Slitherine

I am keen to have a crack at trying a ghaznavid.

4 TCs

4 * 4 superior armoured Ghilman cavlary
4 * 2 elephants
3 * 4 light horse archers
1 * 4 MF filler
1 * 4 nafatun

tactical notes:
- elephants stick together or at least in 2 groups of 4.
- MF provide rear support to 2 BGs of elephants and hide there.
- horse archers skirmish en masse with ghilmen to mass fire
- Nafatun shoot at angles to add fuel to the fire to reduce CT tests
- Terrain load up uneven, imappsable or at least terrain that doesnt provide cover or reduce visibility

Dont commit the elephants if the ghilmen and LH have something to soften up first.

Any other ideas?

sound. Although where the naftun play may not be as easy to coordinate with the mounted horse archers.

One of my regular foes used the poor LF to shield the Elephants from missile fire.

I would only go with 2 BGs of elepehants and would try very hard to field the Dailami, 8 armoued impact foot are very nice supports for the elepehants...

Don't overlook the undrilled, unprotected MF Indians either. They are very handy in some fights (especially against enemy LH) and work quite nicely as rear support for the elephants.

As the opponent mentioned, I use 3 bg of Elephants, and shield them with eh poor LF, seems to be reasonably effective, I try to get the Afghan spearmen as a support, worked right, a bg of 6 can support all of the grey beasts.

With a very shooty army that also has the heavy undrilled Elephantry to manage, you might consider swapping 2 TCs for an Inspired. Shouldn't be hard to keep at least some of the Elephants within his aura. Bonuses on the CMT don't hurt Ghilman either.

You are already at +2 PBI so getting +4 should help make it likelier you can use consistent doctrine game to game. I would also find it useful to go later in deployment to make the most of the placement of the last 2 BGs of Elephants.

As MikeK stated, using an Inspired Commander is something you might wish to test, it has it's advantages. Personally however, I found that with the Ghaznavids, I really like to move first. Now sadly there is nothing to be done about the PBI of +2, but ramping it up even more with an Inspired Commander didn't work for me.