Strategies for the Endgame 'Horde'

[Drisos]

Unless you're winning campaigns pretty fast, or you're doing well on two fronts (e.g. as Imagawa or Takeda), you'll often have to face one clan that's grown very strong. In the East, Hojo often comes out on top. Occasionally it's Uesugi instead. In the West, Mori often comes out on top. Although it's not uncommon for him and Shimazu to stay allied for a very long time. A 'Horde' of Takeda, Oda or Imagawa armies is very rare, in my experience.

I couldn't find a thread specifically talking strategies against these 1000+ (Unit Size 60) size armies in the endgame, so I thought I'd start one.

So anyway, I was in a Shimazu 1530 campaign, which is slower than Sengoku Jidai, the R&R have a lot of decently sized stacks, much harder to gain ground than against Mori. I end up in Wakasa-Omi-Owari, facing an Uesugi horde. Still Neutral as of this picture, I was amused to see his stacks in Mikawa, it's like 1400-1500 SA/CA in total. How would you go about taking that? I have guns but I don't think it helps that much here. I don't think you can get enough Yari Cavalry across the bridge fast enough to really achieve much, they'll just be shot down I think. So I'm thinking maybe a big bunch of Naginata or Heavy Cavalry, preferably in Rain (not Snow!), those might outlast his ammo and ultimately gain me a foothold on the other side of the river. Then also, I should have enough Cavalry (Heavy/Yari/Naginata) to slaughter those archers and another stacks of archers that'll come as reinforcements.

[Khan of Steppe]

Lol that's just a ridiculous army, a stack and a half of skirmishers, gross. I'd say you're on the right track, I've finally decided that once I reach the mid game I'm done with attacking river provinces without naginata. I used to play by a rule that I'd only play by clan specific army comps to add flavor to each campaign. This would mean that I wouldn't use naginata for river battles if the clan I was playing didn't have naginata in my own self made army comps. Now I've finally said "screw that". I'm done using YS to bridge bait on a river province while going up against 8+ archers. Now I'll train naginata for river battles no matter what clan I'm playing as...you see I'm slowly getting smarter ;)

I usually like going up against the endgame hordes. Except Uesugi, as you've shown, their comps are wack.

My own Uesugi campaign that I just finished has an endgame that I was quite excited for. I played nice a slow so that I was able to meet the Shimazu clan at the halfway point (I held Owari - Mino - Echizen). First off, the freaking Shimazu clan??! How cool is that? Not too often I get to see them in the endgame, in fact I think this was a first for me. Secondly they had at least three family members so I was hoping we'd get a nice long war in. Sure enough, their entire family is dead by the time I reached Kawachi, a third of the map goes rebel (I always play until map completion) such a bummer. They had some cool army comps too - No Dachi, Naginata Cav, Kensai ..ah oh well

[Drisos]

Now I'll train naginata for river battles no matter what clan I'm playing as...you see I'm slowly getting smarter ;)

It might be better strategically, but I do like the style of going for specific armies on specific clans. ;)

I ended up avoiding the Mikawa battle (not enough Level 2 Spear Dojo's). Instead I started spamming Yari Cav in 3 regions and took Echizen, Mino, Kaga, Hida. That ended it, as I was on 40/60 Victory. Which I regretted this time, they still looked like a challenge even after killing like 2.500+ in those attacks and another 1.000 in an Owari defense. I agree that it's a bummer when in the height of and endgame 1v1, the enemy runs out of heirs. Almost happened in this campaign too, I couldn't resist killing Kenshin in battle (although I realized afterwards that he would've dropped to Rank 5 anyway on the loss in Mino). And Tomooki got shot in Owari, I wasn't even trying. Just sitting there on +100% Speed watching them get shot to pieces, suddenly I get the dead Daimyo message.

Perhaps I'll put next campaigns on 60/60 but with 'Eliminate All Other Clans', I think that might give you the option of quitting when the last Clan dies, it doesn't force you to take all Rebel lands. Not 100% on that though.