Takeda upgraded samurai archer death march

[TdM]

I'm playing as Date on Hard/Hard and have come up against an interesting problem (amongst many others)

The Takeda clan appear to have stacks of insanely deadly fully upgraded samurai bowmen. To get an idea of what I'm facing a recent battle went like this:

Sieging a town, no way I'm going to attack because of the hordes of Samurai archers in there. They ride out to break the siege - excellent just what I wanted.

His army:
18 units of fully upgraded Samurai archers
2 units of katana samurai

My army:
4 units of katana samurai
5 units of no-dachi samurai
1 light cav
1 katana cav
3 units of bow ashigaru
2 units of bow samurai
3 units of yari ashigaru
1 general

battle lines - Him - centre of Katana samurai and then a HUGE long line of archers

Me - try to set up on one side of the deployment area to attack a flank. Centre of yari they are flanked by katana. 2 units of no dachi on their flanks with 3 in the reserve line. bow on the flanks of the army with cav in trees on the flanks slightly behind the army. General in the centre behind the main force.

My plan is to hit a flank fast to minimise the amount of archers he can bring to bare at one time then break them quickly and then roll up the line.

Actual outcome:

HUGE arrow storm takes out masses of men in the initial charge, I hit his flank and move reserves and cav to the rear of said flank.

Um... a long drawn out battle ensues... Those samurai archers are hard to break - during which time his other archers are moving in towards my main force. I break off some of the reserve to try to hold them up.

Eventually manage to break his flank but his centre and other flank have made mincemeat of my reserves. My main force now marches into another 'blot out the sun' style volley of arrows and engages as many archers as I can... Unfortunately there are still some un-engaged who proceed to remove most of my army from the equation and reduce the capabilities of my general to get in there and help.

Eventually after a meat grinder battle most of my units have fled under heavy bombardment, my general has routed and I have 4 heavily wounded no-dachi samurai units v 2 complete units of bow samurai.

The head on charge results in all no-dachi turning tail and running. Battle lost - result 'Heavy Defeat'.

I HATE samurai archers. Anybody got any tactics they use to take out stacks of these guys?

[-Duke Nukem]

no

[Diamat]

Use your own archers as bait. Let them face the enemy. Split your other troops into two groups and have each one go to one side (right and left). While your archers distract the enemy, you will have moved your two groups around his flanks. Then charge into his flanks. Hopefully you have enough power to destroy them in melee.

[12976]

Try autoresolving? worth a shot

[Amos]

use loose formation !!

[TdM]

use loose formation !!

That's all well and good until you get close to them...

[Nero Wulf]

That's all well and good until you get close to them...

Press "tight formation" again a few moments before crashing into your enemy.

(Or did you mean that you still get casualties, and loose formation isn't that effective at close range?)

[RO Citizen]

Cavalry is very good at killing archers in open field. Use your archers as bait, drag his dudes far from the castle and double smash them then.

[Osbot]

Yumi Samurai hordes with high honor and upgrades are lethal. Not only can they get off 3-4 or more volleys per unit, but they can in a defensive battle deploy screens or bamboo walls ahead of them to channel you even further. On top of that, with 4 or 5 ranks of experience they are more than capable of holding their own against decidedly weakened infantry formations given that they have stats on par with Yari Ashigaru minus the terrible morale. Mix some Warrior Bow Monks into your force and now you can engage their archers before they even get to you.

Then it's just a matter of a counter charge to mop up anyone who hasn't already routed.

[Freodin]

Just an idea... Naginata Samurai. Perhaps with some armour upgrade.

I don´t know how they would weather that storm of arrows, but their high armour should make it easier for them to reach the lines. They should have good chances against the Bow Samurai in melee also.

Some Yari bowmen as bait, some Yari Cavalry to the flanks... might work.

[Amur_Tiger]

My way of dealing with this is to have my own archers in a loose formation screen ahead of the infantry, usually the enemy bowmen will lock onto a unit and stick with that for a bit before switching to closing cavalry or. This tends to be a good trade as your charging infantry usually only face a single volley and cavalry can often avoid it entirely. Also I'd tend to focus on a corner of their lines if possible instead of the center to avoid getting arrows from all sides.