Yari Ashigaru

Yari Ashigaru

The yari ashigaru, or light foot soldiers, carry spear weaponry (the "yari"indicates their long, spear-based weaponry) and serve as a base military unit. As the statistics indicate, yari ashigaru aren't especially strong or durable and certainly suffer greatly from their lack of battle morale. However, the yari ashigaru are cheap and quick to produce, providing an opportunity to overwhelm an opponent with sheer numbers - even if those numbers aren't especially skilled. Success with the yari ashigaru, as in all Shogun: Total War units, requires implementing the yari ashigaru at the right opportunity.

The yari ashigaru's poor morale means you should keep them behind other units; their sudden battle retreat could affect your other troops. Use yari ashigaru to support archers and other ranged units as well as your rear and side flank from cavalry attack. Cheap cost can often correlate with the yari ashigaru's frequency in battle. Keep a few groups of yari ashigaru fresh for the later stages of a battle where their numbers could overwhelm and combat tired cavalry.

Use the yari ashigaru (and the spear-based yari samurai) in a wide phalanx-style formation to protect critical ranged units and rear and side flanks from cavalry attack. For instance, turn hold position and hold formation on to form an unmoving wall - sacrificing offensive ability to make them much more defensively capable. Protecting other, more useful offensive units from cavalry attack is a job for the yari infantry.

For example, there are special adjustments for yari infantry fighting against cavalry. However, the yari spearmen only receive the adjustments if facing the cavalry. Shogun: Total War determines this combat on a man-by-man basis; if the spearman's formation is broken up, individual horsemen may flank individual yari troops. Keep the spearmen in wide, tight formations to prevent cavalry from flanking individual yari infantry; as mentioned above, hold position and hold formation can assist and let yari troops receive the adjustments.

Being cheap infantry (and arguably somewhat expendable), the yari ashigaru can be used to divert enemy ranged fire (costing the enemy ammunition), while employing a flank attack or advance against a particular enemy position. In this instance, you'd want to keep the ashigaru in a loose formation to minimize arrow damage. Employing the yari ashigaru as a human wall against enemy archer fire is also possible, such as when you decide to advance against an enemy position - though the yari ashigaru's poor morale could wreak havoc throughout your critical units following close behind. Ashigaru could also turn useful in river map battles. Placing them on the fore would protect your expensive units from enemy archers at the expense of sacrificing the poor peasants. Also, when crossing a river, place ashigaru on the fore so that the enemy would tire her units on them and afterwards you could crush the exhausted enemy with your fresh shock troops.

Conclusion:

Yari Ashigaru are the cheapest unit and could serve you well in your first decades due to the low koku and low-quality armies and you could easily win by numerical strength rather than with honour and morale.

But when honour rises, koku increases, armies grow stronger and battles more vicious, leave your poor peasants at home.