Quote Originally Posted by al Roumi View Post
I've only ever tried fully modern, so I don't know for sure whether you can still recruit shinobi -but i guess you ought to be.

I'd not actually faced a high level traditional army until recently and it has left me suitably impressed with the charge/melee prowess of Katana Kachi. Without a defence in depth or an incline/hill to deploy on for overlapping fire zones, a modern army can be vulnerable. I did kill alot of them though and was facing 2 full stacks with only 1, deployed on a plain (in fog).
I found even yari kachi to be pretty horrible in defensive sieges! I had one enemy katana kachi unit kill three hundred men in stand-up fights at a parapet!
I'm going Nagaoka, so my rifles are reloading pretty fast - but I find some yari or katana can be good to take the edge off an enemy charge. It does require a bit of micro to avoid them being cut to shreds by "friendly" rifle-fire though!