How to fight effectively

That'll work well early on, but you'll need far more at your disposal than just a spearman line and 50 gunners to defeat the full armies of the other clans.

Spearmen are good cannon fodder, but they'll still get torn apart by bigger and better samurai units.

An army of cavalry is still the best way to deal with any situation that involves being outnumbered 4 or 5 to 1 by the enemy.

Talinoth said:

That'll work well early on, but you'll need far more at your disposal than just a spearman line and 50 gunners to defeat the full armies of the other clans.

Spearmen are good cannon fodder, but they'll still get torn apart by bigger and better samurai units.

An army of cavalry is still the best way to deal with any situation that involves being outnumbered 4 or 5 to 1 by the enemy.

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Just destroyed a Date army of 500 with my 160 group (20 Oda Hatamoto Cav, 22 Oda Hatamoto Gunners, 30 Ikko Veteran Gunners, 20 Oda Officers, 68 Oda Veteran Spearmen. I´ve lost a grand total of 19 men of whom only 8 died (5 Spearmen, 1 Ikko Gunner, 2 Hata Cav, 1 Officer).
As long as the battle advantage doesn´t go too south and allows me to deploy at least 80 men, I just cannot be beaten.

Ah good, you had Hatamotos. That's like Gekokujo Rule of Thumb #1 - if you can't fix the problem, you're not using enough Hatamotos.

Pardon me, it was just the way you worded it, that made it sound like you just purely used ashigaru spearmen and gunners to take on everything

Well, Ikko Veteran Monk Gunners are only slightly worse shooters than Hatamotos (210 to 251, same teppo) . The only downside is their durability which is much worse.

Articulo34 said:

As long as the battle advantage doesn´t go too south and allows me to deploy at least 80 men, I just cannot be beaten.

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In all seriousness, how is it you dictate that? 

My understanding is that BA is determined by the size of the two competing forces for exactly the reason you just described.  In every situation where I've had as bad a EF to FF force ratio as 500 to 160 I start of with six of my companions and throw in the towel because the enemy get's the full 50 and it's pretty much lights out.

Lord Vaelis said:

In all seriousness, how is it you dictate that? 

My understanding is that BA is determined by the size of the two competing forces for exactly the reason you just described.  In every situation where I've had as bad a EF to FF force ratio as 500 to 160 I start of with six of my companions and throw in the towel because the enemy get's the full 50 and it's pretty much lights out.

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Tactics 10 (+3). After that you just have to be careful when you pick a fight. It there is an enemy army on the move try to get on their tail, you might attract a bunch of them, enough to make a dent on their offensive but still too few to overpower you with numbers. Also the first assault is the critical one, all enemy lords are going to take part so if you can beat them without bleeding out your own forces the next one your BA will be much better.