Macedonian/Successor Elephants

[ravenflight]

Hi All,

I'm busy painting up my Elephants. The ones I got have a tower and come with 2 pike guys and a mahout.

Far from being an expert in all things war elephant, I'm wondering if my memory is faulty or accurate.

From memory I thought they often had some pike guys along with some bowmen. Is this correct? If correct, and given space in the tower, I'm thinking I'll put one pike guy and an archer in the tower.

Colour of the furnature would be pretty random wouldn't it? There wouldn't be an exact science on what colour cloth was used under the howdah, what colour the armour was painted etc etc.

Additionally, what did your average successor elephant have running around with the elephants? A few light infantry archers? Javelinmen?

I'm using 10mm so can manage to get extra figures on the base easily, so am after suggestions. I've based three elephants on a 40x80mm base, given that if one dies the other does too, so it should work out ok (I think).

Thoughts?

[bobm]

I believe that it depends on whether you've got Indian or (smaller) African elephants. Seleucids use Indians and Ptolemies used Africans. Indian elephants can carry more folk.

[willb]

At Raphaia the elephants on both sides were escorted by Cretans and Neo-Cretans. The Seleucids usually had about 40 to 50 men escorting each elephant.
Armies of the Macedonian and Punic wars has both the Seleucid and Ptolemy elephants on the cover. They both have a javelinman and a pikeman in the tower while the larger Indian one has an archer as the third man in the tower.

[ravenflight]

At Raphaia the elephants on both sides were escorted by Cretans and Neo-Cretans. The Seleucids usually had about 40 to 50 men escorting each elephant.
Armies of the Macedonian and Punic wars has both the Seleucid and Ptolemy elephants on the cover. They both have a javelinman and a pikeman in the tower while the larger Indian one has an archer as the third man in the tower.

Thanks for that. I'll put a mix of javelinmen and archers along with a pike man. I'll also put a scattering of archers on the base. I imagine it would be a less than enjoyable job running around at the base of an angry war elephant!

[deadtorius]

just an extra thought, I saw an artists concept where the inside of the elephants ears were painted red to add a more frightening appeaerance, not that a big mass of bronze armour coming at you wouldn't make you weakin the knees to begin with.
Probably hard to do in 10 mil but like bombers of WWII the elephant blankets would have dragons and other mythical beasts painted on them. Give someone a large working surface and they go a little nuts on the art work.

[ravenflight]

just an extra thought, I saw an artists concept where the inside of the elephants ears were painted red to add a more frightening appeaerance, not that a big mass of bronze armour coming at you wouldn't make you weakin the knees to begin with.

I just had a visual of a B52 painted red because it's more intimidating than the fact it can drop multiple nukes on you

Probably hard to do in 10 mil but like bombers of WWII the elephant blankets would have dragons and other mythical beasts painted on them.

Actually, some of the middle eastern transfers may come in handy here! Little Big Men do a couple of nice Islamic standars, which whilst out of period would still be at least vaguely similar in cultural style I would imagine. Good thought Deadtorius

[expendablecinc]

I painted one of my elephants with red ears and it works quite well.

Both have fairly elaborate blankets but I jsut did them in peudo persian patterns.

anthony

http://expendablecic.tripod.com/seleucid/index.htm

[ravenflight]

I painted one of my elephants with red ears and it works quite well.

Both have fairly elaborate blankets but I jsut did them in peudo persian patterns.

anthony

http://expendablecic.tripod.com/seleucid/index.htm

Yes Anthony, I'm always impressed by your paint jobs. After complimenting your knight with the flames style on your Latin Greeks I expected you to go a bit easy on my poor Syracusans, but no, you just ran over the top of them... although I must say it was more the Catlans than anything else .

Nice paintjobs btw. I'll put up something some time in the future.

[Polkovnik]

I'm using 10mm so can manage to get extra figures on the base easily, so am after suggestions. I've based three elephants on a 40x80mm base, given that if one dies the other does too, so it should work out ok (I think).

This will create a couple of potential problems :
1) You can't go into column
2) When one dies the other must rout twice before being removed

You can get round them using dummy bases, but I thought I'd point it out so you are aware.

[ravenflight]

This will create a couple of potential problems :
1) You can't go into column
2) When one dies the other must rout twice before being removed

You can get round them using dummy bases, but I thought I'd point it out so you are aware.

Yes, thqanks Polkovnik, I was aware of the problem, I saw it as limited for a couple of reasons.

1) I can put the elephants side ways to be 'in column'. I have some charge markers (arrows cut out of metal) to show direction should it be a real issue. They would rarely be in column for very long, but I accept it as an issue.
2) when they autobreak you can take the whole lot with you - it really matters very little. It migth be an issue, but it might not be as well.
3) the guy I bought the lead off has so many bloody elephant models that I have extras left over. I'll probably be able to build about 5 or 6 double BG's and still have a few left over . He was under the impression that you would be able to get twice as many elephant models on the base as in 15mm AND was under the impression that you got 2 models ber bag, not 3, so you can see the calculation problem. Therefore, I have many elepehant models that I can use to make up dummies.