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...