More 6mm Carthaginian War Elephants

After my large 6mm Citzen Infantry submission last week I needed a few days to lay down and whimper. Fortunately I have had a busy week so I actually had very little time to get much painting done anyway. I have however started preliminary work on a bonus round entry and my Curtgeld submission, so its not been a completely lazy week. My only submission this week has been these two War Elephants.

Yes, there are four nellies pictured here but two of these (with the red Howdah blankets) were painted in November, prior to commencement of the Challenge and long before my admission to the Painting Challenge. The Carthaginian army list for To The Strongest! says I can have two units of elephants so now I do.

The Carthaginian's employed a now extinct breed of North African elephant and at one time records suggest they had as many as 300 stabled in the walls of Carthage. Hannibal famously took 37 war elephants over the Alps and if ancient sources are to be believed all survived the journey. However most died shortly after arriving on the Italian Peninsular, possibly from the after effects of their arduous journey. Up to 70 elephants were used at Zama but these inexperienced and poorly handled animals were ineffective against a Roman army that had by now learned how to fight and defeat such apparently mighty beats of war.

I wasn't sure how these should be scored (as Mounted Figures or as Vehicles) and in the end I had to refer back to older submissions to the challenge to see if there were any previous rulings on the definition. True enough I found an old post that described War Elephants as "the tanks of the ancient world" and therefore counted as vehicles. Tamsin graciously also scored points for the crew so these two Nellies eventually earned me 6 points and another small step towards my goal.