Just a quick note following up the posts about the Indian army. One of the changes I've made in the Indian lists in AoA (as opposed to the ones on the net) is to change the army's Ld down to a base of '5' (i.e. the same Ld values as a Barbarian army has). Indian cavalry and infantry are subject to Warband rule 1, which means that they add their rank bonus to their ld, but aren't impetuous and don't get the Warband's ferocious charge.
Lastly, especially for Don, here are some new rules that apply whenever elephants are used in a game. I've designed them to limit the effectiveness of elephants as a front line anti-infantry unit, so that they will tend to operate on the flanks or be used as an anti-cavalry screen (whioch from my reading is what happened to them against armies that knew how to deal with them).
This is a first draft, so comments and feedback are welcomed!
1. ELEPHANTS
Elephants were generally only effective against enemy troops that were not used to them. With familiarity came, if not contempt, then at least an ability to deal with the large creatures in a business like manner. To represent this, you should roll a D6 on the following table at the start of any battle that includes elephants. Important note: An army that includes elephants itself always counts as being 'used to the beasts!'.
| D6 | Result |
| 1 | Never met them before! |
| 2-3 | May be this will get rid of them... |
| 4-6 | Used to the beasts! |
Never Met Them Before!: The standard rules in WAB apply.
May be this will get rid of them...: Armies that hadn't yet learnt how to deal with elephants tended to come up with all kinds of weird ways of defeating them. Probably the most notable example of this was the (alleged) use of flaming pigs by the Roman's in a bid to scare off the elephant's in Phyrus's army. To relfect such tactics, an army that rolls this result on the table is allowed to use such a 'scare tactic' once per battle. The scare tactic is announced at the start of the turn when charges would normally be declared (it doesn't make any actual game difference as to what the tactic is, but in the interests of fun it is highly recommended that the player invents his own, suitably outlandish tactic, before roll any dice!). At the time that the tactic is used 3D6 are rolled. Any and all elephants within that many inches of an enemy model that is a) on foot (i.e. not cavalry, chariots etc) and b) not in a unit enagaged in combat, must pass a ld test or stampede. An army that uses a scare tactic may move and shoot normally during the same turn, but may not declare any charges or make any march moves (basically, the army stands around and watches to see what effect the scare tactic had!).
Used to the Beasts: The army has faced elephants several times and now has a pretty good idea of how to deal with them. Once per battle the army may use a 'scare tactic' as described above. In addition all skirmisher infantry, all light infantry, and all drilled infantry in the army are considered to be 'used to' elephants. Lastly infantry that are in skirmish formation can only be hit by an elephant on a roll of 6 (they've learnt to atack the beast from the sides). Note that the crew will still hit any attacking skirmishers normally.
Jervis