy type armies? For example, look at the Persian lists where they have a lot of cavalry but some are Bactirans, Medes Skythians etc, as well as "regular" persian nobles.
This wasnt a regular army , but a levy from all the widespeaed satrapies, tributory Kingdoms and tribes gathered for a specific campaign... Just because a Persian list has an elephant doesnt make me believe all these various tribal cavalry units etc had time to train in joint exercises with the pachs before the battle occured.

Any ways, I dont mind how it is now nor would i mind if only the Indians got the benefit, even if it is naive simplicity

I agree, and I personally believe that we are missing out re Indain Armies because FOG is not having a "naive simple solution"

Its not part of the TT rules so at the moment an unlikely change at the moment. Keith

Just because its not part of the TT rules surely doesn't mean that it could not be included for the PC game. Maybe there should be an ammendment to both the TT rules and PC game!

[deeter]

Actually, there is no exception in the TT rules because it is not needed. Given the TT mechanics, friendly mounted don't get disordered by elephants next to them, but enemy mounted do. It is convoluted to explain but true. It's too bad this effect isn't incorporated into the PC version because I would like to run my elephants with my cav without them being disordered.

Deeter

[TheGrayMouser]

Ah but then people will want camels to have the same effect, and then when Fog fantasy arrives, same with behomeths and Mammoths

[deeter]

Camels should have the same effect. Don't know about those other critters.

Deeter

[deadtorius]

Does not look like Slitherine will be addressing the elephant issue any time soon, put your request on the wish list thread is my recommendation.