Hey I've tried to edit my coment with a bit more info and strategy, but I doesn't allow me(maybe because the pin?). So I'm posting it anew, sorry. Pin this one instead. The best fun with no-dachi samurai is the Hattori variant. With vanguard deployment you can appear at the enemie's face and charge straight away, leaving them nl time to react. As the AI usually has the archers on the front at the start, that's one problem you wont have to worry about. They have good combination with yari ashigaru, as they are cheaper, but also have vanguard deployment. You can use them after the initial charge to continue the fight in yari wall and to cover your flanks from cavalry. Once the fight is on, and your yari have taken the no-dachi's place in the front line, you can turn your no-dachi around the back of the enemy. It's very recommended to have yari cavalry for anti cavalry and early back charges, they don't have vanguard deployment but their speed should make sure they arrive shortly after the battle starts. This army is very bad at sieges, but you can siege out your enemy. Also, being Hattori, you have easy early access to night fights, being able to take on one enemy at a time, where this strategy rocks the most. Once you get the armour upgrades for your no-dachi you can let them stay and fight alongside the ashigaru, reducing the number of ashigaru for more cav for the charges. The Date, while having better and cheaper no-dachi, can't really do this kind of strategy and have to rely in normal no-dachi using ways, as a pseudo cavalry for flanking. Edit: General for both: Once you generate enough income, you can swap the ashigaru for bulletproof or naginata, they have more armour, anti cav and are good in a fight. They use attack upgrades in the forge. We are using them offensive here and they have more than enough armour as they are. For the Date: You can do this strategy to some degree. You have to make sure the ashigaru are in front of your nodachi at the start so they take the arrow fire instead. You will still take many more casualties than the Hattori, but it's way cheaper too. Get the night fighter trait on your generals through skill tree if necessary. This kind of armies are bad at sieges and dealing with more than one enemy. You should also make your starting province a recruitment one, going for the armour upgrades ASAP. These will help both your ashigaru and nodachi arrive safer to the enemy. By the time you swap your ashigaru to naginata you can have the Ikko Ikki or Hojo starting forge, so make one an attack forge for naginata and the other an armour one for a closer to the fight recruitment place for your nodachi. Some good archers to snipe the general are very useful, but this is a very offensive clan, don't really need many archers. For the Hattori: As a start, go for the Ikko Ikki, their starting province is close by and they're very valuable. Then go for the Hojo forge. You can take on the Oda here, wich might be hard, or try to ally them. If you help them in their war against Imagawa you might be able to do it. Same as the Date, make one forge of attack and one of armour, for naginata and nodachi, respectively.
One army composition that worked for me was 5 yari cavalry 1 general 3 naginata samurai 3 naginata warrior monks and 11 date no dachi samurai super offensive army if you wanna use an army comp similar to this in your date campaign prioritize the armor and attack buffs but also prioritize your unit fatigue since it’s gonna be key in breaking up to 2 20 stacks with a single banzai (I don’t think that works in hard mode) Edit: actually you’re better off using bow warrior monks when facing 2 armies
In campaign, the IA tend to focus fire the no-dachi with their bow unit, so by having them in reserve and moving them around, you can force the opponent archers to advance more than they should. . No-dachi samuraï are also excellent at straight up deleting ennemy cavalry by charging them. They will take casualties if the cavalry is also charging at them, but cavalry low melee defense, low number and bigger mass mean that they'll get deep in the no-dachi formation, and with lower number they'll get surrounded by no-dachi samurai. This combined with the no-dachi high charge bonus (which is applied to each model of the unit until the charge end) and high base attack will permit them to rout or even delete a whole cavalry unit in a matter of seconds. In multiplayer, this is actually quite a good strategy to surprise players that doesn't know about this.
The best fun with no-dachi samurai is the Hattori variant. With vanguard deployment you can appear at the enemie's face and charge straight away, leaving them nl time to react. As the AI usually has the archers on the front at the start, that's one problem you wont have to worry about. They have good combination with yari ashigaru, as they are cheaper, but also have vanguard deployment. You can use them after the initial charge to continue the fight in yari wall and to cover your flanks from cavalry. Once the fight is on, and your yari have taken the no-dachi's place in the front line, you can turn your no-dachi around the back of the enemy. It's very recommended to have yari cavalry for anti cavalry and early back charges, they don't have vanguard deployment but their speed should make sure they arrive shortly after the battle starts. This army is very bad at sieges, but you can siege out your enemy. Also, being Hattori, you have easy early access to night fights, being able to take on one enemy at a time, where this strategy rocks the most. Once you get the armour upgrades for your no-dachi you can let them stay and fight alongside the ashigaru, reducing the number of ashigaru for more cav for the charges. The Date, while having better and cheaper no-dachi, can't really do this kind of strategy and have to rely in normal no-dachi using ways, as a pseudo cavalry for flanking.
Funny how you're just making videos when I just started a Shogun 2 campaign to prepare mentally for the Rome remake. No Dachi are insanely fun so far, even more so as Date haha
@Green Warrior Monke yup Shogun 2 is my current favourite but DEI mod for Rome 2 is also insanely fun. Unfortunately built around the shitty framework that is Rome 2
My plan as the Date on very hard and legendary difficulty. 1. Macro up and build a good economy and infrastructure. 2. Field entire armies of nodachi samurai. 3. Try to fight defensive battles and sieges or deploy ambushes. 4. Hide most of the men in the trees and put out some bait. 5. When the enemy takes the bait… BANZAIIIIIII! 6. Banzai across Japan from coast to coast 7. GG Edit: Since my only unit is nodachi I take armour upgrades because it’s better for offensive tactics. The increased staying power is more important than attack upgrades because I get more time to charge with 2 units, leave a unit to hold the line then cycle charges. Also I don’t want to lose so many men in the initial charge if it is against entire stacks of bow units. If you use nodachi as a specialised unit I recommend attack upgrades so you maximise playing the unit to its strengths.
My Date stack is a General+7 No-Dachi+3 Date Bulletproof Samurai+3 Monk Archers+3 Yari Cav+3 Katana Cav. And yesterday I've been attacking Hojo with a stack of 7 Yari Ashigaru (and AI learned how to do a Yari Wall) and 10+ Bow Samurai. And it went better than I thought. AI put archers behind the Yari wall. Using the advantage in range, I used my Monk Anchers to destroy the center Yari Wall of 4 Ashigaru. And also I was able even to rout one of the Bow Samurai before all his Archers began shooting at my Monks. As soon as it happened, I charged their center with all my Cav and Bulletproof guys. And their flanks that still had 3 Ashigaru, standing in the Yari Wall, I charged with No-Dachi. They routed in less than a minute. Well, I removed 2 enemy Generals from this stack before the battle, with Ninja, so... yes, I made it a little bit easier. I've returned to using Katana Cav for one reason. I tried a Custom battle, AI vs AI. I just hid my General in the woods and watched the battle. Both stacks had a General+6 Cav+3 Naginata Samurai+3 Archer Monks+7 Katana. The only difference was, that one of them had 6 Yari Cav and the other one had 3 Yari and 3 Katana Cav. And AI with Yari+Katana Cav won both times, in the defense and in the offense. I've returned to using Naginata units after doing the same tests, Naginata vs Yari.
So it's been 7 yrs since the last time I played Shogun 2, they reworked the no dachi? I remembered I don't need spears anymore because I have them. Not to mention how Banzai makes them pretty much invincible in melee. I remembered back when Avatar Conquest were a thing. Someone tried to cav rush me & it was the Banzai from these guys that saved me.
It's one of those units I never really used much. The only time I got much value was for siege defense. After the enemy climbed the walls or broke through a gate stall with katanas or spears then broadside with the nodachi. Break the fronts morale and when they try to flee pull the nodachi back, repeat for next wave. I had one nodachi zipping back and forth reinforcing the wall and gate. He was exhausted at the end but a doozy of a kill count. For open field, cavalry is the better choice if it's available.
I'm playing as Date and yesterday I've been defending a castle with Date No-Dachi with +2 Exp and +2 Melee against Katanas and Yari. Well, they did a pretty good job chopping those Katanas on the wall, in the "Prolonged Melee".
When climbing walls units become fatigued, suffer casualties and they arrive at the top one at a time and immediately face a 1v3 or even 1v4. And since No-Dachi have really good melee attack they can chop down the first climbers before the rest of the unit makes it to the top.
I use no-dachi samurai on advance flank attacks. I pepper the right flank of the enemy line with horse archers, who draw out 1 or 2 of their melee units. As my horse archer retreats with skirmish mode on, I have my best archer unit (usually bow monks) weaken them further, before charging the survivors with some no-dachi samurai. This strategy only works in battles where you are attacking though, as the AI tends to rush your battle line
@@TheVikingGeneral Yeah, the AI are so neurotic when you are defending. Bow heroes and that elite bow cavalry unit are good for weakening their units as they advance, allowing you to pick off several melee troops with well-timed cavalry pincer attacks. Can be quite stressful though considering the fast pace of shogun battles haha
I would say that they are awesome for frontal charges in MP, since morale shock that they give to other units is devastating. Even better than Katana unit, but, on VH since the AI gets combat bonuses, enemy will longer stay in the combat, exploiting more and more low defence value...
I don't have any MP experience, so I'll take your word for it. In single player VH they are still good for morale shocks, but you''ll have to tire out the enemy a bit first.
VH battle difficulty only improves enemy morale, not combat stats. And while that can indeed make them stay for longer in combat, I think they have the shocking power to still rout the enemy early enough, as long as the enemy general isn't around anymore.
Well, I love no-dachi samurai for how stylish and fun they are. But they're already unbalanced in my opinion. They are vunerable for both ranged units and cavalry attacks, can't withstand a longer meele engagement and are absolute crap at siege battles. With such ridiculous charging abilities and literally nothing else they seem to be designed specifically for outsmarting broken AI.
I know it's not the best strategy, but I actually use the weaponsmith upgrades with them, I form my archers loose in front of the line of date nodachi, as soon as the enemy archers engage I charge all my troops forward trough my archers. The charge Bonus of the date plus the aditional damage from the weaponsmith and the morale shock fron the charge usually disintegrate most troops on impact. If someone resists I use Cav to charge them from the back or to charge at archers. I usually play in normal difficulty so I understand this is not the optimal strategy, and in legendary it may not work at all. But for casual play it is the most fun I've had.
Problem I find with this unit is what significant advantage do you get with them you don't get with cavalry. They kind of work the same way but are slower. There are a few things that might justify keeping one or maybe two around but generally no.
@@TheVikingGeneral for the normal yari walls, I used them to break down the BANZAI, then let them back and brought out the warrior monks. At that point, they have reloaded the war cry and the banzai has been out of time, so they can stop the nodachi charge. Effective but ... costly. And for the long yari? They can handle anything, but not range units.
hope you at least know that banzai gives unbreakable morale, so banzai can be used as staying power too in a melee. So much more to the unit then what you say. And the speed increase with banzai is damn useful too
I do, but I don't value the unbreakable aspect of it a lot. No-dachi samurai already have a high base morale and I can't really see a lot of situations where you want to not use banzai in a charge, but wait until they are wavering to keep them in the fight. It can be super useful in the situations where this does occur, but in these videos I mainly focus on the core aspects of a unit, not on every nuance a unit might have.
@@TheVikingGeneral the charge is only effective with a decent charge. If you charge wrong like use banzai when the unit is just going to touch the enemy with 1 guy from the unit the charge will be a lot less effective. Using No-dachi to flank is a nice example, seen the charge been wasted so many times. Even head on against a spearwall, why use banzai when the charge is being destroyed by the spearwall or when charging 2 units with 1 no-dachi. Banzai would be great to keep those 2 units occupied longer.
In multiplayer, is there any reason to use this unit instead of a matchlock monk as an ambush? The monks are 100 cheaper and cause the same/more morale damage and casualties.
i use no dachi samurai to tear up and break the enemy front line , ergo i use them as proper shock infantry , flank attacks are for the cavalry which cant deal with the over the top yari ashigaru , the fact that i lose alot of no dachis that way is irrelevant , they are shock infantry and heavy cassualties are a reality , after the no dachi have sufficiently broken up the enemy or utterly destroyed them in the process the ashigaru are sent in to finish the job , maybe just maybe i will have katanas to support the ashigaru
I don't understand how youtuber MrSmartdonkey does it, he uses them as main line infantry for Date. I can't do that, they're too high risk and vulnerable to prolonged combat. They are meant to be a flanking force of impact, not mainline infantry. They take way too many casualties tbh.
The date variant has a better melee defense to begin with, and since you recruit them with one rank of experience, they start out with at least some melee defense. And if you kill a quarter of your enemy on the charge, that's a lot less men to hit you back. But any mistake and they're pretty much dead yeah.
You should also use them alongside othe units. Having a more resistant or disposable unit up front will make that unit take most of the damage. Ashigaru are great for that. It's very important to get night fighter so you can deal with one enemy at a time too. But yes, in general they are a high risk high reward unit.
in the historical sense shock infantry went in first in most cases to tear up the enemy for the following infantry assaults , thats how shock cavalry was used as well , high cassualties are to be expected but in a good scenario the enemy unit will be heavily weakened or utterly destroyed by the no dachi , on anything above normal this typicaly wont work cause of ai buffs which means nothing really works properly anyway
It's not really viable to do that, since their melee defense is also much lower. So while they do a lot of damage, they have to take it as well. Although the Date-clan can certainly do it, because they're both cheaper and stronger than normal.
I actually tried it and had so much fun. 11 units of date no-dachi in a stack, charge them in and watch the kill counter go up. It works surprisingly well
good videos but your guides lack examples (tactics) on how to use them in battle scenarios. Here is my tip. When doing big army battles: I like to use them as a good way to poke a hole in the enemy ranks. First let me explain what usually happens if enemy doesnt have a troll composition. In this types of battles is hard to get an early flank with your cavalry since your opponent will also use cavalry to fight your cavalry and send spear units/archers on your cavalry trying to flank. So your cavalry will be actually be busy for almost half the battle wining the flanks before starting to do its job, that is hammer and anvil maneuvers. And even so you will probably need to engage the rear archers units(if they have many) after winning the flanks before going for the hammer & anvil. So that is where the nodachi come into play. You want to use them to poke a hole in the enemy front line. What do I mean by that? You set up your front line as usual. With the difference that you concentrate an amount of force that you can spare + the nodachi on a spot. Then you use nodachi to charge and do the routing, engage your samurais, and continue to charge through to get behind with the nodachi to rout them. then you get your units through the hole and use them to flank and rear attack the front line while having 1 unit defend their rear by their second line support. those units of enemy in the front line will rout very quickly and then you just flank their whole front line already in the early/mid stages of the battle. If the opponent doesn't recognize what you are going to do by your positioning he lost the battle. :) I got the idea from the battles between the Romans and the Carthaginians and adapted it to Total war :P its a shame that this game doesnt have an option to have units slowly get pushed back or try to push the line. Gl
Hey I've tried to edit my coment with a bit more info and strategy, but I doesn't allow me(maybe because the pin?). So I'm posting it anew, sorry. Pin this one instead.
The best fun with no-dachi samurai is the Hattori variant. With vanguard deployment you can appear at the enemie's face and charge straight away, leaving them nl time to react. As the AI usually has the archers on the front at the start, that's one problem you wont have to worry about.
They have good combination with yari ashigaru, as they are cheaper, but also have vanguard deployment. You can use them after the initial charge to continue the fight in yari wall and to cover your flanks from cavalry.
Once the fight is on, and your yari have taken the no-dachi's place in the front line, you can turn your no-dachi around the back of the enemy.
It's very recommended to have yari cavalry for anti cavalry and early back charges, they don't have vanguard deployment but their speed should make sure they arrive shortly after the battle starts.
This army is very bad at sieges, but you can siege out your enemy. Also, being Hattori, you have easy early access to night fights, being able to take on one enemy at a time, where this strategy rocks the most.
Once you get the armour upgrades for your no-dachi you can let them stay and fight alongside the ashigaru, reducing the number of ashigaru for more cav for the charges.
The Date, while having better and cheaper no-dachi, can't really do this kind of strategy and have to rely in normal no-dachi using ways, as a pseudo cavalry for flanking.
Edit:
General for both:
Once you generate enough income, you can swap the ashigaru for bulletproof or naginata, they have more armour, anti cav and are good in a fight. They use attack upgrades in the forge. We are using them offensive here and they have more than enough armour as they are.
For the Date:
You can do this strategy to some degree. You have to make sure the ashigaru are in front of your nodachi at the start so they take the arrow fire instead. You will still take many more casualties than the Hattori, but it's way cheaper too. Get the night fighter trait on your generals through skill tree if necessary. This kind of armies are bad at sieges and dealing with more than one enemy.
You should also make your starting province a recruitment one, going for the armour upgrades ASAP. These will help both your ashigaru and nodachi arrive safer to the enemy. By the time you swap your ashigaru to naginata you can have the Ikko Ikki or Hojo starting forge, so make one an attack forge for naginata and the other an armour one for a closer to the fight recruitment place for your nodachi.
Some good archers to snipe the general are very useful, but this is a very offensive clan, don't really need many archers.
For the Hattori:
As a start, go for the Ikko Ikki, their starting province is close by and they're very valuable. Then go for the Hojo forge. You can take on the Oda here, wich might be hard, or try to ally them. If you help them in their war against Imagawa you might be able to do it. Same as the Date, make one forge of attack and one of armour, for naginata and nodachi, respectively.
Pinned again, no worries! Thanks for sharing even more information.
@@TheVikingGeneral thanks! Sorry for youtube doing youtube things xD
@@TheRewasder97 No need to apologize for stuff that's beyond your control ;)
@@TheRewasder97 excellent strategy
One army composition that worked for me was 5 yari cavalry 1 general 3 naginata samurai 3 naginata warrior monks and 11 date no dachi samurai super offensive army if you wanna use an army comp similar to this in your date campaign prioritize the armor and attack buffs but also prioritize your unit fatigue since it’s gonna be key in breaking up to 2 20 stacks with a single banzai (I don’t think that works in hard mode)
Edit: actually you’re better off using bow warrior monks when facing 2 armies
In campaign, the IA tend to focus fire the no-dachi with their bow unit, so by having them in reserve and moving them around, you can force the opponent archers to advance more than they should.
.
No-dachi samuraï are also excellent at straight up deleting ennemy cavalry by charging them. They will take casualties if the cavalry is also charging at them, but cavalry low melee defense, low number and bigger mass mean that they'll get deep in the no-dachi formation, and with lower number they'll get surrounded by no-dachi samurai.
This combined with the no-dachi high charge bonus (which is applied to each model of the unit until the charge end) and high base attack will permit them to rout or even delete a whole cavalry unit in a matter of seconds.
In multiplayer, this is actually quite a good strategy to surprise players that doesn't know about this.
Yeah, you definitely don't want to eat a no-dachi charge with any unit, so the AI's priority to targeting them isn't even that stupid in that regard.
Fun fact: the purpose of the No-dachi in real life was to fight cavalry.
The best fun with no-dachi samurai is the Hattori variant. With vanguard deployment you can appear at the enemie's face and charge straight away, leaving them nl time to react. As the AI usually has the archers on the front at the start, that's one problem you wont have to worry about.
They have good combination with yari ashigaru, as they are cheaper, but also have vanguard deployment. You can use them after the initial charge to continue the fight in yari wall and to cover your flanks from cavalry.
Once the fight is on, and your yari have taken the no-dachi's place in the front line, you can turn your no-dachi around the back of the enemy.
It's very recommended to have yari cavalry for anti cavalry and early back charges, they don't have vanguard deployment but their speed should make sure they arrive shortly after the battle starts.
This army is very bad at sieges, but you can siege out your enemy. Also, being Hattori, you have easy early access to night fights, being able to take on one enemy at a time, where this strategy rocks the most.
Once you get the armour upgrades for your no-dachi you can let them stay and fight alongside the ashigaru, reducing the number of ashigaru for more cav for the charges.
The Date, while having better and cheaper no-dachi, can't really do this kind of strategy and have to rely in normal no-dachi using ways, as a pseudo cavalry for flanking.
Thank you for this extra insight, I'll pin it so other's will be able to find it more easily.
@@TheVikingGeneral oh, nice :D
Funny how you're just making videos when I just started a Shogun 2 campaign to prepare mentally for the Rome remake. No Dachi are insanely fun so far, even more so as Date haha
It's awesome when you see them simply melt an enemy unit.
@Green Warrior Monke yup Shogun 2 is my current favourite but DEI mod for Rome 2 is also insanely fun. Unfortunately built around the shitty framework that is Rome 2
@Green Warrior Monke same. CA will never come close to replicating Medieval 2 and Shogun 2.
How to use No-Dachi Samurai:
Step One - Pick Date Clan
Step Two - *Now go have fun. Enjoy!*
Yeah, I'm actually doing a campaign with them on this channel as well. But I'm currently more focusing on producing the informative videos.
Alternative:
1-pick hattori
2-put them right in the face of the enemy
3-charge them to death without leaving time for missiles to fire
@@ghendao genius
Date No-dachi is a beast. They shred through everyone with that initial charge.
My plan as the Date on very hard and legendary difficulty.
1. Macro up and build a good economy and infrastructure.
2. Field entire armies of nodachi samurai.
3. Try to fight defensive battles and sieges or deploy ambushes.
4. Hide most of the men in the trees and put out some bait.
5. When the enemy takes the bait… BANZAIIIIIII!
6. Banzai across Japan from coast to coast
7. GG
Edit: Since my only unit is nodachi I take armour upgrades because it’s better for offensive tactics. The increased staying power is more important than attack upgrades because I get more time to charge with 2 units, leave a unit to hold the line then cycle charges. Also I don’t want to lose so many men in the initial charge if it is against entire stacks of bow units.
If you use nodachi as a specialised unit I recommend attack upgrades so you maximise playing the unit to its strengths.
My Date stack is a General+7 No-Dachi+3 Date Bulletproof Samurai+3 Monk Archers+3 Yari Cav+3 Katana Cav. And yesterday I've been attacking Hojo with a stack of 7 Yari Ashigaru (and AI learned how to do a Yari Wall) and 10+ Bow Samurai. And it went better than I thought. AI put archers behind the Yari wall. Using the advantage in range, I used my Monk Anchers to destroy the center Yari Wall of 4 Ashigaru. And also I was able even to rout one of the Bow Samurai before all his Archers began shooting at my Monks. As soon as it happened, I charged their center with all my Cav and Bulletproof guys. And their flanks that still had 3 Ashigaru, standing in the Yari Wall, I charged with No-Dachi. They routed in less than a minute. Well, I removed 2 enemy Generals from this stack before the battle, with Ninja, so... yes, I made it a little bit easier.
I've returned to using Katana Cav for one reason. I tried a Custom battle, AI vs AI. I just hid my General in the woods and watched the battle. Both stacks had a General+6 Cav+3 Naginata Samurai+3 Archer Monks+7 Katana. The only difference was, that one of them had 6 Yari Cav and the other one had 3 Yari and 3 Katana Cav. And AI with Yari+Katana Cav won both times, in the defense and in the offense. I've returned to using Naginata units after doing the same tests, Naginata vs Yari.
Thanks for the quick and concise guide for using the Banzai boys.
You're welcome, they are very satisfying if used well.
So it's been 7 yrs since the last time I played Shogun 2, they reworked the no dachi?
I remembered I don't need spears anymore because I have them. Not to mention how Banzai makes them pretty much invincible in melee.
I remembered back when Avatar Conquest were a thing. Someone tried to cav rush me & it was the Banzai from these guys that saved me.
I don't think they got reworked, but to be honest I only started picking up this game again recently.
It's one of those units I never really used much. The only time I got much value was for siege defense. After the enemy climbed the walls or broke through a gate stall with katanas or spears then broadside with the nodachi. Break the fronts morale and when they try to flee pull the nodachi back, repeat for next wave. I had one nodachi zipping back and forth reinforcing the wall and gate. He was exhausted at the end but a doozy of a kill count. For open field, cavalry is the better choice if it's available.
I'm playing as Date and yesterday I've been defending a castle with Date No-Dachi with +2 Exp and +2 Melee against Katanas and Yari. Well, they did a pretty good job chopping those Katanas on the wall, in the "Prolonged Melee".
When climbing walls units become fatigued, suffer casualties and they arrive at the top one at a time and immediately face a 1v3 or even 1v4.
And since No-Dachi have really good melee attack they can chop down the first climbers before the rest of the unit makes it to the top.
I’ve never actually used this unit maybe I should give them a try.
They're pretty strong. Even on VH battle difficulty, they wipe the floor with any unit except naginata monks. But they are quite fragile.
I use no-dachi samurai on advance flank attacks. I pepper the right flank of the enemy line with horse archers, who draw out 1 or 2 of their melee units. As my horse archer retreats with skirmish mode on, I have my best archer unit (usually bow monks) weaken them further, before charging the survivors with some no-dachi samurai. This strategy only works in battles where you are attacking though, as the AI tends to rush your battle line
Sounds like a good use for your no-dachi samurai indeed. ;) And also, that's why I prefer attacking, way more freedom to manipulate the AI
@@TheVikingGeneral Yeah, the AI are so neurotic when you are defending. Bow heroes and that elite bow cavalry unit are good for weakening their units as they advance, allowing you to pick off several melee troops with well-timed cavalry pincer attacks. Can be quite stressful though considering the fast pace of shogun battles haha
I would say that they are awesome for frontal charges in MP, since morale shock that they give to other units is devastating. Even better than Katana unit, but, on VH since the AI gets combat bonuses, enemy will longer stay in the combat, exploiting more and more low defence value...
I don't have any MP experience, so I'll take your word for it. In single player VH they are still good for morale shocks, but you''ll have to tire out the enemy a bit first.
VH battle difficulty only improves enemy morale, not combat stats. And while that can indeed make them stay for longer in combat, I think they have the shocking power to still rout the enemy early enough, as long as the enemy general isn't around anymore.
@@TheRewasder97 as you see, too much rules to make glass cannon work
Always thought they could use a little anti-cav bonus. Would make both in-game and historical sense.
Yeah, but maybe a bit unbalanced as well :P
Well, I love no-dachi samurai for how stylish and fun they are. But they're already unbalanced in my opinion. They are vunerable for both ranged units and cavalry attacks, can't withstand a longer meele engagement and are absolute crap at siege battles. With such ridiculous charging abilities and literally nothing else they seem to be designed specifically for outsmarting broken AI.
@@michamarzec4311 and also for absolutely wrecking FotS armies with a traditional set-up in multiplayer lol
They are the only unit in the game that I have ever cycle charged with and it's pretty good
My favourite unit.
I know it's not the best strategy, but I actually use the weaponsmith upgrades with them, I form my archers loose in front of the line of date nodachi, as soon as the enemy archers engage I charge all my troops forward trough my archers. The charge Bonus of the date plus the aditional damage from the weaponsmith and the morale shock fron the charge usually disintegrate most troops on impact. If someone resists I use Cav to charge them from the back or to charge at archers. I usually play in normal difficulty so I understand this is not the optimal strategy, and in legendary it may not work at all. But for casual play it is the most fun I've had.
These guys are a bit underrated for single player campaigns
Problem I find with this unit is what significant advantage do you get with them you don't get with cavalry. They kind of work the same way but are slower. There are a few things that might justify keeping one or maybe two around but generally no.
Can u do a date bulletproof samurai guide
How to stop the Nodachi charge as an Oda: yari wall goes brrr brrr
Haha, I wish. Well, multiple yari walls may do the trick though. :P
@@TheVikingGeneral for the normal yari walls, I used them to break down the BANZAI, then let them back and brought out the warrior monks. At that point, they have reloaded the war cry and the banzai has been out of time, so they can stop the nodachi charge. Effective but ... costly.
And for the long yari? They can handle anything, but not range units.
hope you at least know that banzai gives unbreakable morale, so banzai can be used as staying power too in a melee. So much more to the unit then what you say. And the speed increase with banzai is damn useful too
I do, but I don't value the unbreakable aspect of it a lot. No-dachi samurai already have a high base morale and I can't really see a lot of situations where you want to not use banzai in a charge, but wait until they are wavering to keep them in the fight. It can be super useful in the situations where this does occur, but in these videos I mainly focus on the core aspects of a unit, not on every nuance a unit might have.
@@TheVikingGeneral the charge is only effective with a decent charge. If you charge wrong like use banzai when the unit is just going to touch the enemy with 1 guy from the unit the charge will be a lot less effective. Using No-dachi to flank is a nice example, seen the charge been wasted so many times. Even head on against a spearwall, why use banzai when the charge is being destroyed by the spearwall or when charging 2 units with 1 no-dachi. Banzai would be great to keep those 2 units occupied longer.
So No Dachi is like a shock trooper?
Enemy melee infantry can't exploit your low defences when you kill half their unit on the charge.
Exactly. On medium difficulty, they win against every other non-hero unit. Although it's a very close match against warrior monks.
In multiplayer, is there any reason to use this unit instead of a matchlock monk as an ambush? The monks are 100 cheaper and cause the same/more morale damage and casualties.
I'm afraid I have 0 multiplayer experience in any total war game. So I can't help you there :(
you can only use 1 matchlock monk in multiplayer + the banzai makes the no-dachi so fast that your matchlocks are dead before a second salvo...
PLEASE TELL ME HOW YOU USE NO GENERAL IN CUSTOM BATTLES
No-dachi
More like, YES-Dachi
i use no dachi samurai to tear up and break the enemy front line , ergo i use them as proper shock infantry , flank attacks are for the cavalry which cant deal with the over the top yari ashigaru , the fact that i lose alot of no dachis that way is irrelevant , they are shock infantry and heavy cassualties are a reality , after the no dachi have sufficiently broken up the enemy or utterly destroyed them in the process the ashigaru are sent in to finish the job , maybe just maybe i will have katanas to support the ashigaru
Noc gas mask
I don't understand how youtuber MrSmartdonkey does it, he uses them as main line infantry for Date. I can't do that, they're too high risk and vulnerable to prolonged combat. They are meant to be a flanking force of impact, not mainline infantry. They take way too many casualties tbh.
The date variant has a better melee defense to begin with, and since you recruit them with one rank of experience, they start out with at least some melee defense. And if you kill a quarter of your enemy on the charge, that's a lot less men to hit you back.
But any mistake and they're pretty much dead yeah.
Plus you start with a forge, so you can give them extra armour from the get go
You should also use them alongside othe units. Having a more resistant or disposable unit up front will make that unit take most of the damage. Ashigaru are great for that. It's very important to get night fighter so you can deal with one enemy at a time too.
But yes, in general they are a high risk high reward unit.
Later on when you have more money, naginata samurai are the best pair, providing good armour and anti cav while being good in the fight.
in the historical sense shock infantry went in first in most cases to tear up the enemy for the following infantry assaults , thats how shock cavalry was used as well , high cassualties are to be expected but in a good scenario the enemy unit will be heavily weakened or utterly destroyed by the no dachi , on anything above normal this typicaly wont work cause of ai buffs which means nothing really works properly anyway
Is there anyone who did date samurai with armor upgrade? If yes then are we able to replace katana samurai with no-dachi samurai as main unit?
It's not really viable to do that, since their melee defense is also much lower. So while they do a lot of damage, they have to take it as well.
Although the Date-clan can certainly do it, because they're both cheaper and stronger than normal.
@@TheVikingGeneral Yeah I was only considering them only from Date and maybe from Hattori. I'll try it later after Ikko Ikki scenario ;)
I actually tried it and had so much fun. 11 units of date no-dachi in a stack, charge them in and watch the kill counter go up. It works surprisingly well
I pair them with fire rockets xD
good videos but your guides lack examples (tactics) on how to use them in battle scenarios.
Here is my tip. When doing big army battles: I like to use them as a good way to poke a hole in the enemy ranks. First let me explain what usually happens if enemy doesnt have a troll composition. In this types of battles is hard to get an early flank with your cavalry since your opponent will also use cavalry to fight your cavalry and send spear units/archers on your cavalry trying to flank. So your cavalry will be actually be busy for almost half the battle wining the flanks before starting to do its job, that is hammer and anvil maneuvers. And even so you will probably need to engage the rear archers units(if they have many) after winning the flanks before going for the hammer & anvil. So that is where the nodachi come into play. You want to use them to poke a hole in the enemy front line. What do I mean by that? You set up your front line as usual. With the difference that you concentrate an amount of force that you can spare + the nodachi on a spot. Then you use nodachi to charge and do the routing, engage your samurais, and continue to charge through to get behind with the nodachi to rout them. then you get your units through the hole and use them to flank and rear attack the front line while having 1 unit defend their rear by their second line support. those units of enemy in the front line will rout very quickly and then you just flank their whole front line already in the early/mid stages of the battle. If the opponent doesn't recognize what you are going to do by your positioning he lost the battle. :) I got the idea from the battles between the Romans and the Carthaginians and adapted it to Total war :P its a shame that this game doesnt have an option to have units slowly get pushed back or try to push the line. Gl
Nice guide, but I wish you made the video 10 years ago
I'm sorry, but I don't think I would've been able to make these 10 years ago xD
@@TheVikingGeneral fair enough
I've never liked this unit it requires too much micro for me
Fair enough, they are micro intensive, even more so than cavalry.