Elephant Rampage

Eques · Post by **Eques** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:30 am

Is there anything in the rules that replicates the deleterious effects elephants could have on their own side when panicking?

Thanks

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:38 am

Yes and no.

FoG is at a scale such that a single BG of elephants represents a lot more than one elephant. There are other rules where even though an elephant model may well represent several animals they all seem to panic in the same direction which is hardly likely.

In FoG elephants have to be in BGs of 2 bases. As they are always of average quality (so far) this means that they will break as soon as they lose 1 base. When they break they will rout away from the enemy and any friends in the way will be burst through. In addition any BGs within 3 MU will have to take a cohesion test for seeing the rout and can easily lose cohesion as a result. If you think of the cohesion drop potentially being caused by a lone beast heading in a strange direction then that could effectively be a panic roll.

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:50 am

The two base Elephant BG routs when a single base is lost. This makes the elephants somewhat unpredictable. An elephant BG often drops from steady straight to routing because of this. Elephants don't have a legal interpenetration. Any BG behind is likely to get burst through by the remaining routing elephant and the near by BG's test for the break.

There is no special rule as such, but the above sequence creates the effect. Most battle groups of four or more bases tend to drop cohesion levels a step at a time. Players have time to move BG's out of the way of potential routs and bring generals up to stiffen nearby groups (or move them away) when they can see the break coming. If they have reserves, they can be positioned to cover the gap in the line. Little such opportunity with elephants. Usually it is the sudden loss described above and immediate problems for those near by.

For me this is a very nice feature of the rules. The system creates the effect of the elephant problem, but there are no special extra rules to learn. Whoever decided elephants should be in BG's of two had a very nice idea. (I'll say this now before the Burmese list is published and the system works against me

)

daleivan · Post by **daleivan** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:18 pm

I also like the way FoG handles elephants--works very well, having used elephants and had them used against me in a number of games

Making all elephant battle groups average and two bases is a simple and elegant solution. It doesn't easily lead to what one of my friends called "elephant pinball" where routing elephants leads to more routing elephants leads to more routing elephants as the rampaging nellies careen all over the battle field (see GDW's old wargame Raphia for a paper version of this effect

Dale

spike · Post by **spike** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:29 pm

daleivan wrote:I also like the way FoG handles elephants--works very well, having used elephants and had them used against me in a number of games
Making all elephant battle groups average and two bases is a simple and elegant solution. It doesn't easily lead to what one of my friends called "elephant pinball" where routing elephants leads to more routing elephants leads to more routing elephants as the rampaging nellies careen all over the battle field (see GDW's old wargame Raphia for a paper version of this effect

Dale

I like the battle of raphia game, it's quite fun

spike

rtaylor · Post by **rtaylor** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:12 pm

In my mind I associate elephants and knights. Both are powerful troops but suffer more from death rolls than others. Knights lose two combat dice per base lost; you can say that elephants lose all their combat dice with a single base loss. So, even more than than knights, it is imperative that elephants not lose close combats so they won't expose themselves to death rolls. Overlaps are to be avoided, for instance.

daleivan · Post by **daleivan** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:42 pm

rtaylor wrote:In my mind I associate elephants and knights. Both are powerful troops but suffer more from death rolls than others. Knights lose two combat dice per base lost; you can say that elephants lose all their combat dice with a single base loss. So, even more than than knights, it is imperative that elephants not lose close combats so they won't expose themselves to death rolls. Overlaps are to be avoided, for instance.

I agree that avoiding overlaps with either troop type is vital to avoid being swamped. Knights in four or six bases battle groups have a wider frontage, so that should help, depending on what they are facing

Dale

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:47 pm

The wider frontage is what causes the problem for knights. They tend to put 100% of their bases into contact, so have, in effect, double the chance of losing a base when winning or losing the melee compared to a normal BG. Same with Chariots and Elephants, but much worse for the nellies as they only have 2 bases.

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:24 am

hammy wrote:Yes and no.

As they are always of average quality (so far).

Does this mean we can expect Superior elephants soon ?

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:32 am

Scrumpy wrote:
hammy wrote:Yes and no.

As they are always of average quality (so far).
Does this mean we can expect Superior elephants soon ?

No

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:47 pm

What?!?!

No Cult-of-Mithras-comes-to-FoG Hellephants?

(If you never played Slitherine's Legion Arena and its Cult of Mithras supplement, this joke will be lost on you. Sorry.)

Chang_Noi · Post by **Chang_Noi** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:09 pm

(I'll say this now before the Burmese list is published and the system works against me )

So to change direction slightly, what is the timeframe for some Sout East Asian lists??
I've spent 10 months here researching the Thai and am now moving on to the Khmer/Mon, various Burmese polities and Cham/Campa options.
I'm happy to share when I've finished, it may even add to common knowledge.

Wayne

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:14 pm

Chang_Noi wrote:
(I'll say this now before the Burmese list is published and the system works against me )
So to change direction slightly, what is the timeframe for some Sout East Asian lists??
I've spent 10 months here researching the Thai and am now moving on to the Khmer/Mon, various Burmese polities and Cham/Campa options.
I'm happy to share when I've finished, it may even add to common knowledge.
Wayne

The South Eastern lists should be out sometime in mid 2009 I suspect. The list writing team have completed their work on them and are now working on books further down the release schedule.

Chang_Noi · Post by **Chang_Noi** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:15 pm

The South Eastern lists should be out sometime in mid 2009 I suspect. The list writing team have completed their work on them and are now working on books further down the release schedule.

Great news.

I'm new to the process used here. Is any beta version open to review and comment?? Or is it a closed shop? I'd be interested to see if we made the same conclusions or whether we can mutually improve things. Is this possible?

Cheers
Wayne

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:52 pm

Chang_Noi wrote:
The South Eastern lists should be out sometime in mid 2009 I suspect. The list writing team have completed their work on them and are now working on books further down the release schedule.
Great news.

I'm new to the process used here. Is any beta version open to review and comment?? Or is it a closed shop? I'd be interested to see if we made the same conclusions or whether we can mutually improve things. Is this possible?

Cheers
Wayne

The lists are not publicly available, list creation has been done with a core team and then subject matter experts have been dragged in to help on specific books. You might want to send an e-mail or PM to Richard Bodley-Scott. At the moment I think it would be very unlikely that anything would change in the lists as they are heading towards production.

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 8:31 pm

hammy wrote:
At the moment I think it would be very unlikely that anything would change in the lists as they are heading towards production.

Text is finalised.

rtaylor · Post by **rtaylor** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:48 am

philqw78 wrote:The wider frontage is what causes the problem for knights. They tend to put 100% of their bases into contact, so have, in effect, double the chance of losing a base when winning or losing the melee compared to a normal BG. Same with Chariots and Elephants, but much worse for the nellies as they only have 2 bases.

It's actually worse for knights when all their bases are in contact. If a 4-base BG of knights takes 4 hits in close combat, then they have a 1/3 chance of losing a base if they don't lose. A recipe for Pyrrhic victory if you tend to roll low on your death die. Two BGs taking 2 hits each have no risk of death if they don't lose. A non-losing elephant BG can take 3 hits without risk of death. In my experience, as long as their flanks are covered, elephants mainly have to fear shooting and bad luck (i.e., hot enemy dice in close combat).

stevoid · Post by **stevoid** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:23 pm

hammy wrote:Yes and no.

In FoG elephants have to be in BGs of 2 bases. As they are always of average quality (so far) this means that they will break as soon as they lose 1 base..

So far... I must admit I was disappointed that Ghaznavids didn't get Superior heffalumps. If anyone was going to deviate from average I thought these guys might have been first cab of the rank.

Is there any future lists where you see better than average nellies being an option?

And on a related note, any thoughts on how those flying fortresses of the ancient worls, Burmese Elephants, might be classified - give them bow (or 2 x Bow) for example?

Cheers,

Steve

Zombies: 100% Post-Consumer Human; Reduce - Reuse - Reanimate

shall · Post by **shall** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:33 pm

Is there any future lists where you see better than average nellies being an option?

And on a related note, any thoughts on how those flying fortresses of the ancient worls, Burmese Elephants, might be classified - give them bow (or 2 x Bow) for example?

We are quite wary of Sup Ellies as we tried them and they were a bit Uber potent. I doubt there will be any in version 1, but once everything is settled down who knows. Wise to avoid anything potentially game damaging for now IMHO. RBS better placed to give a definitive answer - my experience more of testing them in game play.

I think I heard there is recent evidence that the Burmese bowfire carrier may have been a myth based on processions rather than battles but stand to be correct.

Si

stevoid · Post by **stevoid** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:10 pm

Fair enuf although surely the uber potency would depend on what cost you placed on Sup Nellies, they'd still be as brittle, my average units with a general don't always rule the world...

Cheers,

Steve