Quote Originally Posted by Sartori View Post
Excellent guide, it helped me a lot. One question though, you wrote, that yari samurai aren't very good. Actually my feelings about that unit are quite positive, as it can not just hold against the cavalry, but also chew through ashis, and even hold against the katana samurai for quite some time. For a unit that is cheaper than the katana samurai I find it far more universal and consider them very good flanks protection. My question is, as I'm pretty much a fresh player, do I omit some flaw I'm not aware of?

Hello Sartori,

its easy explained. Yari samurai, as you described, has some better combat-stats vs. other melee and also moral 10.
The problem is, yari sam costs 700 base, while an ashi costs you 350 Koku.

Now there are 2 basic thoughts on this:

1. The yari sam can only get the 5% discounter retainer, while the ashi also gets the 10% retainer (which means a lot)
2. If you use both retainer (most people do that) you can upgrade an ashi with 4 normal upgrades (2x att and 2x def) and on top (as spear clan) you can get the inspire.
My ashi with 4 normal upgrades and inspire costs a total of 569 Koku. Now do the maths, the ashi costs a lot less, than the yari sam and has 4 extra attack and 6 extra defense.

I personal want to have some cheap units in my army, which I can waste, sometimes you want to block something or give your opponent something to shoot at.
There are also situation, where you want to send a single archer in some woods and want some backup (especially vs. cav), at this point a cheap ashi spear is just great.


Yari sam is not a good unit, the stats are not the best, but the unit is pretty expensive. If you consider, that you pay 50 more and get already a katana sam or a naginata, than you clearly see, that the yari sam is not good. To block cav you simply take the cheaper ashi and done.
I personal go for a bit more spears and still use my loan swords in my center. Enemy cav has a harder time to hit something. This said, I dont need some "spears" to block a cav, I have everywhere 1 or 2 spears, so I dont mind a certain spot.

But again, yari sam dont pay off, to expensive for a anti cav unit and the speed ability is crap as well.