Lately, a renowned innovator and master tactician (who shall remain nameless) has taken to playing 2 armies of all kensai during late night 4v4 Shoggy games. Of course this requires 2 computers, so many of us are unable to reproduce this experiment.
However, I have observed the following:
32 Kensai in one place will demoralize just about anything you can throw against them. As soon as the defending unit takes a few casualties it heads for the hills.
The morale effect of 32 units, all in a 1.8 tile area, is truly overwhelming. These 32 Kensai (who individually have very high morale) become (dare I say) Super Kensai when they are all in a gang. They boost eachothers morale to the point that they simply will not route, and they demoralize the enemy to the point that he cant really mount a defense.
Units that attempt to stand against 2 full armies of kensai are drastically outnumbered. Remember, with respect to morale boosts/penalties, the ratio of friendly to enemy units is what counts. As a result, normal units are VERY susceptible to routing with just a few kills. The normal army just cant pack enough of its troops in one tile to face this gang of Kensai with any semblance of morale.
One Kensai can tear apart a unit pretty quickly. 32 at once? Even assuming that each Kensai strikes a hit only once out of every 4 frames, that leaves 8 enemy dead per frame. A couple animations and the unit routes for sure.
DEAR GOD HOW DO WE STOP THIS INSANITY!?
Now let me say, that 16 Kensai do not seem to have the same "super" effect. A single army of all Kensai seems to have been anticipated by the programers. It is difficult to kill 16 60 man units w/ just 16 Kensai. Make that 32 Kensai and it appears unstoppable.
Problem: W/ 2 full armies of Kensai, it seems a trained monkey can destroy the great generals. Just double click a few times and its all over. No real planning, tacticts, or strategy. Just point, click, and win. Fun? Not really.
Solution?: Guns will kill a few, but who is dumb enough to charge Kensai right at guns? (perhaps a poorly trained monkey). A well trained monkey would seek cover in an allies charge. If Kensai hide in enemy infantry guns are basically inneffective against them.
Fight fire w/ fire? 32 Kensai attacking, 32 defending? Thats the only real solution I can come up with, and its not very fun.
So, in the future it seems we are looking at a 128 Kensai 4v4 game. Yippee skippy.
Please answer this call to arms and for GODS SAKE, FIND A WAY TO DEFEAT THIS THREAT TO US ALL!
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