Kensai

[DeadRunner]

Sometimes i use the kensai unit i like to see him chasing units (one guy runing after 20 men our plus http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

I like kensai but is not a beting unit for me

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Yeah that's how I feel, Kensai are fun but not to be relied upon.

[Jeebus_Frist]

They are a must have when defending or forcing a bridge crossing. Besides, they are just fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] (Jeebus_Frist @ Oct. 10 2003,23:38)]They are a must have when defending or forcing a bridge crossing. Besides, they are just fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
Not even then. Naginata will always be better than them, and cheaper to train (on both time and money)

[Oaty]

Wait till you run into a rebel army with 6 kensais in it. Lost the battle because they tied up my troops for so long that there reinforcements were just standing there when the time limit ran out almost won it though

[Marshal Murat]

I feel kensai are to powerful, but then again when thier on yourside, its always good for you.

[Mithrandir]

armies of 16 kensai are always fun...

by the time you can build Kensai, you can usually afford them easily. They are fun and useful for maps with bridges&castles. I always like HC better though, same price I believe.

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] ]by the time you can build Kensai, you can usually afford them easily. They are fun and useful for maps with bridges&castles. I always like HC better though, same price I believe.


By the time you tech up and train 1 of those guys the game is decisevely over at least for me

[DeadRunner]

i am not only thing that i have to wait is one samarai gets sword master to open the sword dojo and make upgrades .
one of my probs i am updating the buildings and make army the same time sometimes i dont have money for nothing =PP.one time i was forced to make disband in a army

[buujin]

i think kensai are excellent :P

they gain honour very fast because they fight on their own and are great against archers and ashigaru, and for routing wavering units.

ive seen a high level kensai beat 120 warrior monks and i had an army containing 9 of them all honour lvl 10 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif they could easily take on a 1000 regular enemy soldiers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

the best thing to use against kensai are battlefeild ninja who will easily win by surrounding him, and rather quickly dispatching his head with they nunchukkas http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Zone]

The best castle assault team I've ever had was an army of 9 kensi with +3 armour and weapons and all about lvl 9 or 10 with about 3 units or so of battlefield ninjas. It's unstoppable :)

[Ludens]

I once tried to fight a custom battle (castle defend) with an all kensai army, but only four kensai appeared. After a minute, I heard 'reinforcements have arrived' and then another 3 or 5 kensai banners appeared (still not as many as I had bought). Anyway, these guys never showed up on the field (although I stopped the battle pretty quick since defending with only four kensai didn't leave me a chance). What is happening here?

[Ludens]

How do kensai hitpoints work?

I know a general gets 5 hitpoints in stead of 1, but when i fought custom battles with 4 kensai, the kensai generals didn't appear any tougher than the others. Do all kensai get 5 hitpoints?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Small castles can only hold 4 units I believe...

Dunno about the hitpoints though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Random Ronin]

Kensai are powerful but fairly well balanced in this game, though I think they are still not vulnerable enough to arrows, the Kensais' only real fear. It takes 40-50 hits to bring one down, which is ridiculous as the most the average and armoured warrior was expected to withstand was 20 arrows. If there is anything wrong with the Kensai, it is they are too tough to missile fire, but perfectly ok in melee, though they do hold a bit too well against horsemen. Kensai rule Fear the blade

[hoom]

I was reading a book recently about a guy (I think he was a monk) who stood defending a bridge singlehandedly, jumping over low arrows, ducking under high ones & cutting or deflecting those that would have hit with his Naginata.
This went on till the much larger enemy army just gave up shooting at him & dubbed him 'Arrow Cutter' http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

Dunno who won the battle though.

Anyways, Kensai are great fun :)
Its usually best to mix in about as many battlefield ninja, some monks and a couple of units of nag cav too though...

Best thing in the game is routing a many thousand strong army with your army of like 8 guys & them not even needing to move http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[Wishazu]

The Kensai are great fun but a bit unrealistic i feel. As far as i know the term Kensai only actually applied to 1 man, Miyomoto Musashi, the famous left-handed swordsman who also developed the first 2 sword fighting technique. killed his first man at 12 years old i think and went on to kill over sixty others throughout his life before shaving his head and becoming a monk. it was documented that he once took on a hundred disciples from a school of swordsmanship and won. if anyone can find anything on the net regarding this i would be interested in taking a look. However if anyone else wants to read an interesting novel based around his life(probably with a few embellishments) look for a book called Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.

[Togakure]

You might find information at this link and sublinks interesting, and they should be good branching points to other information about the Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu (the real-world school of swordsmanship based around Musashi's style and strategies), Musashi Miyamoto, and Japanese swordsmanship in general.

General searches on Niten Ichi Ryu and Go Rin no Sho (Book of Five Rings) should also yield results.

http://www.koryubooks.com/guide/niten.html

***

EDIT: fixed inoperative link

[Wishazu]

Thanks mate i`ll take a look

[Seven.the.Hun]

kensai are elite and essential...always good to have them around, always a pain and a half to dispatch...and that whole 16 unit kensai army...i tried this once...i found that if used properly u will always win with these in a campaign where u arent gonna see as many opposing kensai or ninja...perhaps up to 4 of your kensai may die in a tough battle, when this happened i just replaced them with others, the rank of the leader and the honor of the men go up really fast when crushing things right and left with so few men...

cheers to the kensai http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Seven.the.Hun]

and bty, i have however taken a really large, balanced army up against a tokugama or whatnot army that contained at least 8 battlefield ninja units...and i lost, badly, i was just happy that i took many down with me...but not that happy

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

[Kansuke]

Kensai hate musky shots http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Mori Zennousha]

Greetings all...

i once played a campaign where i had in mind from the beginning to make all my major generals Kensai... by the end of the campaign, i had several really tough Kensai gen's, but one stood out above the rest... his name was Koteda Hisahide (don't know if there's any historical significance there), and he finished as a rank 6 general w/ a standing honour rating of 11 (before engaging in battle)... he personally collected 3734 heads in the campaign, and i got in the habit of sending him into beseiged castle alone his best single battle total was a castle seige, where he alone collected 356 heads impressive... no?

Sayonara,
Z

[Sasaki Kojiro]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif 356

Of course I remember attacking a castle containing a single ashigaru(1 man) defender....I lost 250 men http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif so perhaps the autocalculate is messed up in such circumstances.

[HicRic]

Either that or that Ashigaru had some serious hidden talents. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Mori Zennousha, that Kensai you had is rather remarkable I've never had one perform that well before Must have been a lot of fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[solypsist]

Kensai are never worth their cost
they get tired pretty easily, afte that initial contact, and after that, they can die like normal.
the people who say they use Kensai to just hold-up a unit have the right idea.

[Mori Zennousha]

Quote[/b] ] 356

Of course I remember attacking a castle containing a single ashigaru(1 man) defender....I lost 250 men so perhaps the autocalculate is messed up in such circumstances.

well Mimesaka, i never had an instance where he was defending a castle, so i can't really offer an informed comment on the autocalculate... he was always on the attack... there were a few times when his army was attacked in a recently conquered province, but in those cases, the attacking army never engaged; they took one look at him and routed... along those lines, i'd have to say that with this Kensai, and also with Tokugawa Ieyasu, i came the closest to acheiving Sun Tsu's pinnacle (see quote in my sig)... of course that kind of takes the fun out of it... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

take care, m8,
Z

[Mori Zennousha]

Quote[/b] ]Either that or that Ashigaru had some serious hidden talents. Mori Zennousha, that Kensai you had is rather remarkable I've never had one perform that well before Must have been a lot of fun

yes, HicRic, it was a lot of fun... i should add that he, of course, had the full armor and weapon upgrades, but i figured that went w/out saying... it was great fun sending him alone into a castle against hundreds of men, and watching them fall one after the other... as he got better i began to notice that he'd occasionally take out 2 or even 3 men in one swing not bad for the now dated STW graphics... castles were more fun w/ him, as the walls kept 'em all in one place for easier killing; nowhere to run, nowhere to hide http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Sayonara,
Z

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I'm thinking the autocalc calculates on a soldier by soldier basis, and of course a single man with very high stats would beat all other soldiers individually.