SAGA: The One with the Elephants

 

For this week's SAGA game I decided to try out some elephants which are a new unit for Age of Hannibal. I used the same force as last time but replaced the 2 points of Hearthguard with 2 points of elephants in one unit. The elephants count as citizens so they can be the one unit of citizens you need in the army. Mick went with the same force as last time.

Romans

2 points of Hearth Guard in two units of 4

3 points of Warriors in three units of 8

1 point of Levies with Javelins in one unit of 12

1 Warlord on Horse

Carthaginians

2 points of Elephants in one unit of 2

2 points of Contingent Warriors on foot in two units of 8

1 point of mounted Contingent Warriors with javelins in one unit of 8

1 point of Levy bowmen in one unit of 12

1 Warlord on Horse

Elephants come with several special rules to simulate their role on the battlefield. The Carthaginian battle board doesn't have a special elephant related abilities on it but they can make good use of some of the abilities. Eagle Eye could be used to boost their shooting attack, but that is better used on the levy bowmen if they are still generating 6 shoot dice. Blood Price is another ability that stands out as it allows you to transfer up to 2 wounds onto a neighbouring unit instead of taking them on the target unit. This coupled with the Resilience (2) is the only way to keep those elephants in the game, as they only have 1 wound each if the enemy can get through your defences then the unit can be wiped out very quickly.

Whilst the elephants don't generate a lot of base attack dice, 5 versus the 8 of one point of Hearthguard or Warriors, they do score automatic hits which in most cases should make up for that.

The scenario we rolled up allowed us to nominate one opposing unit to count as double kill points so Mick went for the elephants making them worth 8 kill points each, this meant we would be certain to see them in action.

The game itself followed the same pattern as the last one with the Carthaginians sitting back and the levy archers shooting up the Velites whilst the Roman foot advanced to get to grips with the enemy

The got into position and launched one battle board loaded attack against the elephants when I had my defensive abilities ready almost did the job, despite rolling a fair few attack dice the resilience (2) and Blood Price meant I was left on 3 fatigue and transferred two deaths onto the Spanish infantry. I did leave both our battle boards empty so if Mick had been able to activate for another charge that turn he would most likely have taken at least one if not both off.

Unfortunately he couldn't and I had the chance to load my defences back up again and when the next weaker charge came in I was again able to survive with both elephants and inflict some more casualties back.

As one last final throw of the dice the Roman commander charged in but taking 4 automatic hits along with the other hits I rolled left him as a thin pile of pulp on the battlefield.

So the elephants worked in the sense that they lived but it takes a fair amount of battle board investment to keep them safe and even though they didn't die it was on the knife-edge a couple of times, I think you'd always be worried about the loss of the investment you've put in, 2 points of foot Hearth Guard are a safer investment in my eyes.