Yugekitai

Yugekitai
Appears in	Fall of the Samurai
Belongs to	Jozai
Type	Light Infantry
Ammunition	20
Soldiers per unit	30/60/90/120
Attack skill	6
Charge bonus	15
Anti-cavalry skill	0
Armour	2
Defense skill	4
Range	150
Precision	55
Loading speed	30
Morale	8
Produced from	Military Academy
Special abilities	Suppression Fire
Cost	1070 SP/1500 MP
Upkeep	140
Turns to train	1
Unit cap	12* SP/None MP

Yugekitai are a type of light infantry in Fall of the Samurai.

Description

Striking from concealment, these riflemen are expert at ambushes and similar battlefield deceits.

Yugekitai are a force of guerrilla fighters, irregular troops who can move unseen and strike without warning before melting away into concealment once more. They can hide in woods, move while hidden, and can be deployed away from the main army as an ambushing force. Armed with accurate rifles, they can give a good account of themselves in battle, and even remain hidden while firing. These skills, along with their belief in the rightness of their cause, give them good morale. They are, however, vulnerable to cavalry attacks, and will be quickly ridden down if they are mishandled. They should also not be sent into close combat with any expectation of victory.

Irregular warfare often throws up unlikely protagonists, men with a talent for applied violence who would never get the chance to use it but for a war. Guerillas (the word is Spanish and means “little war”) have a long history, and anyone taking up arms can be a guerrilla. In modern parlance, the term has neutral connotations, as opposed to “freedom fighters” who can be propagandised as the “good guys”. “Terrorists”, “insurgents” or even “bandits” are obviously being portrayed as bad even though they are guerrillas too. In practical terms, there may be little difference in methods between the guerrillas, freedom fighters, terrorists and insurgents: all will use ambush and similar underhand methods to achieve their goals against forces that have conventional military superiority. Guerrillas do not fight fairly, or attack the enemy’s main strength: they attack where the enemy is not; they cause fear out of all proportion to their numbers; and they play a long game of outlasting their foes’ will to win. Guerrillas are a political as well as a military force.

Strengths & Weaknesses

• Can deploy outside main deployment area.
• Very good accuracy and reload rate.
• Long range.
• Weak in melee.
• Weak against cavalry.
• Good morale.
• Can move and fire whilst hidden.

*Yugekitai are technically listed as having a cap of four regiments. However, the Jozai are automatically granted a cap of ten regiments as one of their clan traits. As the Jozai are the only faction that can train Yugekitai, the effective cap in any situation they can be recruited in is ten regiments, or twelve after the appropriate technologies have been researched.

General Information

Unique to the Jozai, Yugekitai are superior to Sharpshooters, with better accuracy and reload skill. Compared to the Tosa Riflemen, Yugiketai have slightly better accuracy, but much poorer reload skill. Unlike their counterparts, Yugekitai are capped at 12 regiments.

The Jozai begin the campaign with one regiment of Yugekitai, which can make a large difference in the early game as units that out-shoot and out-range anything else on the battlefield for a significant stretch of time.

The most unique advantage Yugekitai have over their counterparts is that they have considerably better stealth capabilities, allowing them to lay ambushes, though they are less effective at protracted firefights than Tosa Riflemen. They also run slightly faster than all other infantry (even, for example, Yari Kachi using Rapid Advance), allowing them to safely hit and run. They are aided in this by their superior stamina.

Yugekitai are best countered with other light infantry, cavalry from the flanks or rear, or melee infantry that approach them from wooded or uneven terrain. Line infantry can also close the gap and fight back, though this is a costly move against prepared yugekitai.