Art De La Guerre

[ethan]

Are people successfully using elephants? How about fairly heavily elephant based armies (i.e. Indians, Khmer, Burmese, etc.)?

If so what do the lists and tactics look like?

My experience is that they so vulnerable to being shot at that it makes them hard to use effectively...

[Soranon]

Elephant army are very good à AdG. They can crush nearly every thing in frontal assaut (except Phalanx army or very strong heavy ingfantry army). The weakness of this type of army it can be outmanoeuvred.

My friend Paul (Rosbif on this forum, an english player who live in Toulouse) used to play Tamoul.

Tamouls list 121 (Chola)

Général competent (3)
2 Elephant (26)
3 MI impetuous (21)
2 bowmen poor (10)
2 LI Jls (8 )

Général competent (3)
2 Elephant (26)
3 MI impetuous (21)
1 bowmen (10)
2 LI jls (8 )

Général competent (3)
2 Elephant (26)
2 MI impact elite (20)
2 bowmen poor (10)
2 LI bow (8 )

This is a really strong army list. Having elephant in all corps is a good thing : Opponent can't simply concentrate his army on non elephant corps.

MI impetuous are wonderfull against most infantry armies. With elephants, they are a real nighmare. Elephant protect Mi against Hc or KN.

Corps are usualy deploy like this :

---LI---LI--
MIELMIELMI

LI must be there to protect elephant against shooting.

Khmer or Birman army are a little bit differents. They can't use MI impetuous. They have medium lancer instead. It's less powerfull be more manoeuvrable. Corps can be organise on the same way as tamouls.

Some people like to play differents list like this one for the Tamouls :

General ordinary (0)
2 light charriot(18 )
2 MC (14)


General compétent(3)
3 Elephants (39)
3 MI impetuous (21)
3 LI jls (12)
2 bowmen (14)

General compétent(3)
3 Elephants (39)
3 MI impetuous (21)
3 LI jls (12)
2 bowmen (14)


I prefer the first liste because the first corps can only do retreat and giving some time... It's not a bad thing, but it's easy to concentrate two army corps on an elephant one... And let the other do nothing... That's why I prefer to have 3 same corps...


Classical indians are more problematic to play : You must play 6 bowmen (or mixted troops) witch isn't really good for the crushing power of this army.


I'm used to play an elephant corps on my Gazhnevid list. I play two heavy cavalry corps with bow and this one :

General Brillant (6)
3 Elephant elite (48 )
2 MI impact elite (20)
2 LI jls (8 )
2 LI bow (8 )
1 LI firearms (4 )

This corps is more powerful in fight than most of opponents corps. Included Elephant armies...

Brillant general give this corps a great manoeuver skill witch is very important in an horse archer army.

In the hope you will find something good for you, and sorry for my bad english

[ethan]

Thanks, and your English is fine

[ethan]

Have people had success with mixed lines of Bowmen and Elephants?

[Soranon]

I think playing only bowmen with elephant is really difficult...It could be usefull for advancing against horse archer but not really as usefull that you can wonder...

If a line of HI goes against a line of elephant-bowmen, all the bowmen will figth against a +2 factor for the HI. Elephants will fight at +2/+1 against most troops and +2/+2 against pikemen...

There will be a lot of bowmen killed quickly... leaving some support against elephants...

Dont forget that bowmen can't charge a unit in front most of time... except for giving support... So it will cost a lot of command point to give support for the elephants...