Art De La Guerre

[Warwolf]

Hi,

It would appear that an armoured elephant in melee vs an unarmoured elephant cannot claim benefit of armour if it loses the melee. Page 17 bullet point 2. Do you think this is intentional or just a rules glitch not picked up when armoured elephants were introduced? Common sense would indicate that they should benefit from armour in this scenario. Thoughts?

Dave

[fdunadan]

No armor against elephant, even for an Elephant.
El/El fights were head to head, with the smaller having to flee, so not use of armor in the case, contrary to attack from arrows, spears or swords.
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Audentes fortuna iuvat.

[Hazelbark]

It was not an oversight.

[lionelrus]

[Warwolf]

Thank you for responding.

I understand the thinking that men and horses would logically have no benefit from armour when in melee vs elephants. But the reason advanced for why armoured elephants see no armour benefit in melee against other elephants is not convincing. This seems to be that elephants fight head to head and smaller elephants will flee. But the description of elephants on page 16 says that smaller elephants are classified as mediocre, so we must assume that all other elephants are about the same size. The d6 result of the hand to hand combat can model any remaining size differentials of the elephants pushing each other.

In the meantime the armoured elephants should benefit from protection against the weapons of the opposition crew. But this is not allowed for.

The given explanation also does not explain why elite elephants retain the benefit of being elite in elephant vs elephant melees when they are only elite because of escort infantry and where these would not help with the head to head struggles of elephant vs elephant, and where the armour on the armoured elephants is intended to provide protection against just this type of infantry attack.

Both elite and armoured elephants cost 16 points but the elite ones seem to be better due to this rules glitch.

I should add that I have never used an armoured elephant in battle as yet but have just bought one of the new Z range Museum models which look amazing which prompted me to read the rules about how they work.

[KevinD]

Warwolf, I think Elite is probably slightly better than armored but it various by situation. Usually they are about equally beneficial. Against massed archery, armor is better. Armor is probably also better if your elephant is flanked. But the situations where Elite is better are probably more common.

[MC_Delicatessen]

Rules for toy soldiers are an abstraction, so I think you are chasing your tail in trying to justify combat modifiers based on such detail with such a wide variety of troop variations across so many thousands of years.

I’m an elephant fan, I have at least one nearly every battle, and I have not had an elephant ro elephant combat yet:)

I have previously thought about this armour vs other eles, along with movement restrictions, inability to rally, short distance of running amok etc..  and thought if all the ele rules in ADLG could be more ”extreme”.

 But… in my limited experience so far, I think the rules seem well balanced - at least as I don’t try to shoehorn as many elephants as possible into every list, and I haven’t seen an elephant-driven walkover victory yet;)

(I did paint two more last night tho!)