Monk Rush Challenge

**p_nutter** · 10-01-2005, 16:29

This is in response to Drisos's monk rush challenge, found here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54590

In the red corner, 10 H2 AI-controlled Expert-mode monks.

In the blue corner, we have:

4 H2 Naginata (= brick wall)
4 H2 Yari samurai (= flankers)
1 H0 Muskets ( = bait)
4 H1 Cav archers ( = harrassment)
2 H0 Heavy Cav (= sandwich makers)
1 H1 Heavy Cav (= reserve force and Taisho)

I'm not going to use any monks or ND to fight these guys. Although it appears OK according to the rules, would anyone be impressed if I beat 10 monks using 10 upgraded Nodachi? (10 uber-ised Ashigaru might be interesting...)

Naginata goes in a long line, with the Yari samurai at the edges. Cavalry is on the flanks, with both HC on the right. The muskets are right out in front, standing on a little ridge.

2 CA and 2 HC come out to play... They will try to draw individual monk units away and rout them one at a time.

And some monks come to meet us. 1 is CA moving into position to fire, one is already firing.

The 2 HC hit the monks. They didn't rout, they just stood there killing my horses! So I slammed the cav archers (just visible at the right edge) into them as well. That routed them. On the left, the other archers are shooting at another monk unit.

Fire!

The main group of monks is now in range of the muskets. Soon I will run them back behind the naginata, then my naginata and YS, in the Semicircle Of Death Formation (tm), will wrap around the monks in a loving embrace. That was the plan, anyway.

Another group of monks wants to play with the horses. This one's been shot up quite badly, but it's still chasing one of my HC. But where's the other HC unit?

Oh, *there* they are. The HC off to the right has now turned around, and is charging.

Muhahahaha! They got charged in the back, turned round, and got charged in the back again! Notice that the monks have reached my muskets (I didn't notice, probably too busy watching the charge and laughing)

This monk unit thinks it can kill 2 naginatas? I just need to let them move, and we'll have another monk sandwich.

Units on the right are moving in to flank. I think that guy on the left is the monk unit that thought it could kill 2 naginatas.

Bad news over here. Argh! It's all happening at once!

These monks will rout in about 3 seconds.

Now the cavalry turns its attention to the enemy Taisho. If it can be routed, the rest will probably follow.

That was a very ugly finish, but I got the job done.

Conclusions:

H2 naginata are not necessary. Their job isn't to kill stuff, it's to hold the line long enough for something else to flank, and they could have done that at H0.

Too many horse archers - for me, anyway. The two on the left didn't do much except die. I could have replaced of them with 2 SA units behind the main infantry line, which might have made the monks easier to rout.

My handling of the muskets was lousy. I could have saved them, but I was greedy, and wanted one more shot. Since they were bait, they could have been left on skirmish. Oh well.. One advantage of muskets is that they are ashigaru, so the real soldiers don't care if they rout.

Suzuki Yoshitaka's unit was also not used to its full potential.

Overall, I think the plan was a good one but the execution was lousy.

Anyone else want to try the monk challenge? I'd be interested to see what units other people use.

PS: Thanks, Imageshack

**AggonyDuck** · 10-02-2005, 13:09

Well I tried the challenge with a somewhat "lame" approach...basically I just deployed close to my edge with muskets and nag cavs, while my cav arch weakened the enemy monks with arrows. This pretty much created a situation I hardly even had to engage the enemy and infact most of my losses were due to friendly fire. Infact I didn't even need my nag cavs, because I could had broken them with just cav arch and muskets.

**L'Impresario** · 10-02-2005, 13:53

Haven't tried it myself, but can anyone tell me why an almost all CA won't work? :S

**AggonyDuck** · 10-02-2005, 17:28

It will work, although the micromanagement of them would be rather hard work.

**Drisos** · 10-03-2005, 08:36

THanks for trying it guys... but it's not set up by me... Barocca set it up

Good job p_nutter! And especially very well done Duck!!

That's a very huge victory...

Well p_nutter, I you might feel bad because Duck won it easier.. but that's because of his MP experience I think. In mp 1.02 stats are used, and muskets are great there... so he knew that musks would do the job.. most people playing sp only don't really like/use muskets.

Thanks for the story.. fun to read

**Sasaki Kojiro** · 10-28-2005, 04:39

All ca should work fine...I've done 4 ca vs 16 yari sam and that was fine...mind you it was on ironing.

P_nutter...you'd probably have been better off without the yari sam and naginata...they are not much good vs monks. Missiles, cav an the flank, and other monks are what beat monks at that honor level.