What are the advantages & weaknesses of Japanese against Roman warfare?

[JeromeBaker]

I wouldn't be so fast to write it off in Roman's favor, even without samurai army using guns and cannons. I do not recall Hannibal's army of mercenaries having the reputation to excel in advanced strategies, but we still had the bloody outcome at Cannae.
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I could be wrong here, but I thought Hannibal did indeed have a reputation for exceling in strategy considering the time period he fought in. Advanaced strategy is closely related to the time period the fighting occured, and maybe Hannibal's ideas seem basic today but for the 200sBC they were quite effective. Hannibal also did a amazing job of allowing an army made up of different nationalities with different languages to fight as a unified force. He knew the Romans were over confident/uber aggressive and he used this against them. One of his favorite methods of fighting Rome was to allow the Roman center to advance by making it appear they were kicking the crap out of his middle, and as the Roman's eagerness to be agressive took over they pushed too far and created a natural envelopment of their own troops that Hannibal would exploit. Hannibal would press in on all sides and squish the romans so tight they couldnt even raise their swords without great effort, at that point its game over man.

Most of the Roman general's that attacked Hannibal were too eager for glory and did not put a lot of strategy into the battles except the standard march forward and conquer technique and continued to fall prey to being double enveloped. Some Romans generals realized the greatest weakness for Hannibal was the fact he was on foreign soil, so they simply shadoweded him, didnt give in to a pitched battle, and more or less skirmished which would eventual wear down Hannibal and force him to leave. This didnt go over well with the Senate that wanted victory now.

As a counterpoint to myself, Hannibal probably seemed more capabale than he really was because Rome was pretty stupid in how they fought him. A lot of the famous Roman generals would have run their campaigns much different if they were in charge against Hannibal and I dont think he would have fared as well. Rome was no where near its peak in terms of power and ability to fight battles at 216 B.C. which is around the time of Cannae's massive route. Didnt the Marius reforms take place 100 some odd years later than Cannae?

My earlier post picking Rome to win 7 of 10 times against a Samuri army was assuming a Roman army that was post Marius reforms.

I am sure seeing a samuri with his armor and face covering would be extremely terrifying, but a 6 foot 4 extremely muscular german running at you screaming with a sword or axe the size of a young Roman adult was also terryfying. I still say their discipline would allow them to fight effectively despite any fear the enemy could instill due to their fierce appearance.