Given Martin's clarification above, I imagine that an elephant stampeded by shooting from its flank or rear would undergo the same process as for the death of its mahout, i.e. "the direction is worked out as if the elephant was facing its opponents."
If you charge an elephant in the flank or rear, you receive combat bonuses but also run the risk of possibly being stampeded. On the other hand, if you charge the elephant's front, you receive no bonus for flank/rear attacks, but you also have no risk of being stampeded. this creates an interesting ...
A panicked elephant is unpredictable. It may indeed run away from the source of its pain. Or, maddened by fear, agony and rage, it may charge the very thing that is hurting it. That's a risk/reward calculation that needs to be taken into account, and does not seem at all "absurd" to me. Na...
An elephant cannot voluntarily stampede. The only way to do what you propose would be to attack it with your own troops. And even if you did manage to somehow pull off such a complex and 'gamey' maneuver, the net result would be exactly the same as if the elephant had simply charged straight ahead i...
It is very dangerous to attack an elephant from any direction!
Elephants cannot voluntarily move backward, as that would violate the maneuver rules outlined on page 20 of the rulebook.
The iBook edition of Swordpoint is published by Wargames Illustrated. Both the original and "v2" have the same publication date and are described as "Version 1.0." I have no idea what differences there are between the two, but perhaps an inquiry sent to Wargames Illustrated would...
I don't have my Classical Armies book with me, but if Roman Extraordinarii or Allied Italian Spearmen have the Stamina rule, it will be specifically mentioned in the army list.