Better Know a (Bad) Pretender: the Terrible Three

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Pablomatic

In CBM Jomon is much easier to play, and should probably take the Celestial General (with auto-spawn shield bearing troops to complement the samurai archers, and mounted archers to complement samurai cavalry).

Samurai archers? Ew. Do not buy. Useless, and more dangerous to you than your opponent.

Go-Hatamoto, Aka-Oni, cavalry, and Yamabushi basically cover all your truly worthwhile units. Samurai with naginata are an ok replacement for Yamabushi away from your capital. Everything else is crap.

I like pure scales play with Jomon. Although you can also bless your yamabushi - 7 W9 yamabushi expand just fine. I've certainly never had a real problem expanding with them.

[Pablomatic]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Samurai archers? Ew. Do not buy. Useless, and more dangerous to you than your opponent.

Go-Hatamoto, Aka-Oni, cavalry, and Yamabushi basically cover all your truly worthwhile units. Samurai with naginata are an ok replacement for Yamabushi away from your capital. Everything else is crap.

I like pure scales play with Jomon. Although you can also bless your yamabushi - 7 W9 yamabushi expand just fine. I've certainly never had a real problem expanding with them.

Well, there are different ways to play them. I agree Go-Hatamotos are good. Never tried a major bless with them, doesn't seem right, and I am surprised 7 yamabushi can do anything even with a bless. What if the enemy has archers?

Samurai archers are OK, and useful for many situations, just be careful with placement of your un-shielded infantry, or better yet use all archer or all infantry armies in the early going.

How are you summoning your Aka-Onis with no death mages and they're conj 3 I think in vanilla? I suppose you could have your pretender start summoning them, but 3 for 10 fire gems?

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Pablomatic

Well, there are different ways to play them. I agree Go-Hatamotos are good. Never tried a major bless with them, doesn't seem right, and I am surprised 7 yamabushi can do anything even with a bless. What if the enemy has archers?

Samurai archers are OK, and useful for many situations, just be careful with placement of your un-shielded infantry, or better yet use all archer or all infantry armies in the early going.

How are you summoning your Aka-Onis with no death mages and they're conj 3 I think in vanilla? I suppose you could have your pretender start summoning them, but 3 for 10 fire gems?

Pretty sure Aka-Oni is the unit you can buy with red armor.

Samurai archers are not OK. They cost too many resources for a weapon that is crap against 85% of the units other players will be fielding, because armor is heavier in LA. Longbows don't cut it anymore. And as with all archers, massing is key, and at 20+ resources each, you just can't mass them acceptably. I'd take shortbows at 3-4 resources apiece over those, because they'll be much more effective with flaming arrows since they're far more massable.

Regarding yamabushi vs. archers
I might have archer pulled in the games i tested them with using a couple ashigaru.

It may also be the case that they were simply fast enough to not notice/care about archers. Indie archers are shortbows after all.

I'm not saying i would normally take a major bless for Jomon, I like pure scales. But it can work for a smaller game.

[rdonj]

I have to agree with the squirrel on this. Samurai archers are not really a good use of resources. The only unit that takes more in your entire lineup is samurai cavalry... which has much more kick per unit than the archers do. IMO, with Jomon efficiency per resources is extremely important, and as squirrel says that does not leave you with many options. You either go with the cavalry (quite decent under CBM but very offensively-minded... probably your best non-sacred early unit), go-hatamoto (very efficient, map move 1 doesn't hurt expansion too much when you're starting out, and their high armor is enough to shrug off anything short of crossbows), or aka-oni (more skilled and faster than go-hatamoto, but worse armor... I'd wait to use these guys until after initial expansion honestly). It could be interesting to go with a bless with jomon because they have so many sacred summons though, so while I agree again with squirrel about focusing on scales, that doesn't mean it couldn't be fun to take a nice bless, luck 3 for the extra gems, and pretend you're a bless nation.

Edit: yes, aka-oni are the red armored guys. They are your goto unit once you have good buffing abilities due to their higher skill and general utility.

And remember that jomon has death access through nushi! It's still not necessarily a bad idea to have some death on your pretender though, just to get searching started on it earlier.