Originally Posted by
Masamune
Well put, TWD, and welcome to the Org/Sword Dojo. I am not the master ashi user here, but I do use them for 1) garrisons, 2) maintaining parity with enemy troop numbers on my borders to dissuade attack, and 3) arrow fodder on bridge assaults or in attack vanguard escorting shock troops as you described. Only in the Oda campaigns do I use them in combat often, but this may be because I got used to not using them at all online (they were forbidden because early on, players discovered that you could honor/upgrade them up to level 7-9 and make them "Super-Ashis," which could defeat just about anything for the koku, and broke the combat system).
You are using the Huge setting for unit size? I'd not considered the point you make that when using this setting, ashis are the only combat unit you can produce in a single turn. This is very interesting and something I will take advantage of when I finally get off my butt and play a Huge unit game (I play the standard unit size; that's what we almost always used in multi-player so I got used to it).