Muskets!

[Stevie D]

So I'm experimenting with muskets properly for the first time. I hear they're quite the little crackers once you get the hang of them. Unfortunately for me, I ain't.

I put them in front of my spear; because they're arrayed in a denser formation than archers would be, when the muskets get charged with horse, many of them are caught out and butchered, where archers would probably be safely behind the spear by the time the horse reaches them.

I put them behind my spear, making sure they're higher up so to shoot over the heads of the spear; ideal, until something on foot engages the spear and my muskets end up blazing away at a flat trajectory into the melee, massacring my own blokes as well as the enemy.

I put them in front of my spear again, and use cav as a 'sweeper' to keep enemy cav away from the muskets; great, until my cav engages with his and gets the full brunt of my own guns as well.

I use them to support an attack as I'm going over a bridge; again, great, until my charging force meets the enemy and gets volley after volley in the back. Wouldn't happen with archers, either, who could shoot over the troops' heads.

So I'm going wrong, somewhere. Please advise, sensei

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Flat maps are best, in lines of 3. Put them in front of spears and shoot them as they approach, when they get near send spears foward and retreat musks.

[PaolinoPaperino]

Usually archers are better if deployed in 2 rows, but the standard fro musks seems to be 3 rows.

Musks are slower rather than archers, but the volley is stronger. At honour 2/3 the accurancy is preatty good. The armour defence has low significance when a unit is target by musks. Musks gets bonus when targets mounted troops, and makes many kills upon troops in movement, and at short range.

When u shoot upon an enemy unit, that one gets a -6 in morale, while archers gives only a -2.

When u shoot agint an enemy unit in melee with a friendly one, u will kill some of your men, but u will always kill more enemy, rather then ally...adding the morale penalty that they get..is really important to shoot upon enemy soldiers in melee.

When the enemy horses charges, you need to be fast with the spears. If you are not confident, place additionally a naginata horse unit next to the musks.

Usually placed on hold formation(F) musks get a morale improvement, but they not retreat when someone is charging them(so u ned to have more care to protect them, learning the correct timing).

If you can always keep a friendly unit on both sides, they will not suffer from morale penalty, and this will increase your control on them.

Not so clear at the beginning m8, but after a while you will see that this is the standard with 1.02.

[Stevie D]

Thanks, guys. Still not sure if musks are value for money, but I shall keep plugging away until I've cracked it.

The thing I don't get with them is that when you've got your enemy coming at you, your musks only seem to get one volley in, tops, before they're forced to retreat. I take it, then, that the prescribed way to continue using them is to have them keep blasting away into the melee once they've retreated behind the spear?

Picking up on what you said, Paolino, do your own melee fighters suffer a similar morale penalty if they get hit by a stray volley from their own musks?

[PaolinoPaperino]

When you are targetted by an enemy missile unit you get the morale drop m8, not when u suffer lost from friendly fire.
So in melee the enemy has a -6, while your troops no. This is the reason musks are still usefull with rain.

When the enemy charges I always move the spears, never the musks (the hold formation is important). This is because I don't want the enemy targetted units to increase the morale. If the enemy has musks aswell it's important to take care of the ricochet, but if it has only arrows, the ys could be deployed really close to the missiles.

[Oaty]

I've always found muskets work best on flanks with at least 1 good unit protecting the outer mostflank and just a wee bit forward of the muskets. This makes it hard for the A.I to go after the muskets imediatly as the units on their flanks are more forward deployed and if the A.I. does charge the muskets they will quickly get hit on both flanks

[solypsist]

like oaty says - guns on the flanks, shotting into your front line of melee.
the kills will never be high, but the morale drop for the enemy when being shot at is what you're paying for.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Oda musket tactics: x6 muskets, 3 rank formation + hold formation + hold position + fire at will, all units form a single battle line in front of the rest of our army (including 5 archers). Proceed to place army on (concave) slope. Ensure no rain

Proper usage means that your melee troops would not need to get engaged at all, ie WMs and ND would reach within 10m of your muskets and flee.

Using them at bridge defensive battles: U shaped deployment facing the mouth of bridge.

Muskets are devastating (in SP) for 2 reasons,
1. Heavy casualties at close range
2. -6 morale penalty (-4 for gunpowder, -2 due to being under fire.)

Key to using of muskets is in mass firepower, just as Nobunaga figured out.

[HicRic]

I've deployed five units of muskets in three (or was it four?) ranks at the front of my army and defeated many, many armies in SP without making any melee contact. The sheer firepower and morale penalty causes enemy units to rout before making contact.

If you need any more proof of the power of muskets, just look at history and Oda Nobunaga's acheivements-not to mention that the Samurai "died out" and their way of warfare became useless thanks to firearms such as these.

I can't say I like muskets. As I said-you can win without any melee. Lining up and watching muskets fire is not my idea of a fun time. I played a couple of campaigns with the, but find actually using real samurai and not dishounourable weapons is much more fun.