Untrained Carthaginian Elephants

 

Here are some more untrained Carthaginian elephants for the Battle of Zama. The figures are all Agema Miniatures. The sources on the battle, Polybius, Livy and Appian don't mention whether Hannibal's eighty elephants (Polybius XV.11 & Livy XXX.33 ) were barebacked or had towers with crew. Much of Hannibal's army, apart from his Italian veterans, was hastily raised and the assumption is that with such a large number of elephants, more than he had ever fielded before in battle, many of them must have been untrained.

Anyway with these two ellies I have majority of untrained elephants for my planned Epic Command and Colors game of Zama, but still have plenty of Carthaginian and Roman infantry to paint. I painted one of the elephant's ears ochre with a Tanit (chief female deity of Carthage) sign on its forehead as I'd done an earlier one in red and quite liked the look. In the photos below you can see the four Agema elephants are the same basic resin model but the earlier ones have a different metal trunk and tusks and armoured mahout. 

Carthaginian Elephants

 

Here are two more Carthaginian elephants and crew that I've just finished painting. Figures, howdah, blanket and shield transfers are by Victrix/LBM. I gave the crew shields and put the javelin holder inside the howdah so the howdah transfers could be clearly seen, it seemed a pity to obscure them!

One morning a few days ago there were about a dozen King Parrots drinking out of the gutter on the shed out the back. They're very common around here in the winter time and of the course the White Cockatoos, Galahs and Corellas have started their annual trashing of the front lawn, digging up grass roots for food.

More Carthaginian Elephants

 

1st Corps Miniatures

Gripping Beast and Wargames Foundry

Here's another post from the archives of various Carthaginian elephants. I think my favourite with howdah and crew is the Gripping Beast model and of the untrained elephants for Zama, the Agema Miniatures model. The 1st Corps ellies are massive by comparison.

Relic Miniatures and Gripping Beast

Agema Miniatures

Carthaginian Elephants

 

Here are two Carthaginian elephants with mahout, that I've just finished painting. They're Agema Miniatures, with metal mahout, tusks and trunk and a resin elephant body. I have two massive 1st Corps Carthaginian elephants also with mahout alone but these figures are much better size. According to Mir Bahmanyar, author of the Osprey book Zama 202 BC, 'in general, the Carthaginian elephants deployed at Zama did not carry infantry in howdahs on their back' (p.42). Polybius and Livy do not give any details of the elephants' appearance in their accounts of the battle, so I'm not sure what this is based on.

Last Saturday we went on a cross country ski, day trip to Mt Selwyn. I'm not much of skier but this is a really nice area and about 20 years ago we did a winter ski park crossing from here to Guthega. The Mt Selwyn ski resort and much of the surrounding area burnt out in the 2019/20 summer bushfires. It was good to see a lot of new undergrowth on the smaller trees and at the resort they've built accomodation cabins.

The Big Trout Adaminaby

Lunch stop

Mt Jagungal hidden in cloud