"Elephant question - War & Conquest" Topic

Another giant game – 5000 points

Elephants are just dominating.

Shooting seems straight forward. And also seems to be the best bet at stopping them.

In my last game – 2-3 elephants hit a unit of 24 infantry. Ran them right over with little problem. Happening again.
2 Indian elephants are hitting a unit of 30 Macedonian pike (3 ranks of 10).
According to the lists each Indian elephant gets 6 strikes.
One elephant got 3 kills and one got 2.
The Macedonians fight back with 10 strikes (5 against each elephant) – 1 kill
With charge bonus, elephants win by 5
even with a nearby leader, my pike block can only pass on snake eyes.

How does a unit ever stay in combat with odds like that (let alone win a round)?

I don`t play these rules, but a few points…
Ancient armies used anti-elephant measures, carts with rotating blades, pits, stakes and other obstacles
They might also have bought/trained as many, or more elephants than their opponents did.
Both pikes and elephants should have vulnerable flanks – both would have fought forntally and tended not to have much movement or manoeuvrability when they did fight.

There is the War and Conquest Facebook page. Rob is on there, along with other players.

Elephants do not have a rear or flank for the purposes of combat (p. 149).

If an elephant is charged in a non-facing side, it must make a morale test (p. 149). If it fails it goes out of control, regardless the combat result.

Second+ rounds of combat defenders get d6+ extra attacks on the elephant to represent extra weapons bearing on it. Reroll each round.

Missile armed elephant crew fire at twice normal rate.

Formations fighting elephants are "disordered".

Elephant combat ability -1 vs skirmishes (glancing attacks p 136).

All above from p. 149.

While being specifically about Warhammer Ancient Battles, you may know War and Conquest (WAC) is the spiritual successor to WAB.

(I think the initials are no accident…)

You may find this of use:

link

and

link

WAB also has the optional rule from the 'Hannibal' supplement that if an elephant has or is only reduced to its mahout (driver) or less, then all hits are automatic due to its size (P. 27).

Mind you, this only makes sense if the figure model is unarmoured.

I like WAC but the rules seem to be not as developed as WAB.

I really wish Rob would put out some Supplement books; especially those rumoured or alluded to have been ready or desired for WAB.

While being specifically about Warhammer Ancient Battles, you may know War and Conquest (WAC) is the spiritual successor to WAB.

It's probably more accurate to say it is one of the spiritual successors to WAB, Clash of Empires and Hail Caesar being the other rules put forth by ex-GW authors. Us ex-WAB players used to call it the War of the Successors. I guess you could add Martin Gibbins' Swordpoint into the mix, even though it came a bit later than the other three.

I like the links to Jeff Jonas' site. He would fly in from California to play the WAB tournaments at the HMGS conventions. I faced his Macedonians once…..ouch! He was a great guy to talk to and, as you can see from his website, a gifted painter. Good memories.

As for the Successors, I much prefer HC for my massed Ancients games now. Flexible basing, no casualty removal, a casual writing style, and I enjoy the command and control aspect of the game.

I doubt Robb will be releasing supplement books as he makes the army lists for WAC available through his forum (which is being overhauled and should reopen shortly).

scarabminiatures.com/blog

Thanks everyone for responses. I missed them until now.
Yes, I know W&C springs from WAB.
I also note that Rob is good about answering emails with game questions.

In my last game, in spite of being repeatedly shot at, the ellies kept passing morale so no stampedes (in 2 games).

In the end, I came up with a home grown "pass through" rule base on an old WAB rule. It worked well enough.

When you are talking about several elephants attacking one unit that's a LOT of "firepower" aimed at that one unit!

I could see a tactic like that working in real-life just overwhelming any single unit. However, in real-life there would be counter attacks coming from the flanks as soon as that tactic was employed (as long as the units could, of course and the commander was able to control his units).

Many games/gamers do not put enough resources into reserve to deal with situations like this (turns are often too limited and games too short (turn wise) due to the length of time it takes to resolve one turn's combat).

Pass-through could work but I wonder how it would work in real life. Elephants can turn pretty quickly and when the unit opens up the driver would/should turn the elephant. Galloping horses take time to turn. Chariots even longer. Wagons more. I guess scythed chariots take this into account.

Yes, Rob is very good at answering queries. I know there are a LOT of excellent lists on his site BUT what I miss is the background information that is presented in the WAB books. Knowing how a unit or specific troop type fought, maneuvered, was equipped, etc is far easier to find in one work, rather than having to research each in different sources.

I always think most rules seem to make elephants over-powdered and the ancient version of a light tank. In WAC they seemed to have all the advantages but few disadvantages. In fact I can vaguely remember, do they panic if they fail any morale test?
I remember playing in a game based on one of the Sparrow novels where the Romans are attacking ancient Brits with some elephants. The elephants did a perfect one two with the Legionaries supporting them and easily rolled up the warbands. Disordering their opponents in combat was a killer. My impression was you had to stop them before they hit your line and need to focus your light troops at panicking the nellie before it hits your line.

There are pretty "gamey" ways to use elephants – like parking them along your flanks to prevent cavalry from attacking.

I think that would not be the best idea historically, speaking.

I would think loose order troops may be the best in defending as they are more free to open ranks and move – whereas tight order troops, phalanx, etc would be the worst against armoured elephants as they would be trampled and disordered far more easily.

I would think troops would immediately follow an elephant and take advantage of the chaos they created (like chariot and cavalry runners).

I admit I have not read a lot of historical accounts of elephant battles, but there must be some historical works (instead of thinking about them like modern/20th Century armour is/was used).

Thanks for the nice comments. I can't offer up any specific nuances for WAC. I can point back to the old WAB elephant posts from the distant past (I see the link was posted above , but I repeat it below). These can be added to any game of this type as extra flavor for your games.

link

Q/A

[There are pretty "gamey" ways to use elephants – like parking them along your flanks to prevent cavalry from attacking.

I think that would not be the best idea historically, speaking.]

--- Actually this is the most common successful usage of war elephants. Using them as battering rams against steady heavy infantry was most often unsuccessful- even if it led to brutal carnage on both sides- Successor armies that had large contingents of war elephants rarely attacked enemy formed troops from the front while they were steady.

[I would think loose order troops may be the best in defending as they are more free to open ranks and move – whereas tight order troops, phalanx, etc would be the worst against armoured elephants as they would be trampled and disordered far more easily.]

--- elephants were most at risk from skirmishers. Loose order troops and trained heavy infantry could part and form lanes- but that was only a plus if they had capable light infantry support to round up the beasts.

[I would think troops would immediately follow an elephant and take advantage of the chaos they created (like chariot and cavalry runners).]

---- Combined arms is indeed the important tactic. In ancient times this was less easy to achieve than on the tabletop. Elephants are trained and untrained. Often the disasters are attributed to untrained elephants.

Assuming JJartist is Jeff Jonas (side note I am the weirdo who got you to autograph his copy of Alexander The Great many years ago – still have it), the house rule I came up with is based on the WAB rule.
Quoting from Jeff's page "Ancientbattle.com"
"Used to" and drilled troops have the further advantage of being allowed to create lanes in their formations which elephants charging or stampeding through their front can be channeled without harm.

So what I did is create a new formation called "lanes." It could be a charge reaction (morale check required) or formed on your own turn.
Good news: If an elephant hits a unit in "lanes" formation, it is moved to the rear, as the WAB rule above. However, I allowed it to make its normal attacks. I figured just because elephant is going through open areas, doesn't mean the crew are idle spectators.
It was then kind of treated like shooting – no morale check unless 20% of unit killed.

Bad news, it counts as being disordered. This means it takes a turn to reform and is vulnerable to other attacks.
I thought it worked out pretty well.

My recent W&C battles using elephants can be found here:
playing it straight up:
link
and here with my house rule:
link

@Korvessa-
What a great looking game, I love the old figures!. I think you are going in the right direction with your elephant variants. I'm happy to hear your copy of WAB Alexander the Great has not been relegated to the dustbin.
Jeff

@JJartist,

Thank you for the follow up!

Very informative.