FAQ: Ermor(Middle Age) VS Elephants.

[Moon Pine]

All the troops and undeads of Ermor are small units and the Elephants walk through them just like tanks.
And also elephants`re cheap in material - easy to Spam. While the Legion of Ermor costs.
Is there any way to stop the elephants with Ermor? Yap, it also hasn`t serious ranged unit to damage the elephants before they get close.

[BesucherXia]

Why not try your vestals? Ethereal units are good counters to trample.

Also I beileve MA ermor always use heavy bless for them, which makes the elephants rush a bad idea.

[Moon Pine]

Ethereal? Yap, I`ll try it.

[vfb]

You can also make a few Behemoths at Enchant-4. Use spells for ranged damage, even Smite works fine when the Elephants are hung up on your Behemoths.

[Endoperez]

You can also use your magic. Elephants have poor magic resistance AND poor morale.

Alteration 3 gives Body Ethereal. Area of Effect 1 means that 3 human-sized units, per casting, become ethereal and ignore 75% of all nonmagical attacks, including trample. With 4-5 S1 mages, that can be few dozen legionnaires.
S2 mages and Thaum 3 or 4 can be used to spam Paralyze, which will quickly stop the elephants.
Alternatively, you could go for Evocation and cast Shadow Bolt. It deals damage, paralyzes, and even if you miss it won't affect undead.
Any fear spells, including the lowly Frighten, can be used to great effect. I think Frighten is in Thaumaturgy, but I'm not quite sure. Just look for Death 1 combat spells in the manual if you can't find it.

Also, every elephants costs over 100 gp. Your undead will be very cheap compared to that. Have lots of undead waiting for the elephants, and cast spells and fire javelins at the undead; you won't mind having few less undead, but killing the elephants will really hurt your opponent.

Also, if the elephants' commanders don't have bodyguards, use groups of Longdead Horsemen to kill the commanders.

[thejeff]

Decay is also brutal on Elephants. It won't win you the battle, but your enemy will be left with expensive crippled dying elephants, so it might win you the war.

[Gandalf Parker]

I find that cheap shooters work well against elephants. Even slingers if you can get them. It doesnt kill them but any small damage can get them to rout and trample their own support troops.

Also along the line of the decay suggestion, it might be too late to do now but taking at least 4 death will give you 100% afflictions as a blessing on your troops.

Setting shooters, or blessed units, as flankers can help alot. If you have a lot of flak troops in front try setting the flak troops as hold and attack large, with the flankers set to hold and attack rearmost.

[Tifone]

Go for the faster way to one (or more) of the suggested spells in this extremely useful guide by Dedas: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35620

The usual suspects in Death are Behemoths, Frighten, Terror (all in Thaumaturgy! ), Shadow Bolt and Blast (Evocation)

[Soyweiser]

I think the best low level way would be to hire a few Thaumaturgs, and a lot of slingers. Have the Thaumaturgs (D1) spam frighten (D1, thaumaturgy 1). And order the slingers to shoot at large monsters.

Using javelin throwing troops would also work of course, but they have less ammo, and less range. And High Thaumaturgs would be better than normal ones. But these are capital only.

Of course using Thaumaturgs in battle cuts into your research capabilities. Which always hurts. But you can build these at fort, and are not capital only.

I think about 4 Thaumaturgs with 40 slingers would easily kill a large group of Elephants, and they would cost around 750 gold. You really want them to flee, because trampling units who are routed trample over their friends. You could kill their support troops. And if you are afraid to lose your Thaumaturgs, you could always add a few ethereal units.

thejeff: The decay tactic is very evil. They are high maintenance troops, so crippling is great. So I suggest that you use one of the Thaumaturgs mentioned above to also cast decay. (Decay gives age and possibly afflictions, frighten causes them to run of)

[Endoperez]

I'm pretty sure Behemoths are in Enchantment, not Thaumagurgy.