Traditional Samurai Faceoff vs The Imperial Forces (Shogun II Online Battle #226)

Hey what's up guys it's Oakley and this is going to be an online battle in Total War Shogun 2. Myself and Indipride are playing as a classic force and we're going against two of the imperialist armies here. So we can take a look at the enemy lines before we cover ours. So in the back general's bodyguard with a whole bunch of Yari Ki and then the imperial guard cav. Very very strong force, tough to deal with. They have guns as well. And then their main line moving forward they do have a mix of Shogatai, kind of a pretty good sword infantry to throw against traditional forces. And then you can see obviously a mix of Red Bears also moving forward along with them. Pretty large force pushing forward but they're going to stay on their side choosing to allow the samurai to move towards them. This enemy force here does have a Tosa Rifleman, a main line of Red Bear infantry. These are kind of your most cost effective units. And then a huge cluster of Yari Ki pushing forward. I do have to say I love the red colors here. Red Bear infantry with kind of the red sky and yeah this just looks glorious. So we can admire the enemy troops and they're pushing forward with two more units of Red Bear infantry just to try and take this little nook. Meanwhile our forces starting to amass and push forward on this flank. We can go ahead and cover those. So what do I have? Well I've strung myself out. I have two Katana Cav on the backed up with this Lonesword Ashigaru, some Matchlock Ashigaru, a Bow Ashigaru unit here and another Bow Ashigaru unit there to try and hold back the enemy, get some shots off. And then I have some Nodachi pulling up and some more reserve Great Guard Cavalry and another Matchlock here. So kind of a mix for all around. Indie Pride has brought some Bull Warrior Mugs, Naginata Tendons to screen, some Beer for my Horses Yari Cavalry. I always love the custom names. And then some Nodachi which you absolutely need in this matchup and then some Yari Cav there. So the enemy has positioned themselves up on the scrubland to the top there. So that's a good position. So we're going to have to somehow make this river cross and force them out. Luckily I did seize this position before the enemy could. I have my bow stationed here and the nice thing about having a bow unit in this type of position is one they're covered by the forest, two there's a hill that here blocks a line of sight. So I can shoot up and over and clear out the enemy. At this point they do unveil that they have a cannon that we didn't spot in the initial engagement. So always you're going to see an Armstrong gun in these engagements just because it's such a strong powerful unit and it can take out key units from our side. So that's exactly what it's going to be doing. Let's see if we can't get a nice epic shot of this. So this is going to kind of change the pace of the game. It means the enemy is giving the all clear to kind of sit tight and they have their imperial guard cav pushing forward to beat my guys back. I have my bow I should go trying to ward them off but these imperial guard guard cav take off after dealing 11 kills to my guys. So I brought in my cavalry just to ward him back. I don't want to keep him away while my bows continue to chip away at this red bear force. The enemy is targeting our bow warrior monks which is a pretty good move considering they want to get rid of our greatest range advantage. However they don't have the best line of sight and Indy's doing a good job of continuously changing the position of his guys. Pretty much dodging the shots and getting lots of volleys off at the enemy. Look as they get clipped up on the top of the hill. That's a pretty glorious sight right there. And now he's going to reposition just as some shots are going to hit the ground where his men were previously. Enemies still hold the high ground which we're going to have to beat back with something. So Indy's going to be pushing up with some bow warrior monks which are now going to start to fire in and amongst these red bear but they go back and they become hidden. Now the volleys that did get off kill a couple but it's that line of sight and visibility that's going to be causing an issue for us. The nodachi are now going to take the next hit but still Indy doing a good job of dodging most of its shots. I've been able to take a fair chunk out of the enemy's flank here really solidify our position and then I've pulled up with some katana cab and other forces preparing for perhaps an assault on this front. Indy's also masking his forces but take a look at this four yari ki masked up for a charge on the side that's why Indy's moving his yari ashigaru to try and deal with this force. But man if we had our own armstrong gun this would be a prime target. So now two bow warrior monks are going to be focusing on this force and so I would say we're trying to just weather the storm of the armstrong gun and come out on top with the skirmishing advantage and that'll allow us to then after that point in time pick apart the enemy troops. This imperial guard cab is trying to inch closer and it does get a final volley. My opponent being very pesky these are very hard units to deal with as the traditional avatars they're so powerful hit and run get out of there and do so much damage. But my bows are in a pretty good position to ward them off and look at this dead zone that I've created. The armstrong gun is also almost out of ammo but now the enemy realizes that hey their covering fire is almost done and so what they need right now is to capitalize on the remaining covering fire that they have and push for an assault. So all of the yari ki is now going to form up in the center for a massive strike and so now Indy and I are kind of starting to freak out. I pull my units into the center because we realize holy ---- they're coming in for a massive attack they're softening up my support. I pull up with my matchlocks bow warrior monks and other units to try and get into position to guard against this incoming charge. I have great guard that I've kept hidden this whole time I'm waiting for them to spring an attack. Indy meanwhile is now going to be faced with a charge. Let's watch this from the yari ki on this flank and I love the ability to see from the point of view of the troops as they're massing. So now we see the face off. Indy has spears, bows, and cav ready. The enemy has been kind of warded off and what they're going to do instead is they're going to raise the flags and they're going to signal for the shogatai to get in the mix and break upon my forces. So they're starting to amass. The assault is going to get underway they're moving some red bear infantry. My bows are going to start to shower these forces and so the enemy is starting to drop but I know I can't hold this back and take a look at what's following up behind this. A massive cavalry assault supporting the ally forces are going to get underway so this is a pretty scary assault. I want to put this on slow motion to see how Indypride and I react. Well I know this is going to be devastating for me so I'm going to have to pull out with my bows. I really should have had some long spear yari ashigaru or something to block this charge because this is going to be coming in straight between Indy and I's forces at full strength. What I'm going to try and do is reform with my matchlocks. I have two of them and they're going to be on overwatch looking over this position here at the enemy and we're going to try and create a killing field down here in the center. I have nodachi samurai, two nodachi, three nodachi getting ready to counter charge into this but I really need spears as the cavalry catches up and then I'm trying to bring up my supporting fire. Great guard is going to push around the right flank, try and get at a hammer and anvil while those guys are distracted and Indy is now going to shoot away at these positions and he has more yari cavalry. We know that this is the moment of truth so let's go ahead and watch this. Man this is freaking bloody as all hell. Sorry I'm putting on slow motion just so we can appreciate kind of what's going on because the chaos is now going to get underway. So the enemy lands a strike with their cavalry, they see that we counter charge now they're going to try and pull out of this. I have a lot of supporting fire into the enemy men but my nodachi here are getting shot to pieces by the imperial guard cav and I'm trying to pop an ability on them but I think I missed my chance and so they rout. Same with my katana cav that is stuck here in the mix, we're just not getting the kills that we need and now there's an overwhelming number of troops pouring through the center and nothing so much to stop them. Look at the carnage here, my matchlocks meanwhile on the hill are shooting at this target rich environment but it's really not coming to much. Another rank of my force is now going to start firing, my general's in the background there and we're continuing to fire into this blob but it's shattered through our main force here. Oh my god look at the chaos that's happened. So this huge assault has precipitated a charge from indy pride his yari ashigaru are eating up the assault but now no dachis are going to get in the mix. A cavalry engagement is underway somehow yari ashigaru and this yari cav has been beaten back probably because of the supporting fire. Two yari ki are going to get in at indy's bow warrior so the engagement the trade is not looking good for us but i think we have a good support of forces to get in and force these guys back so that's why the enemy yari ki is pulling out of this engagement and trying to recommit against indy's forces. I'm bringing up my great guard to try and reinforce we know this is going to be the critical moment so let's go ahead and press play and this is a hell of an engagement. Shogun battles tend to go like this where it's slow and then boom a crescendo of violence that just gets to critical levels and then the morale is such that some units can just break and shatter. So now they're pulling through with the yari ki we're in amongst the enemy ranks but the yari ki is getting through to us. My great guard is going to come here and try and tie down the enemy rear ranks and try and stymie this push. My other great guard pushed all the way through to this position and now i'm up against the red bears. Meanwhile the center area has seen a complete rout of both sides. A lot of men were massacred on both sides of the engagement. I had a lot of supporting fire from my bows and other units in the back so we even up the fight decently in the center but now the enemy infantry has pulled up and they're shooting away at my matchlocks. I have some forces to hold back the enemy but yeah this is not going super well. Some of my men are trying to rally i'm pulling up with some more nodachi and i'm trying to see this off but my great guard was absolutely shattered somehow by this red bear infantry. In the woods the ability of oftentimes in shogun you'll see units on guard mode be able to tank a cavalry engagement and continue shooting. They don't really get the disruption that you get in other games and so that's why it's pretty hard to deal with these gun forces. The engagement here is pretty brutal and he does break this yari ki prior to their charge but the rest of his forces are caught out in a big engagement. My great guard was pretty effective at beating back the enemy cavalry. I'm going to be pushing through to the general's bodyguard and trying to tank this however indy has seen a complete shattering of his main line with some of the enemy forces still remaining. Now my guys are going to turn about and we're going to see what we can do to deal with this red bear force. The enemy's shooting at my matchlocks i'm going to try and return fire with double his numbers. Obviously matchlocks, matchlock ashigaru that is, are not nearly as powerful so this engagement should kind of trade if i'm two to one with lower skill and so the enemy force is pulling back he's bringing in more red bears. The support of my uh bows is really important here so i'm able to see them off. This imperial guard cav however is very troublesome. I bring my general to beat back the shogutai trying to save my bows and my great guard here now takes a finishing blow from this red bear so this red bear has killed two of my great guard units and so they break before they can support uh any more of indy's forces although they did help kind of clean up the center and so now indy has two melee forces chasing after red bears and it looks like victory is going to be ours here. A remaining yari ki here with a yari ashigaru seems like it may be balanced although if they come back and hit our swords in the rear that's not going to be in our favor. Meanwhile over here we have imperial guard cav still in the mix and they're going to try and chase after my units reposition they want to fire at my general but now i have two bows shooting against them slowly picking away at their numbers. The days are numbered for my bow ashigaru here although they're not going to go down without a fight. Imperial guard cav down to 66 with a lot of supporting fire i think he was scared by my general here that i could have killed them um so i'm going to focus on trying to maybe knock out his shogatai um but i have to be wary so my guys are staying in the woods chipping away at his red bear at this point i'm playing a little bit of chicken and egg with my opponent. Indy's rallying his forces he killed the enemy guns but now this free yari ki is going to get in the back of his nodachi and the guns here you'll notice they're able to continue repositioning while the main line fires which makes gun forces way way way more powerful as i said than other uh total war mechanics it's one of the things that makes it really hard as i said to counter them i know i wouldn't say it's cheap but it definitely puts the edge even more in favor of gun troops when they can uh kind of reposition on dime like that and continue to fire at you. I have two bows faced off against the imperial guard cav they're dropping numbers rather precipitously and so somehow they can't take an engagement with my bows but that's why the support of the red bear is coming in here i know this is going to be turning rather hairy in this engagement and that's why i'm bringing in some nodachi try and chase these guys off so the right has been kind of somewhat neutralized by my bow warrior monks now picking away at general hatamoto and over here i have this juicy red bear infantry target trying to line up i'm pulling back my bows to be behind this ridge so i'm able to get shots on him whereas he doesn't have the best shots on me and just now he's finally i think going to be able oh my god look at this point blank shot into the red bears they seem to be dumbfounded and just as they're going to try and reform to get some shots off i get my dodachi a clean sweep through the red bears and we're going to make them even redder with the blood now splattering on the screen this is a really good pickup for me this red bear is going to be going down enemy general imperial guard is going to be thrown into the mix but my general is also here to reinforce and so i'm going to be able to do a lot of damage to these forces my nodachi we're at full strength so they're going to be doing a lot of good work this shogatai here is exhausted so in combat they would normally win this pretty handily but i'm going to pull out with my bows and charge in with my general and that's going to get these guys to start wavering even to start routing especially with this red bear going down i'm pulling up matchlocks to try and zone out more forces while i try and pivot with the rest of my troops my general sees off this unit and now the entire enemy force here pulling through the dead woods in full-out retreat scared of my general and so the odds seem to be turning back in my favor i have two bows positioned behind a hill plus an infantry unit and a general's unit charging into melee this red bear is next on the dinner menu same with this red bear so two more units are going to be falling into my grasp so we really have to just keep up the momentum here and the enemy is just throwing everything into this fight firing into the rear of their men they don't care they want to kill everything and so i have to as i said keep the momentum going my nodachi is now here going to charge into this imperial guard cab and they are yeah still eager and i popped rally before my general was killed so i get that ability off but my now my general is taking concerted focus fire from all the enemy they know taking him out is critical and there he drops to about two men and his unit is shattered however that sacrifice did buy me time to get some matchlock ashigaru fire on the flank and my donations to close and these guys are merciless in their murdering of my general but now both of my matchlocks are unloading on the remaining enemy i'm seeing this force off um i'm a hot sorry hatamoto is down to about 19 men and i have him caught in melee bows are pushing up so my guys have a resurgence of their morale but it's really a question of can the enemy reform so i'm pouring forward with everything and the main problem is my nodachi the core of my unit here ends up breaking and so now my bows are going to start to waver and this is a critical point where i think we have an inflection the enemy is now going to start to rally and my lone sword ashigaru will break and that is the critical moment where it starts to go downhill for me just as i was trying to save the day his start forces start to rally the line is reformed and my guys break but it was a nice heroic charge there at the end a pretty cool second win for my guys um and i found it to be very very fun so i hope you guys enjoy this battle i really like the shogun two fights they do play out on a bit different strategic level than most total wars and i really really like them plus the visuals are just absolutely stunning so anyways i hope you guys did enjoy this one stay tuned for more and uh yeah let's end the battle let's take a look at some of the final stats here see how my troops fared i'm guessing they didn't do too well most of the time when you're fighting against gun forces you have to kind of win through you're just rushing the enemy and inevitably you're going to take heavy casualties from the initial volley and you shouldn't be surprised if entire units get wiped out um which is what we saw in this battle i think i could have done a little bit better had i brought um some cheap spears or something to counter that blind that big push in the center i have not bought the dlc that allows me to bring um like attendant units which is something i definitely need to invest in because they're cheap and they would have blunted an assault like that especially against the cav um the enemy also brought a lot of numbers it looks like they had more forces than myself at indie uh so that was an interesting point to note our bows here getting a lot of kills um sort kills with 235 my general's bodyguard with 191 great god 138 and matchlocks actually even though they're super cheap and usually outgunned in this engagement they had a lot of targets to fire upon bow warrior monks with a lot of kills doing well so most of my troops doing fairly well i think it was the cheap loan sword actually guy who had to trade it out for our um for yari ashigaro they probably would have done better and this katana cav early in the fight just got chewed up um this force here toaster rifles with 212 yeah all of these guns just doing tremendous imperial guard cab with 127 always doing work and uh yeah that force did pretty well this one here for indie pride he got a lot of good kills bow warrior monks paying for themselves no dachi doing really good uh and his lower performing troops are gonna be his yari and i get an attendance so had i brought those guys i think they would have done equally well but i think it was just a chance a a matter of breaking back that enemy plunge through the center had we had spears or something to keep the enemy at bay especially ward off that cavalry would have been better but they also followed up with swords so we needed something in the mix to punish that we didn't really have it present uh this force here imperial guard to have 245 armstrong guns with 772 so really good his infantry here not doing too well although these two forces were uh admittedly unengaged in the fight so it's hard to say how they would have performed but overall i think it was a fun battle and i do hope you guys enjoyed definitely make sure to check out my facebook page where i share uh military history related content so not only previews of my future documentaries kind of stuff in the works but also related content content like podcasts magazines uh and other youtubers so definitely that out anyways thanks so much for watching stay tuned for more and seeing the next one peace out