Slitherine

Question about elephants in combat. In a game today my opponent had an elephant unit in overlap. Between his legionaries and the elephant I took more hits than I gave in melee. He said the -1 for loss to elephant should apply I said no since I was not actually fighting the elephant as I was fully engaged with his legionaries and the elephant was only an overlap. Since I can not actually inflict any hits on the elephant I did not think the extra -1 applied.

Question is does the -1 for losing melee to elephant apply if the elephant is only counting as an overlap in a melee?

I believe so. Page 113 in the chart for Cohesion Test states "-1 for Any troops testing for having lost close combat even partly against elephants or scythed chariots"

Additionally, Close Combat is defined on page 90 as "a general term for impact and melee combat. Once such combat has been joined, battle groups are deemed to be in close combat until one side breaks off, breaks or is destroyed ( or a battle group fighting only as an overlap moves away)."

Christopher Anders

Indeed. Look at ** in the blue box on p113 that makes clear the Elephants themselves don't need to win to count.

The interesting case is do you still take the -1 for losing "even partly against elephants" if you beat the elephants?

I.e., the Elephants were in front edge combat (not just an overlap) and lost to you in close combat at the same time as you lost the fight as a whole.

ah, was one of those situations when playing brains think one way....happens when we play a bit infrequently...you get some notion in mind that seems to be a certainty...

We had a good game this time. I've never seen 4 BGs of Roman 4paks down to 2 bases each still holding up full phalanxes!

MikeK wrote:Indeed. Look at ** in the blue box on p113 that makes clear the Elephants themselves don't need to win to count.

The interesting case is do you still take the -1 for losing "even partly against elephants" if you beat the elephants?

I.e., the Elephants were in front edge combat (not just an overlap) and lost to you in close combat at the same time as you lost the fight as a whole.

Yes, because a BG does not check if it won vs those and lost vs some others, it just checks if it lost overall or not. If it did lose that is a loss in a melee partly vs. elephants, so the modifier applies.

Ghaznavid wrote:Yes, because a BG does not check if it won vs those and lost vs some others, it just checks if it lost overall or not. If it did lose that is a loss in a melee partly vs. elephants, so the modifier applies.

The intent is indicated by the reference to "fighting" and logic, but it would nail it down to add "or less" here:

"The modifier for fighting specific enemy troop types applies whether or not these inflicted more [or less] hits on the battle group than it inflicted on them."

or take out the reference to hits and just say "applies whether or not that enemy won or lost" as we do verbally. It is not terminologically precise but is simple and clear.