Quote Originally Posted by lars573
IIRC Arcani and most chariots types have 2 hit points and elephants have 3.
Most chariots have 3 hitpoints, some 2. Elephants have 10 or 12 depending on type (12 and 15 respectively pre-patch.) Bodyguard units and some special units have 2 hit points. The high mulitiple hitpoints make elephants nearly invulnerable to normal missile attack (archery of non-flaming variety, slingers, javelin, pila.) This is counter to history unfortunately. Elephants are more vulnerable to cavalry than missile units (non-flaming) and that is so backwards as to make my head spin. It is hard to mod the tendencies out, since the are deeply engrained in the game engine.

High hitpoints = arrow sponge since it takes alot of accumulated damage before the first kill occurs. Armour protects from missile attack, but defensive skill does not. So the high armour value for elephants also artificially raises the bar for missiles (so I've modded them to up defensive skill, but reduce armour.) Shields also are used as defense to frontal missile attack.