Furinkazan - a discussion on Takeda cavalry tactics

[Rhavanna]

Why not this simple and cheap strategy?


LC LC LC LC LC


Enemy Enemy Enemy Enemy Enemy


YA YA YA YA YA YA

The Sandwich: Half are Yari Ashigaru. Half are Light Cavalry. YAs immediately engage the enemy and tie them down. LCs get around the back, charge in, back out, charge back in, wheel out, rinse and repeat.

It's just that is the only cheap strategy I see to use in early game for Takeda. Also Takeda LC upkeep is almost like the YA so it's affordable to have a cavalry heavy army.

Thoughts? Yeah, probably this sandwich tactic would fail, but I'm gonna give it a try.

Sandvich is best!

I'm playing my first ever Takeda campaign on hard, and so I'm doing my best to make good use of our elite cavalry. My first army had a solid 5 units of light cav. Once they got some experience, they actually do very well! You just need to seriously keep an eye on them, because they will absolutely melt if the wrong unit catches them in melee.

I don't bother too heavily with any overly complex formations. In general, if I'm defending, yari-garu form a defensive wall, katana samurai positioned intermittently along the line in small gaps, (so they can burst through once the enemy gets stuck on the yari wall), and yari samurai on the flanks, preferably hidden in woods. Rapid advance makes these guys fantastic flankers, and also perfect for catching enemy cavalry or lone units which try to run around and catch your archers. Yumi-garu form up a nice staggered line behind the wall, and just shoot things all day.

Cavalry go on each side and at the start of the battle, they begin walking the long route to get behind the enemy. Sometimes you draw a few enemy units away to chase you, (which is fine), so you just avoid them, or if they get separated, charge them! If a single bow unit gets out of position to try to shoot your flanking cav, you can usually charge, kill half the unit, and bail before reinforcements catch you. My cav then just sort of walk around behind the enemy until the lines clash, and then charge various points in the rear, or just take out all the enemy archers before joining the melee. If the enemy sends a significant force of yari-armed troops to chase my cav, then I never really engage in melee, and just have a long goose chase. The enemy's main force will be weaker and they'll usually lose the main engagement pretty handily.

If I'm attacking, the yarigaru form a wall as usual, advance together, and samurai units generally flank. Cavalry will take a much more aggressive stance, and run full tilt behind the enemy lines early. You lose some stamina, but you often break up the enemy formation. Some units break off to chase you, or their archers reposition themselves to shoot you, and you just stay out of range but behind their rear or flanks to threaten charges until your main line hits. Once the melee starts, you can focus 2-3 units on any one spot and they're almost guaranteed to break instantly.

My campaign is still new, and so I only got yari-cav a few turns ago, and only just incorporated them into my force. They're certainly stronger, but they feel so much less expendable. When I lose light cav, i don't really care much. They're as cheap as ashigaru units! When I lose yari-cav, I feel sad.

So overall I'm loving lots of a cavalry. Just takes a lot of micromanaging because again, if a unit gets caught by like yari samurai or something, they'll all die in seconds. To make matters worse, my enemies AND allies are building armies composed of like 75% yari samurai. It's kinda crazy! Do they always do this? I just wiped Hojo out and the stack defending their capital was literally 15 units of yari samurai, their generals, and 1 unit of yumigaru. So rude.

[Robin de Bodemloze]

Wow didn't expect this to be suddenly revived..

Why not this simple and cheap strategy?


LC LC LC LC LC


Enemy Enemy Enemy Enemy Enemy


YA YA YA YA YA YA

I think it will work early game when the armies are smaller. The trouble is to get the AI to engage your YA and not your cav to begin with requires them to be quite far away, otherwise AI will almost always send a unit of spears to go find your cav. That's why I keep a YS with each group of cav.

The thing i noticed is that it doesn't really matter which type of units are the flankers , cavalry do it better because it is more mobile , but the way the morale works in game , you can chain rout the enemy even by using ashigarus as flankers or rear-strikers.

I agree and I disagree. If you can manoeuvre your units around in time then any unit can act as the hammer, but cav apart from being more mobile can run through the enemy unit which breaks up the formation (especially if you do it from the flank or rear). With Takeda cav it's just more efficient and a shame not to use them

Personally i would build it like this :


-------YS-------YA-YA-YA-YA---------YS---
-cav-cav-cav-----NS----NS------cav-cav-cav-
--------KS-------BS--BS--BS-----------KS-----
---------------------Gen----------------------

(KS: Katana sam ; NS: naginata sam ; BS: Bow sams )

I like this. I'd use BA instead of BS because they're cheaper, have more men and replenish faster, but that's about it - very similar to some of my variants of this tactic actually, I've recently learnt to go back to using YA and spear wall instead of NS

[TuranianGhazi]

Sandvich is best!

My campaign is still new, and so I only got yari-cav a few turns ago, and only just incorporated them into my force. They're certainly stronger, but they feel so much less expendable. When I lose light cav, i don't really care much. They're as cheap as ashigaru units! When I lose yari-cav, I feel sad.

To make matters worse, my enemies AND allies are building armies composed of like 75% yari samurai. It's kinda crazy! Do they always do this? I just wiped Hojo out and the stack defending their capital was literally 15 units of yari samurai, their generals, and 1 unit of yumigaru. So rude.

Great points Rhavanna!

Yeah, I decided against going Yari Cavalry (YC) or even Yari Samurai (YS) or Naginata Samurai (NS). I just use Light Cavalary for the charge, since they got the same charge as the YC, but they're expendable and their upkeep is THE SAME as an ashigaru unit.

Instead, for mid-campaig and beyond, I'm upgrading the following way.

I'm going for as much Katana Samurai as possible, replacing my YAs but. Why? Because the AI loves to spam spear infantry and I'm going to make them pay for that mistake by slice-and-dicing them up with my KS. Works like a charm!


@Robin

First of all thanks for this great sounding off thread. I'm getting much great advice from this, incorporating much of your recreated Furinkazan formation.

However, I don't get how you guard your flanking cav with Yari Samurai (YS). They're an infantry unit so very slow ... too slow for my liking to get behind enemy lines. Instead of these, I have one unit of Bow Cavalry with my flanker cav units.

So usually, my flanker unit comprises of 3 cav units - one Bow Cav to shred up any spears going after my flanks while keeping safe, one LC for the charge, and actually now either a Fire Cavalry or Katana Cavalry for melee, against samurai infantry and generals. Actually, since the upkeep on FC is just a tad more than KS ... it seems like for Takeda getting FC is better than getting KS, which are the same thing

I just really think that the Bow Cav is much better against pursuing spears than a unit of YS.

So my mid-campaign (14 provinces) best Takeda full-stack, under command of Shingen is the following:
Takeda Shingen, General, FC unit with them
Flanker 1: FC, BC, LC
Flanker 2: FC, BC, LC
Main Army: 6 KS, 4 BA, anything left filled with YA holding spear wall
Oh and I got a Hero KS cavalry unit of 35 .. who are just beast at killing stuff.
Need to get a hero BC cav and it's over. My bow cav has lots of kills each battle

The only trouble I ran into were those damnable Ikki Ikki Warrior Monk Cavalry that really hurt my FC guys who usually own the other cavalry.

Lastly, I agree with BA vs. SA for all the reasons you described. Plus I now have the province below Kaga that gives precision so with those upgrades, they're decent.

[TuranianGhazi]

Wow didn't expect this to be suddenly revived..

Well ... suddenly I got myself a spankin' new desktop computer and was able to ... finally ... enjoy Shogun 2 in all its ULTRA setting glory

So, I'm replaying as Takeda for 2nd time for the real experience, instead of my laptop's LOWEST settings experience.

I know, I know ... for achievements and such I really should have played another clan, and for the sake of variety.

However, I can't seem to get past my clan loyalty or at least attachment to Takeda lolz

At the same time, my friends are saying that I should play another clan just to see how aggressive the Takeda AI is


Oh, and I agree about YA+spearwall makes YS and even NS rather obsolete. NS is only really good if facing lots of matchlocks/guns ... but then what do you Takeda player have the cav for?! NS is only really useful for Date and other clans, I think

Even then, YA+spearwall is just so derpy to abuse

[DeMolay]

However, I don't get how you guard your flanking cav with Yari Samurai (YS). They're an infantry unit so very slow ... too slow for my liking to get behind enemy lines. Instead of these, I have one unit of Bow Cavalry with my flanker cav units.

Yari samurai are valuable because if the enemy has cavalry of its own on the flanks , it won't interrupt your flankers to do their job as you can tie enemy cav with competent high morale yari troops , also they have "fast moving" , which helps sprinting against a unit trying to avoid your yari sams , they are also useful to protect your cavalry when scouting forest areas , and in sieges in general

Bow cavalry is nice but it needs micro management ( i try to "save" the in-depth micro-management time for yari cavs ) , but roleplaying a Shingen army, Takeda historically ditched bow cavalry in favour of spear cavalry under Shingen during the 1550's , but it's true that when you attack , having one unit of bow cavalry is clearly an advantage as you can bait the AI units with it , when they are sitting waiting for the player to attack

I agree and I disagree. If you can manoeuvre your units around in time then any unit can act as the hammer, but cav apart from being more mobile can run through the enemy unit which breaks up the formation (especially if you do it from the flank or rear). With Takeda cav it's just more efficient and a shame not to use them

I like this. I'd use BA instead of BS because they're cheaper, have more men and replenish faster, but that's about it - very similar to some of my variants of this tactic actually, I've recently learnt to go back to using YA and spear wall instead of NS

Good points Robin

Although , i prefer bow samurais myself because they fire more per second (less arrows but more kills per second , taking into account that most battles are short ) and when vetted , they can hold themselves and help in melee destroying YA , for instance when enemy troops are sitting in forests rendering arrows almost useless , also i like to think Shingen would want the best archers of Shinano and he used as many samurais as he could so..

It's true it helps to break the formations , but i also like to flank with ranged troops supported by melee troops myself and it usually works well as with most clans i play almost without cavalry except with a few clans like the Takeda . However i think 6 units of cavalry , half of it being Yari cavalry is usually more than enough to flank and rout any sort of army , 6 units is like 1/3 rd of the army mounted , with more than 6 units of cav , it becomes a bit tedious to micro-manage for me

Oh, and I agree about YA+spearwall makes YS and even NS rather obsolete. NS is only really good if facing lots of matchlocks/guns ... but then what do you Takeda player have the cav for?! NS is only really useful for Date and other clans, I think

Even then, YA+spearwall is just so derpy to abuse

I think he meant Naginata samurais for NS , not No-dachi ( i assume you refer to them when alluding to the Date ) , although i agree with you on the usefulness of spearwall , but having 2 Naginatas samurais in the heart of your army ensures good morale on the frontline and that they won't take too many casualties by arrows if the battle lasts , it also helps to limit the first line ashigaru losses sometimes and sort of makes sure that the "anvil" stays rock solid long enough even against elite units , i think it's quite useful if you can afford it

[IGdood]

Would this translate well into a S2 vs. FOTS matchup?

[DeMolay]

Would this translate well into a S2 vs. FOTS matchup?

I guess it would translate badly, since a FOTS army is usually mainly rifles and arty plus a bit of cav , so to beat it with an old army , you need a lot of mobility and an aptitude to kill quickly in melee (before being shot to pieces ) , so basically you need a lot of swords and cavalry since you are utterly dominated in the ranged fight


Against a FOTS army , i would use 6 cavalry units as a minimum , probably 8 (2 groups of 4) , then the rest pretty much made of high morale melee units and preferably swords with maybe 2-3 spears units to bloock a bit of the enemy cav , but basically it would be a cavalry heavy rush army , designed to knock out the enemy shooters and arty ASAP

[TuranianGhazi]

I guess it would translate badly, since a FOTS army is usually mainly rifles and arty plus a bit of cav , so to beat it with an old army , you need a lot of mobility and an aptitude to kill quickly in melee (before being shot to pieces ) , so basically you need a lot of swords and cavalry since you are utterly dominated in the ranged fight


Against a FOTS army , i would use 6 cavalry units as a minimum , probably 8 (2 groups of 4) , then the rest pretty much made of high morale melee units and preferably swords with maybe 2-3 spears units to bloock a bit of the enemy cav , but basically it would be a cavalry heavy rush army , designed to knock out the enemy shooters and arty ASAP

Hmmm sweet strat DeMolay. I agree on all points, although it is deviating away from Takeda Furinkazan strategy for Shogun 2.

Still, on the topic of FotS and fighting with only traditional units, yeah I'm gonna try something like this. What faction would be best suited for this? How do you keep modernism at bay but still build up a strong econ and army? I'm at a loss for FotS. Can you please message me DeMolay, as not to derail the thread farther.

On topic, I have finished and won my Long Campaign as Takeda, using mostly melee cav tactics, but at the end of the campaign, I was fooling around and had an exclusively Bow Cav army lol. It was glorious. They were recruited from Echizen, so they started out with 90 accuracy and the vets had 110, rivaling with the new Yoritomo Yabusame Cav Hero unit that had like 120 accuracy, I think

I can't wait for Rome 2 and playing as a horse archer-heavy civ like any steppe civ or Parthians. "Our arrows shall blot out the sun!!!"

[AwkwardMoment]

I am doing very well at the start with cavalry... but as the endgame approaches and everybody has some strong professional armies, I am getting pummeled with my cavalry.

I have good success with one strategy: one or two cavalry all the way to the side with one bow and one yari/katana. keep fake charging with the cavalry until the enemy sends in a yari on a charge then firearrow it... they often will retreat so you have to redo but at some point, they will just keep charging so then you engage with infantry and slam them from behind with the cavalry.

Its just slow going and at some point, you have to face their main army and I dont know what to do with my cavalry other than go for the general and slash down the cowards running away.

From my main force in early and middle game, my cavalry becomes a sideshow... that makes me sad

[spang]

Well, my opinion on this is that we have to separate tactic against AI from general tactical setup. While against ai a cavalry heavy is good at all times it is not as flexible. The 2 main counter forces are yari heavy army or another cavalry heavy army in which cases you have a few (cav) units idle as they can't be used effectively without heavy losses. Therefore the more melee oriented with yaris as main force and fewer than 6 cav sounds a better allrounder.
When the enemy army setup allows you to use them as the main counter force you do otherwise they still can draw enemy/mop routing units but without too many units to sacrifice from your main force setup.