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.....umm im kinda screwed there is a general in the city of axum on the red sea coast and the general has a bodyguard of 81 african BUSH elephants:sweatdrop: the giant eles not the mini forest eles.Any tips on how to beat something that huge here is my army tips appreciated.http://s1145.photobucket.com/albums/...2-54-05-34.jpg
when It's a city, I'd go with skirmishers, slingers and Phalangites. Generally most javelins have a bonus against Eles. When you can pin him on one road with your Pike guys you can send in your short ranged troops(maniple, Roari... to fling some javs at him.
As long as you do not get your cavalry near him and don't let him charge into your infantry(except for phalangites, who can sorta stand a chance from the front) and keep your naked dudes out of range the general should not pose too big a problem.
summarizing your army I'd say it's actually rather ok to fight him, you have Phalangites, skrimishers, Javelin tossing infantry, Sligers, Skirmisher cavalry
the only thing totally useless are probably your medium cavalry and those nubians as they lack both armor and shield to withstand the arrows and the Formation to survive a frontal charge. Triarii have a malus vs eles but at least have good arrow resistance, the reformed hoplites may to some damage when alligned correcty but I'd rather try it with the Phalangitai ;)
I first thought Roari had a bonus vs eles but I just checked, sofar only your leves and tarentineans have that, I'd suggest to bolster your army with some cheap skirms before taking the guy out.
good luck
okay i will post the results when im done with the battle thanks for the tips. :balloon:
Also, you realise it isn't 81 elephants but 81 soldiers. Each elephant has 3 soldiers so that is considerably fewer elephants for you to kill (less than 30).
okay guys you wont beleive it but i found that the most effective thing was not javs but tarentine cav in MELEE strange.:inquisitive:
Probably luck. Unless those are javelin throwing cavalry in which case they might have weakened the elephants first (multiple hitpoints).
hey i take offence:stare: lets take this to the battlefield.:whip:
Most of EB units got "thrown" attribute in the EDU, which is especially interesting against animal units with multiple hitpoints ( this inclueds Hastati and Princeps, who also got "armour piercing" attribute for their missile weapons ). Actually, this attribute should only be reserved for missile infantry ( aka skirmishers ), and that "bonus" against chariots/elephants actually applies to melee weapons only, iirc.
Javelins will make short work of any elephant unit, you could have easily taken them out with one unit of akontistai.
In my favortite elephant battle I actually lost my(specifically trained for this battle) two squads of hippakontistai to Epirote Heavy cavalry, while a unit of hoplitai haploi killed all 3 units of Elephants. ^^ which were rather softened up by my akontistai^^
If your Tarentines killed them it's most likely due to javelins thrown before the melee.
yes it was interesting