User blog comment:Ekreture/Ashigaru vs Yeoman Archer/@comment-5795750-20140723030344

BG1's "The Bow is Mightier than the Gun?" Edges

Short: I'm tempted to call this even considering that the Wakizashi is essentially a shorter form of the aerodynamic katana and given its aerodynamics the cutting power should be deadly; but instead, I will actually give the edge to the arming sword because a) it is longer than the wakizashi and b) the sword and shield combo would be very effective compared to just having the sword

EDGE: Yeoman

Medium: So essentially you have a long wooden stick against a long wooden stick with a pointy thing at the end of it plus a few prongs on the side and both are equally good in their own way. However my edge goes to the yari as a stabbing or slashing wound inflicted by it would be deadlier the bludgeoning and bashing of the staff

EDGE: Ashigaru

Long: So we have a matchlock musket vs a bow. The edge here may look obvious at first but then again one must take notice of the longbows range compared to the musket as well as the power behind each shot. Both weapons actually have low rates of fire and perhaps reloading time - the musket for obvious reasons, the longbow due to the weight of the bows and arrows (apparently even the most skilled archers cannot fire without being exhausted). You know what? Given my discovery of that aforementioned fact, I'm calling this even.

EDGE: Even

Overall Winner: My god this is a close fight and I am trying to picture how things might turn out. Again I have taken into consideration the long reload time of the tanegashima and the fatigue suffered by the Yeoman as a result of firing their bows time after time as well as carrying the weapon. It all really depends on whether the opponents will charge at each other at any given opportunity and who charges first... which is where the medium and close range edges come into play. I'm going against the tide here and say that the Ashigaru will win this because while they may lose out on the long range battle by a margin, the fatigue suffered by the Yeomans as a result of their constant rain of arrows is not easy to ignore and while their sword-and-buckler combination is effective over the wakizashi, that is only the case if the archer isn't too tired out to draw out the sword and shield in time which, again taking into account the fatigue, is a slim chance. Also the Ashigaru may have dealt with men wielding longbows before (i.e. the yumi longbow) and thus their strategy with dealing such men might come into play whether they are charging the archers or the archers give up their bows and start charging towards them. I cannot deny that accuracy will be an important factor in this battle, though, hence why I say that this battle will be close.