Qm said

[Chris_Byler]

OmikronWarrior said:
The current system is the trampler does 10 + (2xsize) of armor piercing damage to every unit in the square it "tramples". Actually, the defender gets to escape if they beat a defense check vs. 10 with fatigue penalties to their defense, but absolutely must take at least 1 point of damage no matter what. Assuming units have a defense of 10 (which is the game's baseline), they'll get trampled roughly half the time. And with an elephant trampling, thats 22 ap damage, which is death for most infantry.

Well, maybe before we get into adjusting specific units, let alone making new rules, we might consider just tweaking those numbers a bit. 10 attack for trample seems a bit high to me - how hard is it really to see where the elephant is going and be somewhere else? Even a few points less of "trample effective attack" will lead to more units getting out of the way and fewer getting stepped on... while the trampler still ends up tired and surrounded. A little less damage could make more units survive the first trample, too (meaning you have to trample them again, which is time consuming and fatiguing). At 8+size*2 ap, some heavily armored tough guys like Ulm could have a decent chance to survive the first trample.

Repelling elephants doesn't make much sense to me. If an elephant is heading for your phalanx, you should get out of its way and stab it as it goes by, or after it is past you, not stand there until it snaps your spear like a toothpick.


P.S. Maybe the "must take 1 damage" only applies to people *hit* by the trample (and not lucky/ethereal)? "No matter how heavy your armor, an elephant stepping on you will do *some* damage" makes sense; "An elephant rushing into your square will damage you even if you get out of the way in time" doesn't. Even heavily armored troops could beat 10 attack some of the time.

[MaxWilson]

Note that it's not 10 + (size*2) AP. It's 10 + ((size of attacker - size of defender)*2) AP. That means an elephant will usually have an 18 AP attack, which is survivable by tough Ulmish guys, as you noted.

About the minimum 1 damage: I thought so at one point too, so I specifically paid attention to IIRC a PD commander when he was getting trampled. No Ethereal, no Luck, and it was definitely the same guy. No damage. It's hard to tell exactly how much damage is taken during a trample because of the displacement, so I don't know how common it is to be undamaged, but I know it happens.

-Max

[krpeters]

On the subject of long pointy sticks:

The repell idea makes sense as the best way to stop tramplers. It also would make weapon length more important in the game, esp. if my idea of allowing all units to trample were implemented.

There's no need to make the system complicated. Simply do a "size vs. length" check. A size 6 elephant vs. a length 4 spear, do the 2d5 thing, if the elephant's roll plus size is greater than the spearman's roll plus length, the elephant gets to trample, if not, not.

Spearmen would get stomped with moderate frequency by elephants, but not much by trample-enabled cavalry. Swordsmen, on the other hand, would have to watch out for cavalry. Which adds to the rock-papers-scissors thing (swordsmen beat spearmen beat cavalry)

Jotun would become way cool with this trample rule... which giants should be!

[Wahnsinniger]

Hmmm....everyone could trample....Not sure how that would balance, but that would add a whole new level of cool when your Knights Break through the enemy lines a square or two before ramming their lance into someone.

[Kristoffer O]

> Do they just get crunched, or do they dodge "through" the elephant?

They jump to one of the closest free spaces. In large battles, that can be a very long jump

[krpeters]

I guess they get thrown a long way but luckily land on their feet

With regards to balancing tramplers... when there's only a few on the board, they tend to get surrounded and pulled down quickly. When there's a lot, they tend to form a "wall" that is much more powerful. In itself it's a good thing, but it seems a bit too strong and needs to get toned down somehow.

If the repel idea isn't liked, the reducing quantity per squad (via making leadership take size into account) would make it harder to accumulate large masses of tramplers. (Leadership 40 = 80 halflings, 40 humans, or 6 elephants)

Reducing elephants per squad would make it somewhat harder to mass huge hordes, and greatly increase the likelihood of a rout by at least some of them.

[Chris_Byler]

The simpler suggestion of increasing their resource cost (to represent the difficult task of catching/breeding and then training an elephant, not to mention the expense of feeding it while you are training it, and the expense of a proper howdah and harness) would also make it more difficult to mass huge hordes of elephants. But alone, it doesn't address the "elephant plus hoplites" problem.

As a quick fix I favor higher rescost, but ultimately I'd like to see parts of squads allowed to rout while their braver squadmates fight on. Even if I have to wait for Dom4 to see it.

[Ewierl]

Chris_Byler said:
Well, maybe before we get into adjusting specific units, let alone making new rules, we might consider just tweaking those numbers a bit. 10 attack for trample seems a bit high to me - how hard is it really to see where the elephant is going and be somewhere else?

Here's a question I've never been quite sure of: once an elephant gets past the front lines, it can hit troops that have no free spaces to dodge into. Do they just get crunched, or do they dodge "through" the elephant?