Are Elephants too powerful in DBA?

Elephants are no stronger than psiloi, they can't kill them, they can't make them flee. Stick a psiloi in their face and watch the horror.

Board size is relevant to elephants. At the NIT this year the switch to the 30 inch board really screwed one Canadian player, great sport and opponent I should say; who had a warband army. He found the increase in board area over the 24 inch square board really hurt his plans. Number of terrain pieces does not increase on the larger board; and increasing the size of your terrain pieces is a bad answer, since the bigger terrain pieces, as opposed to more small pieces get more in the way.

I would expect the same for elephants. More board area means more opportunity for the elephant player to get outflanked. Once an elephant command gets split into two groups it experiences all kinds of Pip issues. So, I think we have to decide what the board size will be before considering power issues.

Tactical factor suggestion, elephants minus one against psiloi and aux. This restores the 4 versus foot factor which was traditional through previous issues of DBA.

Reread Elephant in the Greek and Roman World, summarizes most battle descriptions of elephants. With mechanism of side support established I wonder if elephants should have lower factors but give side support? Against cavalry elephants were used en masse for intimidation. But in Hellensitic pike battles they are used as groups of mobile strongpoints distributed along the battleline.

So, elephants 4-4 but give +1 to infantry adjacent? And, disorder cavalry in contact, -1 to mounted friend or enemy in ANY contact including corner to corner.....

Sorry I couldn't win the NIT to prove that I actually know something about the game. But over the two events I did turn in the top total score. Not bad since I can't practice with experts anymore.

I agree with Tony, I have not found elephants to be any more powerful now than they were previous editions. Especially since it takes to pips to move them. I like their ability to pursue now. Takes them out of groups, so less maneuverable.

Elephants are often used here, especially in Classical armies. There results are extremely variable.

I remain unconvinced that they are generally too powerful in standard DBA.

An interesting observation Mike. I think you mean even though... +5 then -2 for a net 3 vs Ax at +3 vs mounted.

Do we have any historical narrative on bows vs elephants?


Joe Collins

I didn't really explain my thinking in the post, sorry Joe.

The high factor elephants have against the foot encourages the elephants to be used to break up the enemy foot. In the Classical armies, Greeks, Macedonians & Romans, as well as the Spanish, there are usually one or more Ps and Ax to counter the pachyderms. Sometimes the elephants really break up the infantry lines, other times they die achieving nothing.

Of course some armies are one dimensional and these struggle.

Keith:

I should have said..."I don't know what this means with regards to elephants and their power level in the game"...

Your additional comments and clarifications however are very welcome and enlightening.

I wonder if enough games have passed for anyone to make a pronouncement on elephants?

Joe Collins