Ballista Elephant

"Khmer unique unit. Heavy cavalry equipped with a Scorpion. Can fell trees."

- Age of Empires II description

The Ballista Elephant is the unique unit of the Khmer in Age of Empires II HD: Rise of the Rajas. It is a cavalry siege unit that fires bolts like a Scorpion. Ballista Elephants can cut down trees.

Ballista Elephants can be upgraded to Elite Ballista Elephants in the Imperial Age.

Tactics
The Ballista Elephant is a peculiar hybrid, a cavalry and a siege engine in one package, and as both, it has the advantages and disadvantages of both kinds of units. Being an elephant unit means that Monks can heal them and convert them without the need of the Redemption technology. However, they are very vulnerable to the usual cavalry counters, most notably Pikemen and Kamayuks. This can be a huge drawback, especially considering the mediocre attack and negative armor the Ballista Elephants have against them. The latter also makes Eagle Warriors particular effective against them. In general Ballista Elephants struggle against units with high pierce armor.

Unlike the Scorpion, and in a similar fashion to other siege units, the Ballista Elephant can cut down trees. This can be incredibly useful on maps with dense forests such as Black Forest or Arena, especially considering that they are the only unit available in the Castle Age being able to do so.

Ballista Elephants are valuable in many situations as a supportive unit, its high amount of hitpoints enables for them to act as meatshields and soak heavy damage allowing to them to harass Castles and Towers. Unlike other non gunpowder siege weapons, Ballista Elephants have an attack bonus against ships which allows them to support the defense on the shoreline if opponent ships are in range. In any case, Ballista Elephants should be deployed with an escort in order to take down potentially dangerous counter units. Mixing Scorpions and Battle Elephants with the Ballista Elephant along Light Cavalry is the best way to pair them.

Despite the quirks that can make them shine in certain situations, Ballista Elephants are far from the ultimate units to go for a Khmer player in both single player matchup games and team games. As a result, players should not rely entirely on them. Firstly, they are created at Castles and are quite costly. Secondly, they may have a high hit point and pierce armor, but Khmer Battle Elephants perform much better as meat shields and raiders, since they move faster, have a much higher melee attack with trample damage, and resist enemy attacks slightly better, but even so mixing some Ballista Elephants in the back may aid Battle Elephants in the front. Thirdly, Ballista Elephants are subpar in terms of damage output compared to other ranged units. In their fully upgraded form they only have 10 attack (still poor with pass-through damage and the Double Crossbow technology) coming from a slow Rate of Fire of 2.5, and a range of only 6 because they do not benefit from archery upgrades. Thumb Ring and Ballistics also do not affect Ballista Elephants, which enables other ranged units to utilize hit-and-run tactics. Also, Khmer Scorpions perform much better than Ballista Elephants in terms of damage output, with a maximum of double bullets at a time carrying 17 attack and 9 range. In comparison with the Scorpion, Ballista Elephants have no minimum range and are bulkier and move slightly faster so in many cases they have better chance of survive in a pitched battle.

Deploying this unit in considerable numbers along with massed scorpions works incredibly well against masses of units since like the scorpion the Ballista Elephant bolts attack on a straight line surpassing units, this  last tactic increases its usefulness greatly with the Double Crossbow technology.

Further statistics
As Ballista Elephants are unique to the Khmer, only technologies that are available to them are shown in the following table:

Team bonuses

 * A team containing Berbers: With Kasbah researched, Ballista Elephants are created and upgraded 25% faster, and Conscription and Double Crossbow are researched 25% faster.
 * A team containing Huns: Researching Bloodlines and Husbandry is 20% faster.
 * A team containing Teutons: Ballista Elephants are more resistant to conversion.

Trivia

 * Due to the unit's unique combination of being a cavalry unit and siege unit, the Ballista Elephant is the only siege weapon in the game that can be healed by a Monk instead of having to be repaired by a Villager.
 * The Ballista Elephant is the only military unit in the Castle Age capable of cutting down trees.
 * With a Rate of Fire of 2.5, the Ballista Elephants are the slowest attacking cavalry in the game.
 * The non-Elite Ballista Elephant is supposed to have a +2 attack bonus against buildings but does not due to a bug.

History
The elephant is one of the most important military animals in the Khmer era. Chinese records show that Suryavarman II (1113-1150) had a force of no fewer than 200,000 elephants. Several surviving reliefs from 12th and early 13th centuries also show that the Khmer mounted ballistas or crossbows on elephants, at least experimentally.