Holy War Elephants, Baalman!

[TinCow]

I'm playing Carthage in a VH/VH campaign. Due to an unexpected elimination of the Brutii via faction member death, I launched a hasty invasion of southern Italy to get their two cities which had gone rebel. I got one, the Julii beat me to the other. I reinforced my invasion army with all of the 'elite' troops I could scrape up from Carthage and Sicily and moved on the Julii city with a full stack composed of my faction leader (Hannibal the Cavalryman), 13 Sacred Band units, 4 Long Shield cavalry, 1 War Elephants and 1 Armored War Elephants. Other than a single battle where the War Elephants never saw action, this was the first time I had used anything other than plain old vanilla Elephants in battle.

I beseiged the Julii city, which held a full stack. The next turn, I was attacked by a 4/5 Julii stack which was reinforced by the city stack which sallied. Both were led by captains. I arranged my Sacred Band in a refused line in phalanx formation with my elephants on one flank and the cavalry on the other. The map was a broad plain sloping down to the water, which actually ate up about 1/3 of the battle area. The Julii stack came on in a massive wave of Hastati, Principes and Triarii backed by about 4 Velites. As they neared the front of my Sacred Band line, I charged with the elephants to disrupt them before the impact. The first line broke. I decided to exploit this before the reinforcements could come up and I charged the broken units with my cavalry while pushing my elephants into the second line of the first army. The cavalry cleaned up the first line just after the second line broke. I moved my cavalry into mop up on this group, and turned my elephants onto the reinforcements, which were now streaming onto the field in somewhat of a column formation. The elephants simply charged through unit after unit, each stacked one behind the other along the water's edge. After they passed, the cavalry came through and cleaned up.

The battle was about 1200 vs. 2800. The enemy lost over 2500. I lost 20. 16 of those healed. None of the 13 Sacred Band units nor my general's unit ever even moved, let alone engaged in battle. The carnage was 100% from the 2 elephant units and the 4 cavalry units. My Armored War Elephants received over 550 kills and my War Elephants received over 350 kills. The rest was split between the 4 Long Shield Cavalry. Not a single elephant nor a single elephant rider was killed during the battle.

Curse CA for not including campaign battle replays. This is one I would have shown my grandkids.

[Lichgod]

GO Elephants! Best thing about being Carthage.

Using Cav on the heels of your elephants is the way to go. Cav takes advantage of the mass disruption elephants do to a unit. Keeping the elephants moving rather than milling about helps keep them alive.

As Carthage, I often had battles where slingers would get a few hits in, Elephants followed by Cav would strike, enemy flees, battle over, my infantry watched the whole thing.

Just never auto-calc with elephants. They take most the losses.

My current Julii Long Campaign, VH/H, Total Realism 1.0 is about half over and I just picked up my first merc War Elephant unit. Using em vs Gual bandits to get them some experience as they are going to my main punch in the soon to start Civil War.

[troymclure]

good story tincow and great last line. :)

[andrewt]

I had war elephants as Parthia. I made them charge some Auxilia and they managed to kill a lot during the charge and routed them. I wanted to see how many the elephants can kill so I turned off fire at will to chase the last 14. The elephants didn't kill a single thing. They just knocked the soldiers down again and again. After I turned fire at will back on, they killed them quickly. Elephants are good for disrupting formations but I think most of their kills are either due to the initial charge and the archers.

[TinCow]

I had war elephants as Parthia. I made them charge some Auxilia and they managed to kill a lot during the charge and routed them. I wanted to see how many the elephants can kill so I turned off fire at will to chase the last 14. The elephants didn't kill a single thing. They just knocked the soldiers down again and again. After I turned fire at will back on, they killed them quickly. Elephants are good for disrupting formations but I think most of their kills are either due to the initial charge and the archers.

I have found that as well. It is particularly easy to see with regular Elephant units. At the same time though, that initial charge can be devestating. I saw an 81 man Principes units drop to exactly 50 as the result of a single charge from the Armored War Elephants. Another amusing part of this battle was the fact that the column I was smashing was marching along the water's edge. As such, when my elephants charged into the units, a good 20% that flew off at the proper angle dropped into the water and drowned.

It's a shame we can't figure out how to balance a single elephant on town walls. I would love to see the results of an elephant charging into a densely packed unit on top of a wall... especially if the elephant itself ended up flying off the wall and landing on a unit down below.

[Nelson]

It's a shame we can't figure out how to balance a single elephant on town walls.

I haven't managed to get them up a ladder or a siege tower yet myself. And don't even think about trying to get them through those tiny tower doors...

[Beelzebub]

That's just ridiculous and a farce. Elephants are still ridiculously overpowered. Im playing a carthage campaign atm and I won't use any elephants. why even bother playing at all if these battles are like the US Armed forces vs african peasants?

I hope one of the realism mods will hurry up and get elephants right so they are a non factor like they were historically.

[Hurin_Rules]

Have you all patched your games yet? Didn't 1.1 reduce the effectiveness of elephants?

[Sir Moody]

While Playing scipii i recieved a unit of merc Ele's - next year i moved to take Rome (having recieved the peoples support at the same time as i got the ele's) one of my elite legionaire forces with the eles in tow faced down 2 full armies of the Senate...

the Army closest to me approached in order while the reins came infrom behind - i rushed my Legions up to the closest and began a meat grinder while i turned my eles around and waited... as expected the enemy reins made up of majority Principes bunched up in one big ball of exhausted romans and i charged the ele's straight into it - in one charge the elephants routed the enemy reins killing 1500 in seconds.... afte that i vowed not to use em again... too powerful

[Colovion]

Have you all patched your games yet? Didn't 1.1 reduce the effectiveness of elephants?

Not by much. Do some tests in the Custom Game setup.

[son of spam]

Not by much. Do some tests in the Custom Game setup.

I tried that. Even with 6 gold weapon forester warbands (18 or 19 missile attack I believe), it took forever to drop an ele w/flaming arrows. Pretty funny when I did tho because the ele got BURNINATED! HAHAHAHAHAH....yeah....

[Red Harvest]

Yeah, the patch paid lip service to the overpowered elephants, but it was only a minor change. The problem is not so much the deadliness of elephants, it is the fact that the follow up units (cav) break the disordered units in their wake. The high hitpoints make elephants very hard to stop with missiles (except onagers, which do ridiculous things.) I'm thinking about trying the base elephants with only 5 hit points. That would make them vulnerable, but still dangerous.

[Basileus]

Today i continued my Seleucid campaign and while playing i was attacked by pontus, they had a full stack army with a 4 star general who had mostly pontic light cav and eastern light inf while my army was small with 2 vanilla elephants 2 greek cav 2 phalanx pikemen and my general 2 star. I thought i´d make alot of damage so that i could take em with my leader who was close so i charged the elephants at the eastern inf who where approaching and just a few secs after impact both units routed good thing my 2 pahalnx units keept holding the line heh got them under control again and charged again those 2 elephant units together with my general routed the entire pontic army.

I think you have to surround them with light inf for best effect, they are still tough little buggers hehe

[Khorak]

I used vanilla nellyphants for the first time today. It's pretty horrifying when done properly, their charge is truly fearsome.

However, I found their morale sucks monkey nuts so you can't send them off on their own for specific tasks, they just end up routing after sniffing enemies (I wanted a unit of them to disrupt and possibly beat up massive reinforcements trying to get into a city from the side of a map whilst I splattered the defenders and took up defensive positions). They also get knackered with incredible speed, and move too slow to very well penetrate pike formations. They may take significant casualties if they end up careening headfirst into a phalanx.

[metatron]

They're elephants people. We're like ants to them.

[Marshal Murat]

The Diadochi with thier elephants usually accompanied by light infantry. However, I rarely support elephants with infantry becuase they can cause the men to fly, and with horses, it doesn't happen.

[bmolsson]

No patch needed for me I just have to see this elephants everyone is talking about.....

*running to play Carthage*

[Dr_No]

man those ele's kick - i've just had half my Julii army taken out by one ele unit - any tips on taking these buggers out? accoding to some description i read velites ae supposed to have an advantage with ele's - anyone know if that's true? or is the only way to get those lame incendiary pigs? or get some women to scream at them?

[TinCow]

Have you all patched your games yet? Didn't 1.1 reduce the effectiveness of elephants?

Yes, this was post-patch.