Slitherine

Just had my first battle with this list against a similar army and it was great fun. Ended in a tie with both armies broken. One thing seems odd though, the only shock troops on the field were detached followers with offensive speers. (i.e. peasents being more agressive than Samurai!)

Deeter

Perhaps they were not more aggressive. Perhaps it just made sense to charge as soon as possible rather than stand and get shot up.

RBS mentioned in another thread where a similar issue was raised about Vikings with HW that troops with the HW classification were not treated as shock troops because the category was primarily devised to represent medieval halberdiers and similar troops with pole arms who were generally not primarily intended for aggressive use on the battlefield. Think of them as a slightly more aggressive category of the defensive spearmen that are found with them in medieval armies. Similarly the various Chinese infantry in the lists with HW are not primarily shock troops. This does tend to mean that some "outliers" with HW are not treated as shock troops even if there might be some justification to do so. In the Viking case, the Huscarls/Hird have the option to be treated as offensive spearmen instead which does allow them to be shock troops. It appears that their is a similar option for detached Bushi after 1467.

Chris