Surprisingly Good and Bad Units 1.2 Edition

[Mikhail Mengsk]

Indian elephants got chewed by a unit of asian axemen and tourephoroi in my campaign. Sure they killed about 60-80 soldiers, but my soldiers won the day. It's 13000 mnai to build, isn't it? With those mnais i could build up enough units to kill them all.

[option]

Indian Elephants are all about correct usage. You NEVER have them stand and fight, you start them at the flanks of an enemy battle line while they're engaged with your line and let them rip through the formation all the way to the other flank. The morale effect is also amazing, merely having elephants in the vicinity of a hammer and anvil strike will almost always make the enemy unit rout, and it's easy to start chain routs. Love them.

[Ca Putt]

I just had a hard fight against Phyrros als the KH my army was largely composed of levy hoplites and I had almost no cavalry the AI managed to keep my Hippakontistai away from their Elephants and they routed my only unit of proper hoplites and one of my ekdromoi without taking any losses. not even my Peltastai could bring them down :( in the end they were killed by a tired unit of Hoplitai Haploi with only taking very few casulties(ok they were hurt from the peltasts but the peltasts did not kill one) but once the elephants were dead the bulk of the Epirote Army routed or were routed by the remains of my cavalry. I won the battle and Phyrros fell on the battlefield like the lion share of his troops. Still the League of the Hellens lost many sons that day.
imo those Levy hoplites should be Picked into the ranks of the Epilektoi :DDD but unfortunately I can't train them yet :(

conclusion: Hoplitai Haploi surprisingly Awesome^^
Indian Elephants Deadly scary almost Immortal but extremely unreliable. I like units that I can trust thus troops that only rout/die if you expect it. that's basically why I play KH and Sweboz^^.

[Mikhail Mengsk]

Indian Elephants are all about correct usage. You NEVER have them stand and fight, you start them at the flanks of an enemy battle line while they're engaged with your line and let them rip through the formation all the way to the other flank. The morale effect is also amazing, merely having elephants in the vicinity of a hammer and anvil strike will almost always make the enemy unit rout, and it's easy to start chain routs. Love them.

With elephant's cost and upkeep you can use cataphracts or other heavy cavalries. You'll have a much more versatile force. They simply aren't cost-effective.

[Watchman]

Matter of taste. Plus, most factions don't get cataphracts either so meh.

[Maion Maroneios]

Indeed, it is a matter of taste. When used correctly, elephants can be a war-winning force. They scare enemy infantry and cavalry, they have a huge morale impact upon the enemy because of their high killing ratio when charging an enemy line, plus they can stand their own for quite some time.

But speaking of elephants, I believe they were more or less like nuclear weapons of our time. That's a very rough analogy, but let me explain it; Even though some nations may have had elephants in their disposal, they weren't always used because of the dangers that come with using them on the battlefield. That's something everyone who had experience with elephant warfare knew as a fact. But being able to afford to train and feed a considerable number of elephants, meant that the nation was very powerful and not to be taken too lightly. More or less like a symbol of their military prowess. Same as nuclear weapons nowdays. The USA have nuclear weapons in their disposal, though I doubt it if they are ever going to use them because of the destruction if will cause and which in turn might affect them directly or indirectly as well. But just having the techonolgy and funds to make and maintain such weapons, is a symbol of their high military, economical and technological level.

Maion

[Watchman]

A rather poor comparision IMO, given that the main point of nukes is that nobody dares use the damn things and there's few countermeasures against them. Conversely everyone who now went to the trouble of bringing a bunch of war-trained hefalumps to battlefield normally also used the blasted things, and there were also quite a few tactics a wily opponent could try to use to neutralise them...

[Maion Maroneios]

I know it's a poor comparison, but I already stated that. I just wanted to give an example on how I believe elephants were used back during those times. Not so much as a powerful unit, but as a symbol of might that striked fear into the enemy.

Maion

[Maion Maroneios]

Sorry, double post...

[Watchman]

...no, I don't think that really computes. The pachyderms after all had real enough tactical uses. Arguably a better comparision would be the Late Bronze Age war chariots - an effective weapon system hopefully flat out too expensive (or difficult to develop) for the opponent to match. In that sense a more relevant modern parallel would be the assorted mind-bogglingly expensive late Cold War "superweapons", eg. stealth bombers and the superfighters like F-22 and Eurofighter...

[Satyros]

I'm not of a multiplayer guy so can't tell how the Elephants fare against clever opponents , but against a dumb A.I. general they are campaign ( --> much more than just "battle" ) winners . To have Elephants at your starting army as Epeiros is a blessing .

Satyros

[Mikhail Mengsk]

Sure they are powerful, i'm only saying that they costs too much and requires HUGE upkeep. A rich faction could afford them, many others should avoid them, even if they are campaign-winners.

Think about their "running amok" risk: 2-3 missile units (eastern ones) could really ruin you day. I've tried many times and it works: using flaming arrows makes an Indian Eleph unit to run amok before it could hit your lines. Needless to say what eastern and nomadic HAs could do against them...

As Hannibal, i find them useful if you already have them, but i will never base my tactic upon them. After the first encounter during Phyrric wars, they had never been decisive against Romans. Historically, they were pretty easy to counter; in an african battle (thapsus?) against his roman rivals, Caesar used huge "buccine" (sort of roman horns) to make them routing shortly after the first impact. And his veteran legions held the line against the moster's charge.

[Watchman]

See above concerning weapon systems whose one competitive advantage is specifically their extreme expense...

Anyway, sure they could be countered if you knew how. And were probably never really at their best frontally against confident infantry. But like scythed chariots, they wouldn't have remained in use for centuries - or millenia in the elephants' case - if they didn't work sufficiently often to merit bothering with...

[Mikhail Mengsk]

They worked until they became "useless". In EB timeframe, they were at the end of their "career", i think. Elite infantries (like roman ones), new tactics (flaming weapons) and more versatile "hammers" started to make elephants less effective.

[Watchman]

The Sassanids at least seemed to consider elephants worthwhile to deploy against the Romans, so eh...

Also, Romans elite my left foot. What they were was disciplined and versatile, and as it happens the manipular formation was by fortunate accident quite resistant to such weapon systems (since it was fairly easy to simply shift the sub-units out of the way to create "alleys" through which elephant and chariot horse alike tended to proceed) and armed with heavy armour-piercing throwing-spears which were well suited to doing bad things to such threats.

[Conradus]

Considering that elephants were still used in the 17the century against the Mughals in India, I'd hardly call the EB-timeframe the end of their career.

[Mikhail Mengsk]

I would have to say "in western warfare". In India there were plenty of them, so why not to use them?

If you have to buy them from India to europe or even middle east, it's different. You will do it only if you think it worth it. And it worth no more.

[Watchman]

Tell that to the Sassanids circa 7th century AD - the Muslim Arabs had to kill several of the beasts, you know...

[antisocialmunky]

You have to remember that they pretty much made the African Forest elephant extinct and had to wander too far south/east to get them economically.

[Nirvanish]

Sorry to be a buzzkill but I believe the extinct elephant species you are referring to was deemed unsuitable for warfare because of its small stature. If I remember correctly Carthage usually bought their war elephants(they were of a larger species) from areas South of Egypt.

Edit-After some further reading on the subject I have found that the use of the North African Forest Elephant and those of Eastern Africa/Southern Asia is not as cut and dry as I once was told. While there is some debate as to whether a North African Forest Elephant was large enough to carry a turret on its back as viewed on many images of Carthaginian troops, many people believe that these elephants were the mainstay of the Carthaginian elephant corps.

[mountaingoat]

i am thinking that the use of elephant in the battlefield is mostly symbolic.

i understand that a group of 30 trained elephants charging towards an enemy line is effective ( imagine the image to the person defending against them and the feeling you would have if they were charging on your side ) .. but a handful of peltasti would take down and elephant fairly quickly( if even just one skilled peltast) ... i think the peltast units ( specific ones , not ones that just carry something to throw ) .. are not portrayed to their fullest in the engine.

but all things aside , it is saddening to take these awesome creatures and force them to battle ( the same for horses ) ... i do not see them being a cost effective unit at all .. which is why i think they were used more a symbol of power .. or possibly esoteric meaning.

[Watchman]

Elephants were normally given a light-infantry escort to keep enemy skirmishers from swarming them, you know... but in any case they were always most effective against cavalry.

[antisocialmunky]

Sorry to be a buzzkill but I believe the extinct elephant species you are referring to was deemed unsuitable for warfare because of its small stature. If I remember correctly Carthage usually bought their war elephants(they were of a larger species) from areas South of Egypt.

Edit-After some further reading on the subject I have found that the use of the North African Forest Elephant and those of Eastern Africa/Southern Asia is not as cut and dry as I once was told. While there is some debate as to whether a North African Forest Elephant was large enough to carry a turret on its back as viewed on many images of Carthaginian troops, many people believe that these elephants were the mainstay of the Carthaginian elephant corps.

At the end of the day, it was probably more about money and logistics rather than effectiveness. I wouldn't spend that much effort on an unreliable tool.

[mountaingoat]

Elephants were normally given a light-infantry escort to keep enemy skirmishers from swarming them, you know... but in any case they were always most effective against cavalry.

well they would have to break away from them at some point , else they would charge into their own ..

but anyway

[Watchman]

Clearly, you did not understand either their role or how open-order light infantry attacks elephants. That latter is done by fairly literally *swarming* the big animal, attacking it from every quarter, getting under it to attack its relatively soft stomach (or throat; apparently one Arab commander slew an elephant by ducking under its jaw and slashing its jugular - several later attempts at replicating the feat resulted in a squished would-be hero though...), throwing javelins into its sides, etc.

The obvious role of the escorts is to get in the way of such efforts so the hefalump can concentrate on its main job, ie. terrifying horses and making a mess of close-order infantry formations.

[antisocialmunky]

I wonder if in India, any commander ever took advantage of a male elephant's musk. Assuming the the enemy's elephants were males, well a female in heat would have been an interesting tactic. I know of one instance where someone had all his cavalry use mares in heat to force the enemy to charge. It did but the battle ended up in a wash since both cavalry forces went crazy and didn't accomplish anything.

Obviously the humor quality of a hundred crazy horny elephants would truely be a sight to behold.

[athanaric]

Elephants were normally given a light-infantry escort to keep enemy skirmishers from swarming them, you know... but in any case they were always most effective against cavalry.

Interestingly, I've developed a similar tactic in EB. My elephants are always accompanied by light or medium cavalry, preferably Kambojas or Prodromoi.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I wonder if in India, any commander ever took advantage of a male elephant's musk. Assuming the the enemy's elephants were males, well a female in heat would have been an interesting tactic. I know of one instance where someone had all his cavalry use mares in heat to force the enemy to charge. It did but the battle ended up in a wash since both cavalry forces went crazy and didn't accomplish anything.

Obviously the humor quality of a hundred crazy horny elephants would truely be a sight to behold.

I wonder why they did not do the same with humans. Arguably, human males are even more susceptible to such tactics...

[Apázlinemjó]

I wonder why they did not do the same with humans. Arguably, human males are even more susceptible to such tactics...

Now that's a good question, few thousand naked women on the battlefield...Jesus.

[DaciaJC]

I wonder why they did not do the same with humans. Arguably, human males are even more susceptible to such tactics...

I thought we were all in agreement that the Germanic Screeching Women were a fantasy?