The name of the game with this bad boys is versatility. That's normally a disadvantage in the standard shogun 2 army, where you have your defensive melee line of naginata, backed by bow warrior monks and some yari cav on the flanks. In that army, as you don't have many cavalry, amd you don't need to micro your infantry at all, you can focus of making cicle charges with your yari cav effectively. ...BUT... As powerful as that army comp is, it's boring to play. The kav (short for katana cav from now on) is very good when you don't mix it with anything else. Yes, an army purely formed of katana cav. Obviously the Takeda are the best clan for this. Making a purely cavalry army has some very good things in campaign map. Shogun 2 has that feature about unit speed affects campaign movement, so a full cavalry army will cross Japan from one point to the other in no time, specially once the roads start to get upgraded. It also has the benefit of cavalry having a lot of power in autoresolve. "But a full kav army is bad on the actual battlefield!" That is incorrect. It's quite hard to play, quite micro intensive, but powerful. Remember when I said they were the most versatile unit in the game? In Shogun 2, you can dismount cav units. When dismounted, kav becomes a katana samurai (with half the numbers, ofc). First of all, this army requires you to get the extra armour from the forge. You have low men, they are worth everything. The way you play this army is by luring enemy units in different directions. Divide and conquer. Then using your mobility to Sandwich the lone units. Use the close units to dismount and charge, then the next close units charge mounted. You should be able to delete units that way. Mount your units back and move on to the next victim. You might not even need to dismount, a running unit, even if anticav, if it gets charged from all sides by several kav units will suffer many casualties and rout very easily. Your first objective should be taking down enemy cav and generals, then lure the infantry to be able to reach their archers, which are your biggest concern. Don't be afraid to dismount, but never dismount a single unit alone. You have half the men of a normal katana samurai so you need at least two units. Regarding sieges. You don't siege, let them come, or auto if it's favourable. If you must siege, dismount once close and go as normal katana samurai. Same when defending sieges, dismount amd fight on foot. If your enemy is camping a hill, use your mobility to go behind them, dismount amd charge as normal katana samurai. Or charge their back mounted, but you'll have to retreat soon after. Same as before try luring units, disable their cavalry early, engage their missiles, and then the infantry should be easy. You can add a few bow cavalry too to provide some range for snipping the general and cavalry and damage their range. They are good for defensive sieges and opening the hill turtle. You might still want the armour upgrade for the same reasons, and if you are (you should) playing Takeda, your bow cav should be better by default. Bow cav tends to have less range so the extra armour is great for the trade in damage. If you include bows, the are a support, 4 units are fine, but never more than 6. Don't stand there shooting still facing the enemy, flank them amd shoot them when they can't shoot back, when they are done reforming their flanks to face you, move away again. So, as I said, it can be very good, while also very micro intensive. Definetly not a good army for new players and will require a lot of practice with it to get it right. Takeda are the almost only viable clan for this. Cav is expensive, but less for them. The need for armour upgrades gets a good pair with the better base stats of Takeda cav. I highly recommend you use this clan for this strategy, and not use only this strategy. Have normal armies, and one of this, to practice. It's easy to get it wrong the first times. Don't use the damyo for this practice. Once you master it, you can do a full cavalry Takeda challenge.
I'd like to mention that if you are using mods, like Jaki's unique factions, but some other do it too. All samurai units in the chosokabe faction get a ranged attack. This makes chosokabe kav better because of the added misile attack. Ammo is limited, they are not the best archer unit, but they are many, so that's that. In that case they would be even more powerful and versatile.
I like to mix a full cav army with bow cav, it's quite fun so far, luring out the enemy infantry, although enemy archers are still the bane of my existence.
Katana cav can be great to safely remove Yari Ash. If you have killed the enemy cav already, just flank with your Katana Cav, dismount and rear charge the infantry. They are like a guerrilla, flanking, smaller unit of katana sam.
You kinda forgot that Katana Cavalry is actually one of the few Cavalry unit that could still be decent when dismounted. Dismounting only affect Charge Bonus and Melee Attack, Katana Cavalry's 6 Melee Defense is much better than Yari Cavalry and even Katana Samurai 1 and 4 Melee Defense. Although it does need more micro since you basically have a Mounted Katana Samurai which is around 25% more Expensive and have 50% less men, but can relocate easily if their horse is still intact.
Didn't forget about it, but I just didn't have the time to mention it. :P But yes, the dismounting gives them some extra flexibility, but it's very situational imo. Yes you can take out a yari ashigaru unit while dismounted, but it'd be better to just ride around them and hit enemies in the rear with a cav charge ;)
Rather than cycle charge into the same unit or leaving them there, I prefer to charge into the flank of a frontline enemy to support my frontline and hop onto another enemy like the backline ranged units. Dismounting them to give an extra boost to siege is another solid choice since they're better in this front than dismounted yari cav in a castle.
1 katana cav and 1 yari cav together can deal with just about anything. Katana cav can hold infantry while yari circle back for the morale penalty and yari cav can give the charge to anyincoming cavalry and get assisted by katanas to pull back for another charge.
I've found through a few tests that katana cav work well in conjunction with Fire cav. This seems to have the most success against yari ash but what you do is you have fire cav charge into the front most unit in wedge formation, and immediately trailing the fire cav are katana cav. It works well with units susceptible to morale shock, and it shreds yari ash and bow ash blobs
Honestly, Katana Cav works pretty well when complimented with Yari Cav. When I run them, usually I run them with a 2 to 1 ratio. 2 Katana Cav to deal with the more formidable infantry with 4 Yari Cav to do other cavalry purposes. Especially when I’m the Takeda. With one exception, playing as the Mori. You’ll realize a potential for a flanking army due to the Mori Wako Raiders, which is enhanced via Yari Cavalry which help keep those raiders safe from cavalry charges while they’re out flanking on the side. But Katana Cavalry also benefit from this playstyle, as Mori Raiders can easily lock down spear units sent to counter the flank. Allowing both the Katana Cavalry and Yari Cavalry to pick and choose their targets.
more like Cuirassiers from Napoleon Total War. Useless in most cases but when you find the right time to use them, they destroy everything in front of them.
jesus, you forgot the most important information of all: unlock wedge formation on your generals if you want to use katana cav, it cancels out the charge phase and makes katana cav straight up beat yari cav in a head on charge with half the unit remaining
I'd always prefer a Yari cav because they can kill other cavalry units by themselves. Simply send one or two of 'em to the enemy's general if they have one while their melee units are busy with yours, and watch them rout en masse. They can also counter those really annoying suicidal flank maneuvres the AI likes to do in the beginning of the battle that forces you to mess up your entire formation by sending a yari unit that you otherwise would have in yari wall, and then hope they're fast enough.
Oh I'd definitely take yari cav over katana cav if I have to chose between them! But I do like to have at least 1 unit of katana cav for the more pesky/stubborn enemy units.
Ironically, the recruitment video in-game introduces the katana cavalry as a unit excelling in combating enemy cavalry, yet sucks at it. It doesn't even have a "bonus versus cavalry" value. Against another katana cavarly unit it is a coin-flip, but I suppose that versus bow cavalry it does well enough, provided they catch them.
Katana cavalry can hold up much better in prolonged fights, but they still get melted by spear troops (which usually comprise a big chunk of AI armies) and are pretty lousy cavalry interceptors while being very vulnerable to being intercepted themselves. Consequently, they seem to require marginally less micro managing if you want them to actually survive the battle, while also being noticeably inferior to yari cavalry in most situations. The only situations where I could say katana cavalry are superior is plugging holes or reinforcing weak positions on the line fast (but only when the enemy units are non-spear welders) and sieges, where almost every other cavalry unit is usually dead weight.
cav in shogun 2's campaign feels a bit meh because 90% of the armies you fight are like half yari ashigaru. Especially later on when everyone is poor because they have been at constant war for over half a century.
The name of the game with this bad boys is versatility. That's normally a disadvantage in the standard shogun 2 army, where you have your defensive melee line of naginata, backed by bow warrior monks and some yari cav on the flanks. In that army, as you don't have many cavalry, amd you don't need to micro your infantry at all, you can focus of making cicle charges with your yari cav effectively.
...BUT...
As powerful as that army comp is, it's boring to play. The kav (short for katana cav from now on) is very good when you don't mix it with anything else. Yes, an army purely formed of katana cav. Obviously the Takeda are the best clan for this.
Making a purely cavalry army has some very good things in campaign map. Shogun 2 has that feature about unit speed affects campaign movement, so a full cavalry army will cross Japan from one point to the other in no time, specially once the roads start to get upgraded. It also has the benefit of cavalry having a lot of power in autoresolve.
"But a full kav army is bad on the actual battlefield!" That is incorrect. It's quite hard to play, quite micro intensive, but powerful. Remember when I said they were the most versatile unit in the game? In Shogun 2, you can dismount cav units. When dismounted, kav becomes a katana samurai (with half the numbers, ofc).
First of all, this army requires you to get the extra armour from the forge. You have low men, they are worth everything.
The way you play this army is by luring enemy units in different directions. Divide and conquer. Then using your mobility to Sandwich the lone units. Use the close units to dismount and charge, then the next close units charge mounted. You should be able to delete units that way. Mount your units back and move on to the next victim. You might not even need to dismount, a running unit, even if anticav, if it gets charged from all sides by several kav units will suffer many casualties and rout very easily.
Your first objective should be taking down enemy cav and generals, then lure the infantry to be able to reach their archers, which are your biggest concern.
Don't be afraid to dismount, but never dismount a single unit alone. You have half the men of a normal katana samurai so you need at least two units.
Regarding sieges. You don't siege, let them come, or auto if it's favourable. If you must siege, dismount once close and go as normal katana samurai. Same when defending sieges, dismount amd fight on foot.
If your enemy is camping a hill, use your mobility to go behind them, dismount amd charge as normal katana samurai. Or charge their back mounted, but you'll have to retreat soon after. Same as before try luring units, disable their cavalry early, engage their missiles, and then the infantry should be easy.
You can add a few bow cavalry too to provide some range for snipping the general and cavalry and damage their range. They are good for defensive sieges and opening the hill turtle. You might still want the armour upgrade for the same reasons, and if you are (you should) playing Takeda, your bow cav should be better by default. Bow cav tends to have less range so the extra armour is great for the trade in damage.
If you include bows, the are a support, 4 units are fine, but never more than 6. Don't stand there shooting still facing the enemy, flank them amd shoot them when they can't shoot back, when they are done reforming their flanks to face you, move away again.
So, as I said, it can be very good, while also very micro intensive. Definetly not a good army for new players and will require a lot of practice with it to get it right.
Takeda are the almost only viable clan for this. Cav is expensive, but less for them. The need for armour upgrades gets a good pair with the better base stats of Takeda cav. I highly recommend you use this clan for this strategy, and not use only this strategy. Have normal armies, and one of this, to practice. It's easy to get it wrong the first times. Don't use the damyo for this practice. Once you master it, you can do a full cavalry Takeda challenge.
I'd like to mention that if you are using mods, like Jaki's unique factions, but some other do it too. All samurai units in the chosokabe faction get a ranged attack. This makes chosokabe kav better because of the added misile attack. Ammo is limited, they are not the best archer unit, but they are many, so that's that. In that case they would be even more powerful and versatile.
My goodness that's a lot of microing to win battels... I'd be burnt out playing like that battle after battle.
@@TheFlyingZulu Thing is, you won't need to fight every battle, as mentioned, cav get bonuses in autoresolve
I like to mix a full cav army with bow cav, it's quite fun so far, luring out the enemy infantry, although enemy archers are still the bane of my existence.
tl;dr Katana -Cavalry- Mounted Infantry
Katana cav can be great to safely remove Yari Ash. If you have killed the enemy cav already, just flank with your Katana Cav, dismount and rear charge the infantry. They are like a guerrilla, flanking, smaller unit of katana sam.
yeah, I was seeing if I could get the dismounting part in, but I just couldn't fit it in. Thanks for pointing it out in the comments!
🤮 dismounting
You kinda forgot that Katana Cavalry is actually one of the few Cavalry unit that could still be decent when dismounted.
Dismounting only affect Charge Bonus and Melee Attack, Katana Cavalry's 6 Melee Defense is much better than Yari Cavalry and even Katana Samurai 1 and 4 Melee Defense.
Although it does need more micro since you basically have a Mounted Katana Samurai which is around 25% more Expensive and have 50% less men, but can relocate easily if their horse is still intact.
Didn't forget about it, but I just didn't have the time to mention it. :P But yes, the dismounting gives them some extra flexibility, but it's very situational imo. Yes you can take out a yari ashigaru unit while dismounted, but it'd be better to just ride around them and hit enemies in the rear with a cav charge ;)
Rather than cycle charge into the same unit or leaving them there, I prefer to charge into the flank of a frontline enemy to support my frontline and hop onto another enemy like the backline ranged units. Dismounting them to give an extra boost to siege is another solid choice since they're better in this front than dismounted yari cav in a castle.
1 katana cav and 1 yari cav together can deal with just about anything. Katana cav can hold infantry while yari circle back for the morale penalty and yari cav can give the charge to anyincoming cavalry and get assisted by katanas to pull back for another charge.
I've found through a few tests that katana cav work well in conjunction with Fire cav. This seems to have the most success against yari ash but what you do is you have fire cav charge into the front most unit in wedge formation, and immediately trailing the fire cav are katana cav. It works well with units susceptible to morale shock, and it shreds yari ash and bow ash blobs
Great point!
How to use Katana Cav
1. Just use Yari Cav
or
2. Use alongside Yari Cav to neutralize enemy cav, and use them in their intended purpose.
Yeah, katana cav is pretty outmatched if the enemy brings any cav.
Honestly, Katana Cav works pretty well when complimented with Yari Cav. When I run them, usually I run them with a 2 to 1 ratio. 2 Katana Cav to deal with the more formidable infantry with 4 Yari Cav to do other cavalry purposes. Especially when I’m the Takeda.
With one exception, playing as the Mori. You’ll realize a potential for a flanking army due to the Mori Wako Raiders, which is enhanced via Yari Cavalry which help keep those raiders safe from cavalry charges while they’re out flanking on the side. But Katana Cavalry also benefit from this playstyle, as Mori Raiders can easily lock down spear units sent to counter the flank. Allowing both the Katana Cavalry and Yari Cavalry to pick and choose their targets.
Basically they are the Saber Cavalry from 3K Total War but without the shield.
That's a fair comparison I think.
more like Cuirassiers from Napoleon Total War. Useless in most cases but when you find the right time to use them, they destroy everything in front of them.
Get one unit behind the flank with exposed bow yari ashigari.
Enjoy.
jesus, you forgot the most important information of all: unlock wedge formation on your generals if you want to use katana cav, it cancels out the charge phase and makes katana cav straight up beat yari cav in a head on charge with half the unit remaining
I'd always prefer a Yari cav because they can kill other cavalry units by themselves. Simply send one or two of 'em to the enemy's general if they have one while their melee units are busy with yours, and watch them rout en masse. They can also counter those really annoying suicidal flank maneuvres the AI likes to do in the beginning of the battle that forces you to mess up your entire formation by sending a yari unit that you otherwise would have in yari wall, and then hope they're fast enough.
Oh I'd definitely take yari cav over katana cav if I have to chose between them! But I do like to have at least 1 unit of katana cav for the more pesky/stubborn enemy units.
Ironically, the recruitment video in-game introduces the katana cavalry as a unit excelling in combating enemy cavalry, yet sucks at it. It doesn't even have a "bonus versus cavalry" value. Against another katana cavarly unit it is a coin-flip, but I suppose that versus bow cavalry it does well enough, provided they catch them.
These guys are good if you don't do micro
Katana cavalry can hold up much better in prolonged fights, but they still get melted by spear troops (which usually comprise a big chunk of AI armies) and are pretty lousy cavalry interceptors while being very vulnerable to being intercepted themselves. Consequently, they seem to require marginally less micro managing if you want them to actually survive the battle, while also being noticeably inferior to yari cavalry in most situations. The only situations where I could say katana cavalry are superior is plugging holes or reinforcing weak positions on the line fast (but only when the enemy units are non-spear welders) and sieges, where almost every other cavalry unit is usually dead weight.
Yeah, they require less micro during actual combat, but more attention outside of it :P
What is the map name?
It's a map from the steam workshop. The mod/item is called small, flat grassy map.
@@TheVikingGeneral thanks bro!
But hey, Oda use 6 Katana Cavalary to comeback
cav in shogun 2's campaign feels a bit meh because 90% of the armies you fight are like half yari ashigaru. Especially later on when everyone is poor because they have been at constant war for over half a century.
You could finish this video in one second. Just say "don't."