Negotiating a surrender with Asakura is another super disappointing end. Can't levy a vassal, can't bang Yuki, can't capture Yoshikage, can't hear that awesome music. We sure as Hell ain't gonna do that! Entering Turn 24, we're going to do another 1-2 Punch Offense and defend with the left-overs if Tenshi attacks. You can see how if I was at war with more than two Houses right now, I'd be losing land left and right with my current army size.
Two attacks will capture Asakura House! ... I reload three times to stop Kenshin from showing up and swatting me with a newspaper.
Yoink. You know what's next.
Advance On (v2)I have to retry this battle ten times. Asakura has an incredibly powerful defensive set-up here. He always spawns with two Foot Soldiers, a strong Tactician to spread 6 buffs around, an Archer, a Musket unit and Yoshikage himself in the front for once, to properly punch me in my impudent face. His Foot Soldiers range from 500 to
900 Stack and build Guard frequently. Yoshikage can either Alpha you freely or remove your own Guard. I annihilated that Archer unit earlier so he starts with half HP each time, but Yoshikage seems to spare no expense between turns in healing his own unit. The Musket unit is a red herring...
Muskets are front-line only, or have to be in the front row like a melee unit. They usually only have a single action flag, cannot counter-attack and have terrible defenses like an Archer or Ninja unit. To make up for all of this, their Offensive capabilities are out-standing. A Musket unit that fires on an Unguarded unit with less Stack will easily one-shot the entire unit! If we were using Muskets, a Musket with 2 Foot Soldiers or 2 Muskets with 1 Foot Soldier would be good front rows. I'm personally not a fan of them as they require baby-sitting to be used, are useless after the initial burst and are insanely expensive to increase Stack size, making it costly to actually have Musket units that one-shot. But they're an interesting consideration as a single unit investment for offense, and they're an exciting new threat in turn order. Having quick units that can whittle a Musket unit down to half HP before it fires is essential.
The 1400(!) strong Heirloom Musket unit here is a trap. If you clear Asakura's very defensive front row, they'll oblige you with a nearly guaranteed one-shot.
Experimenting with 40% worth of Miko Storms and a few failed attempts to get our own tacticians to toss us buffs, we're able to get a good turn order and whittle down a lot of Morale with Mikos and a few Shuriken. A great trick I use this battle is that when fighting two Foot Soldier units with 100% or more Guard Meter, I attack the one I don't want to damage. The other one will always intercept! Or, if you have a 900/900 120% and a 300/650 100%, you attack the first guy. The second guy has a 100% chance to intercept and you're trying to finish him off. If you wanted to attack the 900/900 guy to dent his stack in case he goes on the offense, target the second guy. Guard Meter percentages don't apply to intercepting attacks meant for yourself, only allies.
Using my clever, clever brain to whittle down one of the Guard units and beating the other down to 50% Guard, I unleash a lucky Rance Attack on Yoshikage and claim a hard-fought Morale victory.