Effectivness of Nellies

[Smackyderm]

Does anyone else think that elephants are generally overpowered? I don't know of any battles where they were really a big issue -- kindof like scythed chariots?

You should do some reading about the Diadokhoi (Successors) then. During the period between the death of Alexander and the dominance of Rome the war elephant was one of the premier weapon systems in ancient warfare. Of course they were quite significant in the East long before that time.

Here are just a few battles to read about in which elephants played a large part:
Hydaspes
Antigonus' defeat of Alcetas in Pisidia
Paraitakene
Gabiene
Ipsus
Heraclea
Asculum
Pyrrhus' Sicilian campaign
Tunis
Mercenary War
Tagus River
Trebbia
Antiochus' defeat of Molon at the Tigris
Raphia
Pania
Zama
Cynocephalae
Magnesia
Phalanna
Pydna

That is not a complete list. In a few of those, elephants were ingeniously defeated. In most of them, elephants played either a pivotal or a decisive role. Elephants showed that they could crush massed infantry formations and could devastate enemy cavalry. Arguably (see Pierre Ducrey, et al.), elephants in the Successor period were a more important unit than cavalry.

You should really read up on them. They're fascinating and there's some good scholarship out there.

[bertiebeemer]

Of course the best thing about Nellies is that for painting up one brown-grey beast you get 25AP - very important if you're a slow painter.

Compare that with the dreaded Hordes of that, er, other game system. I still weep at the vast numbers of figures on my horribly poor value Indian Hordes

[GKChesterton1976]

Shooting elephants were OK in Warrior/7th especially combined with shooting foot, though they did cost quite a bit to get many crew on the back. The really cost effective elephants were the ones with just a driver and a single pike. They didn't fight that well as crew but each round they took a factor off their opponents, irrespective of order. This was the real value elephant.

Adrian