[Squirrelloid]

I have to disagree with your premise.

1) Dai-Bakemono are much better for indie expansion. Virtually no casualties mean expansion armies that never need to resupply. Bakemono-sho just won't do that for you.

2) Because dai-bakemono are resource-limited, an early focus on them will free up gold for castles and bakemono sorcerors that you wouldn't have otherwise.

3) By using Dai-Bakemono for expansion you set your opponent up for some amazing sleight of hand in the mid game. Those sneaky bakemono-sho are even better if he's expecting a purely dai-bakemono army. If you use bakemono-sho from the get go he's expecting them to materialize from nowhere.

4) To take advantage of the stealth, you need to either use castle-time hiring national commanders (to get stealth leaders), or get lucky and find an indie stealth leader (the monkey poptype comes to mind).

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So basically I would argue you want Pr3 and to focus on Dai Bakemono early because it makes for a much better early game *and* potentially misdirects your opponent about your army building going into a midgame war. That Pr3 also compounds the O3 income boost you're collecting, giving you yet more cash than otherwise.

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I think you've assembled a strawman in how people use (or at least should use) Dai Bakemono. Why stick them all the way in the back and have them fire. Stick them just out of 2-3 turns move (depending on if you're attacking or defending) with hold and attack - they'll fire a couple times and then charge. Those initial volleys will soften up anything but the hardiest troops in MA before the dai bakemono descend into melee. This certainly works against independents where you'll be hard-pressed to find an indie province that doesn't lose to 20 dai bakemono archers (and weaker indies can be taken with substantially less). This also avoids the problem of firing on yourself.