De elephantis, dice (tell me about 'em!)

Smackyderm · Post by **Smackyderm** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:38 pm

I haven't played FoG and I'm not sold on it, or on ancients in general. But I'm all about elephants! So I'd like to hear about the various facets of war elephant employment in the game... if the game does them justice it would be a major selling point for me.

I'm especially interested in the following:
1) Fielding elephants with a Pyrrhic Epirote force.
2) General effectiveness of the elephant in FoG battles, especially against Roman legions.
3) Adding battle towers to my elephants! An important innovation of Pyrrhus and perhaps key to the vast success of his elephant corps.

I appreciate your helpful comments!

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:20 pm

Smackyderm wrote:I haven't played FoG and I'm not sold on it, or on ancients in general. But I'm all about elephants! So I'd like to hear about the various facets of war elephant employment in the game... if the game does them justice it would be a major selling point for me.

I'm especially interested in the following:
1) Fielding elephants with a Pyrrhic Epirote force.
2) General effectiveness of the elephant in FoG battles, especially against Roman legions.
3) Adding battle towers to my elephants! An important innovation of Pyrrhus and perhaps key to the vast success of his elephant corps.

I appreciate your helpful comments!

Good news and bad news.

Yes Pyrrhos can have elephants in his force

In FoG combat works in three phases shooting, impact and melee. Elephants do not get to have an effect in the shooting phase (any archers are considered to be too few in number to have a significant effect) are the equal of Roman legionaries at impact (thrown pila are enough to negate the intrinsic advantage of elephants) although if the elephants win the impact phase they have an improved chance of disrupting the Romans facing them and in the melee phase elephants have an advantage over the legions and again if they win the melee they will have an increased chance of disrupting the Romans.

Adding battle towers has no significant effect in the game

In early versions of FoG there were different grades and types of elephants, the distinction between them has been one of the casualties of the overall streamlining resulting from the development and testing of the game.

Smackyderm · Post by **Smackyderm** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:57 pm

Hmm. That doesn't sound good at all.

I don't see how adding towers would have no effect?! Unless the game also doesn't differentiate between light cavalry and cataphracts.

At least tell me that elephants easily smoosh enemy cavalry?

miffedofreading · Post by **miffedofreading** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:00 pm

In a standard carthaginian army, elephants have a higher factor against roman legions than any other troops the carthaginians have available

Likewise yes they are very good against cavalry. Well cavalry they can catch anyway, don't know about horse archers....

I like elephants. I like these rules. I like the way elephants are covered in these rules.

I hate romans and horse archers

fukateesays · Post by **fukateesays** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:44 pm

My father in law was in a nasty situation with two, angry bull elephants in Africa years ago. They were 20 feet away and pretty fired up as lions had taken one of the baby elephants. I'll ask him but I don't think a few blokes in a tower would have increased the fear of trampling factor! These were of course Bush elephant but I think the elephant is the thing .

Smackyderm · Post by **Smackyderm** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 7:33 am

fukateesays wrote:I'll ask him but I don't think a few blokes in a tower would have increased the fear of trampling factor!

Well, among other things they would be able to protect the mahout, as well as the flanks of the creature.

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:24 am

Considering that all the big users of elephants - i.e. the eastern armies - did not use towers (generally) and did have lots of archers I think we can safely surmise that they did not really make any material difference. They were a western oddity used by armies that had very few nellies and certainly not the sort of thing that would warrent a PoA at the level of game that FoG is.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:33 am

Smackyderm wrote:Hmm. That doesn't sound good at all.

I don't see how adding towers would have no effect?! Unless the game also doesn't differentiate between light cavalry and cataphracts.

At least tell me that elephants easily smoosh enemy cavalry?

It's not that adding towers had no effect just that in to opinion of the authors (and many of the testers) they didn't make enough difference to be significant at the scale of the game. Light cavaly and cataphracts are used in totally different ways and have totally different effects on the battlefield. Elephants with a tower and elephants without a tower had in general much the same effect except the ones with toweres were a bit better than the ones without. Often towers were used by powers that had very few elephants to make up to some extent for lack of numbers.

shall · Post by **shall** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:14 pm

Elephants are difficult to face but brittle, so you will need an army with lots to make the kind of elephantophile impact you are referring to.

My classical Indians do well with a full 12 elephants. 6 BGs of elephants working in pairs - very nasty vs any mounted.

Si

Smackyderm · Post by **Smackyderm** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:28 pm

I appreciate the answers so far, though I wonder if there is an undercurrent of that unfortunate attitude that elephants were merely an oddity or gimmick in Mediterranean warfare. Whereas the aforementioned Epirotes were able to smash both the Romans and the Carthaginians in succession largely because the latter groups simply had no answer to this weapon system. The successor powers and others all tried to get as many elephants as they could get their hands on; tactically it would almost always be an advantage to have them rather than not (strategically is another matter).

Perhaps the designers simply didn't want people to use elephants that much? Or want the Romans to win?

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:36 pm

Yes, the Roman lobby is very strong. Just the other day I was in the Slitherine offices and who did I see wander in? Lucius Secundus, the known Roman Empire PR agent. He came in with a case full of cash and when he left after a meeting with Richard and Simon, the case was nowhere to be seen! Now if we could only get the Carthaginian embassy to pressure Slitherine as much as the Roman Empire representation, we could get something going for elephants.

Luddite · Post by **Luddite** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:53 pm

Perhaps...

But i think its more that the role of elephants in ancient warfare has been rather mythologised as time has passed. Certainly, facing elephants was probably just about the most terrifying thing and ancient soldier could imagine, but in the grand scheme of almost every battle, elephants were fairly indecisive. At a local tactical level, i'm sure they were dominant (until enemy skirmishing archers got involved), but as 'battle winners' there are only a very few examples of that being the case.

In many battles they were more of a liability to their own side that a terror on the enemy. More importantly from the TT / rules perspective, compared to the effect and impact of infantry and cavalry (of all types), elephants were a minor part of most armies.

Personally i think there are a few things i'd have done differently in FoG with respect to elephants (more for 'flavour' that historically significant concerns).

E.g.

Cohesion Test

Currently: -1 Any troops losing close combat to Elephants

I'd probably have gone: -2 Any non-skirmishing mounted or heavy foot losing close combat to Elephants
(mounted are currently Disordered by Elephants but this doesn't affect Cohesion Tests).

POAs

Currently: Elephant Impact & Melee are +

I'd have made: Elephant Impact ++, but melee 0 (so they're excellent on the charge but once mixed up and surrounded they become vulnerable)..

Routing

I'd have had the Elephants Initial Rout in a random direction, bursting through friends/enemy encounted and causing Disruptions...

BUT all told, the rules seem fine as they are, particularly given the representative scale of FoG...

Ultimately, if you're 'all about elephants' (as you say), you're always going to want them favoured i suppose.

I love Light Horse, but they aren't uber troops and i wouldn't want them to be, although if you take the Mongols as a model they should the by far the best troops in the game...

Its about how you use them. Elephants used well in FoG i can see are going to be 'game tippers'...get them into combat at the right time and the right location and enemy mounted will be fleeing for their lives, while the medium/heavy foot they were protecting are left to get tusked and trampled at will....
Storm your elephants unsuppoerted at an enemy bow line and you'll have a field full of very large, very dead pin cushions i suspect...

I don't know as i haven't tried that yet (just with Swiss pikes)

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:13 pm

Smackyderm wrote:I appreciate the answers so far, though I wonder if there is an undercurrent of that unfortunate attitude that elephants were merely an oddity or gimmick in Mediterranean warfare. Whereas the aforementioned Epirotes were able to smash both the Romans

I am not sure that Pyrrhos's Pyrrhic victories can really be described as "smashing the Romans".

However, elephants are very popular in FOG and one of the things they are good at is smashing Romans.

pyrrhus · Post by **pyrrhus** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 4:03 pm

Hey now lets not turn this into pyrrhus smack talk . I tend to think pyrrhus won based on his tactical generalship rather than his use of elephants although holding them in reserve was rather novel

Anyway my payment to Richard will be forth coming to get the pyrrhics up to par with the romans ,Those parthian,Indian allies will come in handy HINT HINT. Just kidding Patrick

shall · Post by **shall** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 4:26 pm

Pyrrhuss' army is alredy v good. You can cancel the payment....sorry to lose you the cash richard - now off to get my WOR English stomped by legionaries!!!

Si

moj · Post by **moj** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:20 pm

Pyrrhos's Pyrrhic victories would not be Pyrrhic were Pyrrhos wargaming.

Smackyderm · Post by **Smackyderm** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:28 am

Pyrrhus generally gave out more casualties than he took, even at Asculum. He just had less ability to absord those losses, whereas the Romans could evidently take outrageous casualties and still come back for more like nothing happened in most of their campaigns.

So let's not make historical mistakes about Mr. Pyrrhus.

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:51 am

The point being mase, I believe, is that as the Romans inflicted very heavy casulaties even whilst losing - unusually high compared to other battles of the period - a description of them being smashed is over egging it somewhat, leading to an over statement of the effect of elephants in this case.

Smackyderm · Post by **Smackyderm** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:04 am

nikgaukroger wrote:The point being mase, I believe, is that as the Romans inflicted very heavy casulaties even whilst losing - unusually high compared to other battles of the period - a description of them being smashed is over egging it somewhat, leading to an over statement of the effect of elephants in this case.

Well, the Romans took worse casualties than the Epirotes, so make your own judgment.

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:14 am

Nobody is claiming that apart from his last battle agaisnt the Romans that Pyrrhos won and took less casulaties than he inflicted. However, compare his losses to other winning armies in battles of the era and you see that he took unusually high numbers - in warfare of the time casulaty rates were usually highly asymmetrical with the losers taking vastly more than the winners.

De elephantis, dice (tell me about 'em!)

De elephantis, dice (tell me about 'em!)

Re: De elephantis, dice (tell me about 'em!)