Post by SolidLight on Jul 21, 2024 21:23:00 GMT
So I feel pretty comfortable doing things like this at this point after having played plenty of this game. So here's a rambling guide over every unit in the game!
Because each unit isn't equally as valuable in every facet of the game, I'll be giving each of them a grade from S to F on just how useful they are overall in Campaign, Tenkabito and Conquest. You can kinda use this as a marker for which units to buy and which to upgrade first (and by how much). S tier units should be at the highest level possible and F-tier ones should probably just be left at lv.0. D/C tier units can be leveled up to something like lv. 10 or so because the lower levels are cheaper. Conquest is also a bigger deal than the two others in the long term, so if you have more than enough for the other two, just focus on the conquest rating.
Also if you're not maxing out the unit, the most impactful levels happen on each fifth interval, so you want to be like lv. 10 or lv. 15. And remember that in challenge conquest you always get +1 level to your units too!
Oh, and this is mostly based on MY playstyle, so some things are going to be heavily influenced by that. I'd wager it's probably optimal enough that this'd be a helpful guide anyway though.
Lastly, the stats shown are just of the levels that my units are at, so don't go thinking that Kagemusha is super weak or anything. I MIGHT come back and show all the lv. 20 stats eventually.
This is a tremendously helpful spreadsheet over where every single special unit is in conquest: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VxvHRFC1pur6Y-SZl_N8PuyXLo7ZDvTje_M24PYThVg/edit?pli=1&gid=163603522#gid=163603522
Navy is incredibly weird in this game, but this guide by jonblend explains it pretty well: european-war-4.boards.net/thread/19628/naval-warfare-gcs2
Infantry:
Ashigaru:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 40 coins, 80 food per stack
The militia of the game. Like in the vast majority of the ET games except for the WC-series, this is invaluable in conquest because infantry is the only unit type that can be spawned out of cities and this is the cheapest. 99% of the time you should just rely on these to defend your cities, and sometimes you should just make some 1 stacks to do some cheap offense. Now, I don't think they're the most cost-effective units for that. The ashigaru tier cavalry, teppo, and archers do much better damage and have better survivability. But they all need camps, and you're generally better off letting the AI build those for you. In a perfect world we don't have to make these, but we do. I'd also argue that their stats are so bad that most of the time it isn't worth putting infantry generals on them.
Campaign is often marked by starting with extremely low income and low starting money, plus very few worthwhile units and way more general slots than you can effectively use. So you COULD do things like making 1 stack ashigarus, put support generals like Yoshihisa, Yoshitaka and Okuni on those and boost up someone like Masamune or Musashi to do massive damage. Not always worth doing or possible though.
And in Tenkabito it's available early but quickly outclassed and never used again.
Naginata Infantry:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 80 coins, 120 food per stack
So one trend you're going to see here is that the more advanced units rarely justify their extra cost. These ARE significantly superior to the Ashigaru though, but not nearly enough to be worthwhile to spawn. The only reason they get their D ranks is because you often start out with some in campaign and conquest, and you could put an infantry general on one if you're really, really desperate in the latter.
The same problem that Ashigaru has applies to them in Tenkabito.
Yari Samurai:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 100 coins, 160 food per stack
Has barely any higher stats than the Naginata Infantry but still considerably more expensive, what's up with that? It's better at dealing with ranged units, but cavalry brigades are much better at that anyway, so basically worthless. It IS sometimes, rarely worth spawning them in with a tactic though, mostly to get a unit in a place where you couldn't have had it otherwise.
Pirate:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 8 knowledge, 90 food per stack
This is a unit I've been trying to make work in conquest. It has a really low price as far as knowledge goes but great attack. I mean its min. damage is almost the same as the Yari Samurai's max damage. None of the abilities it has are good for much, though you could make the argument that its actually sturdier than something like the Warrior Monk since it doesn't take fire damage and can heal a couple times throughout a conquest. I actually think you need to make a training ground to do it since you need to make a lot of pirates fast if you're trying to use them. Completely useless for the other two areas of the game though.
Ninja:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 10 knowledge, 90 food per stack
Now here's a very cool unit. This is one of the two units in the game that innately ignores interrupt, and it's the earliest available way to have that ability since you need to level some horses up to lv. 9 otherwise. You can use it for some city capturing shenanigans in early Tenkabito, but it's outclassed once you can get those horses up to lv.9. It's dirt cheap in conquest and excellent for what you're looking to do there. Not shabby at fighting either since their attack and crit are great for their price. Sandayu also does exceptionally well with them there. This is one of the two infantry units that really makes infantry generals viable to use in conquest.
Warrior Monk:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 10 knowledge, 90 food per stack
Basically just a slightly more expensive pirate. I think it's intended to be used to defend cities, but it sucks at that for its price. And healing is a complete joke of an ability since you could save more HP if you just kill the unit that's about to attack you. Like the pirate it's sometimes worth using generals on it, and you sometimes start with it (Honganji has a ton). Though they're often competing with the Archer Warrior Monk when you have them available.
Sidenote: Infantry isn't even mechanically the best unit type for city defending. The only thing they've got going for them in that role is that they can be spawned out of cities and are affordable, but archers can counterattack the most units. The issue is that generic archers don't have good enough survivability to defend cities, but archer generals are WAY better than infantry generals at this job. The best city defending general in the game is actually Mori Motonari.
Kagemusha:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 16 knowledge, 120 food per stack
It's almost better than the Elite Samurai in terms of damage (though less consistent) due to it's abilities, but it's way less worthwhile to upgrade because it's less common in campaign and completely terrible in Conquest. Literally every city that can spawn them can make Elite Cavalry anyway.
Akazonae Infantry:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 14 knowledge, 100 food per stack.
This unit is pure garbage. Statistically it's not horrible as far as infantry units go, but it's ALWAYS outclassed every single time because you can make Elite Cavalry if you can make this. Non-existent in campaign, and you have to buy it to unlock it (unless you started playing at launch). Easy skip.
Elite Samurai:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 18 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Kinda just an average unit overall. It's the second best special infantry unit in the game, but still not really anywhere near as good as the Swordmaster, so while it's widely available, it's isn't really worth spawning unless it's the best you've got, which admittedly is the case for a couple clans. Pretty common in Campaign too, and you'd probably still want it for Tenkabito. Not an amazing unit, but still worth picking up I'd say.
Swordmaster:
Campaign: S, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 20 knowledge, 140 food per stack
The best special infantry unit by a long shot. It's the only infantry unit that can easily do more damage than cavalry and teppo thanks to having three abilities that just essentially boosts its damage. Musashi also has incredible crowd control, so this is one of the three generally viable units to spawn into campaign. They're also very good to open with if you have access to them in conquests. It's even worth unlocking them early even if you don't get any Swordmaster generals since Hideyoshi does better on this than the Elite Samurai. A bit pricey to unlock, but definetly worthwhile.
Cavalry:
Cavalry Brigade:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 80 coins, 100 food per stack
Best cavalry unit overall in conquest. You should even use your generals on them. I'd also say that this is the best out of all the ashigaru tier units because the charge mechanic allows them to do vastly more damage against units than all the other unit types. And it's enormous mobility allows it to sometimes capture cities that other units couldn't and just lets them hit more ideal targets too. And they're much tougher than infantry thanks to their higher HP.
There's some niches with surprise charge in Martial Arena since you're often looking to demoralize the boss. Sometimes it's worth trying to do that with this one while you save the better ones (Elite/Horoshu) for later.
Cavalry is pretty much the best unit type overall. So most of these are going to be pretty high up and you're going to see far fewer F's than on infantry.
Naginata Cavalry:
Cam::paign: C, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 100 coins, 150 food per stack
Doens't even have higher attack than the Cavalry Brigade at the same level. Weird. Anyway, that means that this is basically just a slower cav brigade, but with Pulverize instead of Intimidate. The game is a bit ambigious about what infantry or cavalry is because the ranged units count as one or the other in regards to adaptability (and whether they're vulnerable to charges), but Pulverize applies ONLY for melee infantry.
It still isn't really worth spawning over the Cavalry Brigade. Generals want to hit cities most of the time and intimidate is good for non-general units because survivability actually helps those since you can expect them to die over the course of a conquest. Pulverize helps crush the garrison, but most of the generals you're spawning early are probably getting special units or good enough to do that consistently even on the Cavalry Brigade. Plus mobility becomes an increasingly bigger deal the later on into a conquest you get. Even then, there's a bunch of clans that start with some for free and it might be worth putting a general on one.
Heavy Cavalry:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 120 coins, 200 food per stack
Naginata cav but stronger and slower, and less cost effective, as usual. It's a bit more useful than that one though since some clans can spawn it in with a tactic. And you might rely a bit on it in Tenkabito if you've got tons of cavalry early.
Elite Cavalry:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: A, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 20 knowledge, 150 food per stack
The best special cavalry unit in conquest! It's widely available and hits way harder than the generics thanks to Long-distance Raid. 14 move too! Rarely will another special cavalry unit be a better option if you have this available.
I can't entirely recall how its availability is in campaign, but I'm sure it's pretty good since this unit isn't really associated with one particular clan. Also, because horse harnesses are in huge demand and there not being a good way to farm them, this is likely to be at a higher level than the other units, so it's really great for Tenkabito too.
Horoshu Cavalry:
Campaign: A, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 18 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Basically just a tankier version of the Elite Cavalry. It's arguably weaker in conquest though since at lv.20 it caps out at lv. 2 Long-distance Raid instead of lv. 3, and it's less available overall. It basically only exists in Kiyosu, and only Shibata can spawn it in with a tactic. It's really good in the early game though since Keiji specs on it, and it's generally pretty widely available in Campaign since the vast majority of it is played from Oda's perspective, definetly worth picking up.
Akazonae Heavy Cavalry:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: B
Conquest price: 24 knowledge, 200 food per stack
Actually kinda middling as far as cavalry go. It SHOULD be really good for Tenkabito at least, but the trouble is that you have to play conquest in order to unlock it and it just isn't really that feasible to start doing that first. Maneuvering is also less effective here than on the other two units because it only has 1 range. The ability to attack again after killing something is usually way more powerful when you've got a ranged attack to go with it, Just look at the heavy tanks in WC4. And it's also just a less effective ability in general than in the other games since it doesn't trigger if you hit cities and it's capped at activating once per turn. Maneuvering can get to 100% in this game, but it's basically not a thing since you have to get to lv. 20 to have it on any unit, which means you have to complete the campaign (when ET does it) and you're almost certainly done with Tenkabito too in that case.
Elite Cavalry is available anytime Akazonae Heavy Cavalry is, so it's really hard to justify spawning any. Takeda and Sanada can make some with their tactic though.
Hatamoto:
IAP-players: Campaign: A, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: A
F2P-players: Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 220 food per stack
This unit is vastly different in usefulness between IAP and F2P players. F2P players can't use it in Tenkabito and they can't upgrade it, so it's hopelessly weak for them. It's one of the best units in the game for people with the battlepass though. Kenshin has pretty much a monopoly on it in that case and its even a viable unit to spawn into campaign.
Sanada Akazonae:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 24 knowledge, 200 food per stack
This is one of the strongest cavalry units in the game, and it still somehow sucks. This is because everything surrounding it makes it extremely impractical to use. You need to reach lv. 44 in the campaign/tenkabito Battlepass to unlock it, so it isn't really feasible to use it in those. And in conquest it's only available in one territory in the last two conquests. And in Resurface of Chaos you have to get the kami to build it. And even then it's not really worth spawning because Sanada can make Elite Cavalry from the get go anyway. So the ONLY benefits you get from upgrading it are in Martial Arena and to make Yukimura a bit better when you play as Sanada in conquest, that's it.
Though I suppose it might be worthwhile if you've bought Yukimura when you started playing though. Probably not since there isn't a good way to efficiently farm horse harnesses like with flags or arrows.
Archers:
Archer Ashigaru:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 50 coins, 80 food per stack
Your bread and butter archer unit in conquest. It's so much better than the regular infantry Ashigaru while it barely costs any more than it. Not quite as powerful as the Cavalry Brigade or the Teppo Ashigaru, but this is arguably the cheapest unit that's worth using generals on.
Elite Archer:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 90 coins, 120 food per stack
Just like all the other mid-tier units. Just less cost-effective overall and basically never worth spawning in conquest. Though sometimes it might be worth putting a general on one at the start if you have one for free.
Yumi Samurai:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 110 coins, 160 food per stack
Basically Marksman-lite. That's still not good enough to be spawning over the Archer Ashigaru. Atleast Snipe is pretty good for conquest, and some clans get to make them via tactics. Valor is something that's vastly more helpful in Campaign and Tenkabito over Conquest because enemy units there can have cheated up HP, and it's more helpful early on. In conquest it's almost worthless. Still, it's just entirely outclassed by the Marksman in Tenkabito and you're probably not going to have room to use both unless you get a TON of archers at the start.
Flame Arrow Squad:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 10 knowledge, 90 food per stack
The fire gimmick of this unit is arguably more harmful to you than to the enemy (like it is in every ET game with a fire unit) because each unit they have is relatively less important to them than to you, and also because one of the principal reasons you attack a unit is to clear out the space they occupied. You're going to walk into ALOT of fires that you've set yourself. This isn't really good enough to justify using in most situations, though you might open up with them in Conquest if you've got some for free and REALLY desperate.
Archer Warrior Monk:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: B
Conquest price: 12 knowledge, 90 food per stack
This thing has some serious offense for its price actually. I mean it's got higher attack than the Marksman and is cheaper. You're probably not going to use it in Campaign or Tenkabito, but you could consider opening with archer generals on these in conquest. Oh, and it's WAY better at defending cities than the infantry Warrior Monk.
Crossbowman:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 18 knowledge, 120 food per stack, in practice 81 knowledge 540 food for a 3x stack
This is a unit another unit that's much better on paper than in practice. MOST enemies in the game are going to have lower HP than you, and Rapid Fire grants you essentially another layer of crit. But Tenkabito/Campaign enemies can have cheated up HP, which would make the Marksman better for that, plus boosting crit chance is much more consistent than boosting crit damage, especially since there's not really much gear to boost crit on archers. And in conquest it's just too unavailable and pretty much never the best unit to spawn for knowledge. And lastly Motochika/Muneshige is just more useful than Ieyasu in every facet of the game except maybe Martial Arena.
Apparently it just outright does not exist in conquest too. I swear I remembered it being spawnable, but I'm wrong about that somehow.
Marksman:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: A, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Pretty much identical to the Yumi Samurai actually. Neither is really worth spawning anyway so the price difference doesn't really matter, and it has more or less the same availability and the same abilities too. Much better for Tenkabito though since Motochika and Muneshige specs on them and it has a stronger Valor to go with it.
Mounted Archer:
Campaign: A, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 20 knowledge, 200 food per stack
The best special archer unit in the game! Motonari basically has monopoly on it and it's amazing for the Campaign and Tenkabito if you have him. I don't think that combo is quite as good as Swordmaster Musashi or Mounted Teppo Masamune though. And I generally still don't find it good enough to justify spawning in campaign since archers just do less damage than cavalry and Elite Cavalry is often available at the same time, though sometimes it is.
Shadow Ninja:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Fail. And those ratings applies to both players who have it and players who don't. I mean this is just a ninja with a ranged attack, yet it costs more than 2x as much AND it's always available with the ninja in conquest! You should never under any circumstances spawn one. Completely useless for campaign too, and you totally don't need two ninjas to do ninja things in Tenkabito either. You shouldn't even let Chiyome use her free lv. 12 Shadow Ninja in the Takeda campaign because it doesn't have Impale or any other damaging abilities for killing units. One of the very worst units in the entire game.
Musketeers:
Teppo Ashigaru:
Campaign: A, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 80 coins, 90 food per stack
This... is pretty much how Nobunaga drew it up and did it! Yeah so like 95% or so of all teppo you spawn should be this. It's even pretty good for Tenkabito since it's likely at a higher level than your other teppo units except for the Mounted one.
Oh, and I do know they're actually called musketeers, I just like calling them Teppo.
Elite Teppo:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 120 coins, 120 food per stack
Slightly stronger but more expensive and less cost effective overall, just like all tier-2 units. Slower too.
Teppo Samurai
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 160 coins, 160 food per stack
Like the Elite Teppo, except that some clans get to spawn them in with a tactic. Fuses are a bit harder to come by than some of the other upgrade materials unless you have Ginchiyo, so you could very well have this at a higher level than some of the other teppo.
Rain-Covering Teppo:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 120 food per stack
The primary reason you use this is to have a teppo unit in rain. Weather isn't a super common element of the game so that's not very useful overall. It's stats are pretty solid and it's pretty common in Campaign. Garbage in conquest though. I don't really recommend getting this unless you get absolutely showered in teppo generals in the early game.
Shield Teppo:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 24 knowledge, 120 food per stack
Really lousy teppo unit. It's got less attack and more defense than other teppo units, but as has been established pretty well by now, offense is just far more important than survivability. It's especially useless for a teppo unit of all things because their defense is to simply attack from range and shoot things down before they start hurting. And they can't counterattack, so they're terrible on enemy phase anyway. Teppo are still a pretty great unit type and it's available at the start if you play Azai, and Shigehide specs on it, so it's not completely worthless, but definetly not good. Also that -1 movement hurts.
Tanegashima Teppo:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: A, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 30 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Probably the best special foot teppo in the entire game. That's not saying much though since the others suck. It has some serious availability issues since it's spawnable in like one campaign level and is only available for Shimazu in World Unification. And even then it's really not worth spawning since its cost is colossal and they can make Elite Cavalry anyway. They do start with some for free and can spawn it in with a tactic though.
I will say though, that IF you have Nobunaga, then it's probably an S-tier unit in both Campaign and Tenkabito.
Mounted Teppo:
Campaign: S, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 28 knowledge, 200 food per stack
The only unit I'm gonna give three straight S's on. Admittedly this is really influenced by my own playstyle since Masamune is the guy I usually spawn into conquest and it's not a consensus among everyone here that that's the way to go, but I'm pretty sure it is, even if you don't have Kuragiri Kagehide. Now this is easily the best teppo unit in the game and quite possibly the single best unit out of all of them. Masamune just obliterates everything with it, and he's MUCH better on this than on any other unit since he specs on it, AND he has high cavalry adapt too. I'd even go as far as to say it might be worth making them in conquest when you're playing Ashina in Armed Unification or Date (just not 3x stacks). Date in particular can spawn them in themselves.
Sidenote: I'm not really sure why ET seems to associate the Date clan with mounted gunners so heavily in this game. All their tactics relate to it and their unique one is called "Dragoon Tactics". I can't really find much on the internet that indicate that they did that much of it.
Warrior Monk Teppo:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 32 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Everything about this unit is hilariously overpriced. You have to shell out 1950 ban-kin to unlock it and it's obscenely expensive in conquest, and all that for a unit that's roughly as powerful as the Rain-Covering Teppo, which is also not worth using. This might be the least cost effective unit in the game.
Odzutsu Handcannon:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 32 knowledge, 160 food per stack
The strongest foot teppo in the game! And it's totally not worth using! I've seen people here get it if they have Nobunaga since his Devil King version specs on it, but it costs 2150 ban-kin to unlock and isn't worth spawning in conquest. You could just have him use Tanegashima Teppo instead for Campaign and Tenkabito which probably has just about as good offense because that one has Fighting Will. Hojo is the only clan that can spawn it in with a tactic and most of their other options except for the teppo attack boost suck, so that's the only conquest where you really get anything from upgrading it.
War Gear:
Ballista:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 120 coins, 60 food per stack
I'm going to call these artillery since, like with Teppo, it's a more commonly used word than War Gear in this game.
This is the only ashigaru tier unit that doesn't get the S rank in conquest. Mostly because it's much less cost effective than the other unit types against enemies in the field and you need to make sure you have that covered first before you focus on killing cities, even when you generally want to have most of your guys hit cities and not units in the field. Otherwise you'll get swamped. Pursue Attack is actually a fantastic ability for artillery since they do guaranteed crits against their preferred targets, so this is actually a viable general unit. Mostly you'll be using it to apply that +50% damage taken debuff on city walls though.
Another thing I'll mention is that artillery CANNOT ever capture cities on their own outside of the very rare instance (especially in the early game) where the AI doesn't make a defender and you're using Sorin or Ujimasa. The early stages of a conquest can be a bit limiting in terms of action economy since you want to spawn your generals in first before you spawn tons of 1 stack ashigaru-tier units, so this hurts. Just another reason to not open up with artillery.
Most artillery units are going to be more or less worthless for Campaign and Tenkabito too since they're not really available nor the best option to use since those two revolve more around killing units. Plus it's the only unit type where there's more units available than good generals.
Trebuchet:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 160 coins, 80 food per stack.
I really don't see much reason to use a middle of the road unit between the Ballista and the Odzutsu Artillery. Neither a 1 stack lv.20 Trebuchet or a 1 stack lv.20 Ballista one-shots a lv.3 branch castle with Musha Bugyo active, so there's really very little purpose into getting a more expensive one. Heavy Hit is also WAY less useful than Pursue Attack. Yeah this is trash.
Odzutsu Artillery:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: B
Conquest price: 200 coins, 100 food per stack
The rare unit type where the higher tier unit has a purpose! This is due to a little bit of a quirk with how artillery works since the two biggest benefits to artillery; Huge city wall damage and the +50% damage taken debuff, work a bit against each other. Basically, if you're looking to just do as much damage as fast as you can at any cost whatsoever, which you're pretty much only really able to do past formidable, then you want this, and the debuff ISN'T as important. Most of the time you should just auto at that point if you're looking to save real time in conquest though. Because it's usable in conquest and thus one of the few artillery worth leveling up, you can make some use out of this in Tenkabito if artillery happens to be one of your stronger unit types (though that's unlikely given the scarcity of them, plus IIRC it's unlocked somewhat later in Tenkabito).
Furanki Cannon:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 30 knowledge, 80 food per stack. In practice 135 knowledge, 360 food for a 3x stack.
So you're going to see something strange with the conquest prices since special artillery units can NEVER be spawned out of camps, only through the tavern, and since Challenge Conquests are basically the only worthwhile thing to play, their prices are 50% higher. That makes basically every single one of them garbage for that. This one is the weakest and the worst. It's so bad that I hadn't even EQUIPPED it to someone before I started doing this. The only way that happens is if you never equip it in the first place. And I started at launch, crazy.
16-pounder Cannon:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 32 knowledge, 80 food per stack. In practice 144 knowledge, 360 food for a 3x stack.
You're probably going to see Ujimasa use this a bit for Tenkabito since it's extremely likely you'll get him early and this is somewhat easily obtainable.
Mortar:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: A-F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Tecnically 36 knowledge, 100 food per stack. In practice 162 knowledge, 450 food for a 3x stack.
The usefulness of this hinges almost entirely on how early you get Ujiyasu since you have to beat his legend in order to unlock it, and it's pretty much exclusively used by him if you get it early. It can be amazingly helpful for Tenkabito then, or completely worthless if you get him late.
Destroyer of Provinces:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 38 knowledge, 100 food per stack. In practice 171 knowledge, 450 food for a 3x stack.
This is a pretty popular opening unit in conquest. I really don't like doing that due to my previous issues wth artillery. And you basically outright can't spawn it in if you don't spawn it in first because it's the most expensive unit in the game. You really don't get much from the AoE since artillery damage is extremely inconsistent out on the field and it doesn't really do good AoE damage anyway. It's highly effective if the AI clusters around a main castle, but that's still not something worth bringing into campaigns for and you have to play way slower than you should if that happens in conquest. It's also the only artillery unit you have to buy to unlock. Admittedly it's pretty affordable, but you probably shouldn't get it unless artillery happens to be your strongest side early in the game, which isn't too likely.
One level where the AoE actually helps in Tenkabito is like 2-4 Takeda. See, you later in that level get the ability to immobilize enemies, and everything that takes damage there gets affected by it, so you can immobilize large swathes of goons that are trying to kill Shingen there.
24-pounder Cannon:
Campaign: N/A, Tenkabito: N/A, Conquest: N/A
Conquest price: N/A
Not available yet. Looks to be just Destroyer of Provinces without Firepower, so most likely worthless.
Navy:
Light Sailing Ship:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: S
Conquest price: Free!
This is the only ship you're going to see this way since it's not a ship you can give someone, anyone who doesn't have a specific ship gets this for free. You should never under any circumstances buy a ship in conquest so this is the only one you should ever use in that, save for maybe the Thousand-Koku Ship given its mobility. It's so weird to give it an S rank since it's not useful and the goal of any naval venture is to get to land as quickly as possible anyway, but its literally free!
I really don't have much to say about ships in general since navy is such an insignificant part of this game. Imjin will probably have a bunch of naval missions, but for the vast majority of the game it's irrelevant.
Large Sailing Ship:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 60 coins, 15 knowledge
Like I said, there's very little to say about ships, but look at that price. That's such a ridiculous thing to spend those resources on.
Heavy Cannon Ship:
Conquest price: 100 coins, 25 knowledge
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
This is the strongest ship you can buy in conquest. And actually one of the better ones outright. It's basically exactly the same as the Iron-plated Atakebune, like literally the only difference is 1 point of defense and that Heavy Cannon ship has Naval Ram and Iron-plated Atakebune has Iron Plated.
Flame Arrows Bune:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: F
Conquest price: N/A
Okay so here's a bit of a weird thing. Ships, like all ranged units, count as two types of units. In the case of them it depends on what they're shooting. Most use artillery adapt, but this one, the Light Sailing Ship, and the Thousand-koku Ship uses archer adapt. You might see that some ships can inexplicably not counterattack and others can, and this is why. Given that there's two top tier archer generals in the game that can double as an admiral and that you're extremely unlikely to switch around gear for naval purposes, the archer ships can be pretty good overall as far as navy goes.
Ballista Bune:
Conquest price: 40 coins, 10 knowledge
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
This may be the very worst ship in the game.
Teppo Bune:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 50 coins, 12 knowledge
So despite the fact that this ship is the only one that takes teppo adapt and Masamune is the guy you open up in conquest, you still shouldn't give him this for that. This is because its base attack is just lower, so he STILL does less damage with this ship than the better ones that take artillery adapt.
Thousand-koku Ship:
Conquest price: 55 coins, 14 knowledge
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: B
So this ship is actually pretty good! It's the best of the archer ships and has one thing going for it that makes it arguably the best ship for Masamune in Conquests: 10 move, which makes you land faster than the others!
Atakebune:
Conquest price: 70 coins, 18 knowledge
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: F
So now we're getting into the real ships. That's not really saying much though since this is navy.
Iron-plated Atakebune:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: N/A
Pretty much identical to the Heavy Cannon Ship.
Carrack:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: N/A
The only ship (so far) that you have to buy. That makes it F tier in everything since you should never do that unless you're basically done with everything. It's pretty strong though.
Tenchi Maru:
Conquest price: N/A
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: D
This is another reason why the Carrack sucks so bad. If you for whatever reason wanted to give Masamune a ship to fight with in conquest then this is strictly superior to that one AND you don't have to buy it. Your best admiral should be using this for any naval level.
Galleon Battleship:
Campaign: N/A, Tenkabito: N/A, Conquest: N/A
Not available yet, but this is the most powerful ship in the game statistically.
Because each unit isn't equally as valuable in every facet of the game, I'll be giving each of them a grade from S to F on just how useful they are overall in Campaign, Tenkabito and Conquest. You can kinda use this as a marker for which units to buy and which to upgrade first (and by how much). S tier units should be at the highest level possible and F-tier ones should probably just be left at lv.0. D/C tier units can be leveled up to something like lv. 10 or so because the lower levels are cheaper. Conquest is also a bigger deal than the two others in the long term, so if you have more than enough for the other two, just focus on the conquest rating.
Also if you're not maxing out the unit, the most impactful levels happen on each fifth interval, so you want to be like lv. 10 or lv. 15. And remember that in challenge conquest you always get +1 level to your units too!
Oh, and this is mostly based on MY playstyle, so some things are going to be heavily influenced by that. I'd wager it's probably optimal enough that this'd be a helpful guide anyway though.
Lastly, the stats shown are just of the levels that my units are at, so don't go thinking that Kagemusha is super weak or anything. I MIGHT come back and show all the lv. 20 stats eventually.
This is a tremendously helpful spreadsheet over where every single special unit is in conquest: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VxvHRFC1pur6Y-SZl_N8PuyXLo7ZDvTje_M24PYThVg/edit?pli=1&gid=163603522#gid=163603522
Navy is incredibly weird in this game, but this guide by jonblend explains it pretty well: european-war-4.boards.net/thread/19628/naval-warfare-gcs2
Infantry:
Ashigaru:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 40 coins, 80 food per stack
The militia of the game. Like in the vast majority of the ET games except for the WC-series, this is invaluable in conquest because infantry is the only unit type that can be spawned out of cities and this is the cheapest. 99% of the time you should just rely on these to defend your cities, and sometimes you should just make some 1 stacks to do some cheap offense. Now, I don't think they're the most cost-effective units for that. The ashigaru tier cavalry, teppo, and archers do much better damage and have better survivability. But they all need camps, and you're generally better off letting the AI build those for you. In a perfect world we don't have to make these, but we do. I'd also argue that their stats are so bad that most of the time it isn't worth putting infantry generals on them.
Campaign is often marked by starting with extremely low income and low starting money, plus very few worthwhile units and way more general slots than you can effectively use. So you COULD do things like making 1 stack ashigarus, put support generals like Yoshihisa, Yoshitaka and Okuni on those and boost up someone like Masamune or Musashi to do massive damage. Not always worth doing or possible though.
And in Tenkabito it's available early but quickly outclassed and never used again.
Naginata Infantry:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 80 coins, 120 food per stack
So one trend you're going to see here is that the more advanced units rarely justify their extra cost. These ARE significantly superior to the Ashigaru though, but not nearly enough to be worthwhile to spawn. The only reason they get their D ranks is because you often start out with some in campaign and conquest, and you could put an infantry general on one if you're really, really desperate in the latter.
The same problem that Ashigaru has applies to them in Tenkabito.
Yari Samurai:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 100 coins, 160 food per stack
Has barely any higher stats than the Naginata Infantry but still considerably more expensive, what's up with that? It's better at dealing with ranged units, but cavalry brigades are much better at that anyway, so basically worthless. It IS sometimes, rarely worth spawning them in with a tactic though, mostly to get a unit in a place where you couldn't have had it otherwise.
Pirate:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 8 knowledge, 90 food per stack
This is a unit I've been trying to make work in conquest. It has a really low price as far as knowledge goes but great attack. I mean its min. damage is almost the same as the Yari Samurai's max damage. None of the abilities it has are good for much, though you could make the argument that its actually sturdier than something like the Warrior Monk since it doesn't take fire damage and can heal a couple times throughout a conquest. I actually think you need to make a training ground to do it since you need to make a lot of pirates fast if you're trying to use them. Completely useless for the other two areas of the game though.
Ninja:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 10 knowledge, 90 food per stack
Now here's a very cool unit. This is one of the two units in the game that innately ignores interrupt, and it's the earliest available way to have that ability since you need to level some horses up to lv. 9 otherwise. You can use it for some city capturing shenanigans in early Tenkabito, but it's outclassed once you can get those horses up to lv.9. It's dirt cheap in conquest and excellent for what you're looking to do there. Not shabby at fighting either since their attack and crit are great for their price. Sandayu also does exceptionally well with them there. This is one of the two infantry units that really makes infantry generals viable to use in conquest.
Warrior Monk:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 10 knowledge, 90 food per stack
Basically just a slightly more expensive pirate. I think it's intended to be used to defend cities, but it sucks at that for its price. And healing is a complete joke of an ability since you could save more HP if you just kill the unit that's about to attack you. Like the pirate it's sometimes worth using generals on it, and you sometimes start with it (Honganji has a ton). Though they're often competing with the Archer Warrior Monk when you have them available.
Sidenote: Infantry isn't even mechanically the best unit type for city defending. The only thing they've got going for them in that role is that they can be spawned out of cities and are affordable, but archers can counterattack the most units. The issue is that generic archers don't have good enough survivability to defend cities, but archer generals are WAY better than infantry generals at this job. The best city defending general in the game is actually Mori Motonari.
Kagemusha:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 16 knowledge, 120 food per stack
It's almost better than the Elite Samurai in terms of damage (though less consistent) due to it's abilities, but it's way less worthwhile to upgrade because it's less common in campaign and completely terrible in Conquest. Literally every city that can spawn them can make Elite Cavalry anyway.
Akazonae Infantry:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 14 knowledge, 100 food per stack.
This unit is pure garbage. Statistically it's not horrible as far as infantry units go, but it's ALWAYS outclassed every single time because you can make Elite Cavalry if you can make this. Non-existent in campaign, and you have to buy it to unlock it (unless you started playing at launch). Easy skip.
Elite Samurai:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 18 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Kinda just an average unit overall. It's the second best special infantry unit in the game, but still not really anywhere near as good as the Swordmaster, so while it's widely available, it's isn't really worth spawning unless it's the best you've got, which admittedly is the case for a couple clans. Pretty common in Campaign too, and you'd probably still want it for Tenkabito. Not an amazing unit, but still worth picking up I'd say.
Swordmaster:
Campaign: S, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 20 knowledge, 140 food per stack
The best special infantry unit by a long shot. It's the only infantry unit that can easily do more damage than cavalry and teppo thanks to having three abilities that just essentially boosts its damage. Musashi also has incredible crowd control, so this is one of the three generally viable units to spawn into campaign. They're also very good to open with if you have access to them in conquests. It's even worth unlocking them early even if you don't get any Swordmaster generals since Hideyoshi does better on this than the Elite Samurai. A bit pricey to unlock, but definetly worthwhile.
Cavalry:
Cavalry Brigade:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 80 coins, 100 food per stack
Best cavalry unit overall in conquest. You should even use your generals on them. I'd also say that this is the best out of all the ashigaru tier units because the charge mechanic allows them to do vastly more damage against units than all the other unit types. And it's enormous mobility allows it to sometimes capture cities that other units couldn't and just lets them hit more ideal targets too. And they're much tougher than infantry thanks to their higher HP.
There's some niches with surprise charge in Martial Arena since you're often looking to demoralize the boss. Sometimes it's worth trying to do that with this one while you save the better ones (Elite/Horoshu) for later.
Cavalry is pretty much the best unit type overall. So most of these are going to be pretty high up and you're going to see far fewer F's than on infantry.
Naginata Cavalry:
Cam::paign: C, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 100 coins, 150 food per stack
Doens't even have higher attack than the Cavalry Brigade at the same level. Weird. Anyway, that means that this is basically just a slower cav brigade, but with Pulverize instead of Intimidate. The game is a bit ambigious about what infantry or cavalry is because the ranged units count as one or the other in regards to adaptability (and whether they're vulnerable to charges), but Pulverize applies ONLY for melee infantry.
It still isn't really worth spawning over the Cavalry Brigade. Generals want to hit cities most of the time and intimidate is good for non-general units because survivability actually helps those since you can expect them to die over the course of a conquest. Pulverize helps crush the garrison, but most of the generals you're spawning early are probably getting special units or good enough to do that consistently even on the Cavalry Brigade. Plus mobility becomes an increasingly bigger deal the later on into a conquest you get. Even then, there's a bunch of clans that start with some for free and it might be worth putting a general on one.
Heavy Cavalry:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 120 coins, 200 food per stack
Naginata cav but stronger and slower, and less cost effective, as usual. It's a bit more useful than that one though since some clans can spawn it in with a tactic. And you might rely a bit on it in Tenkabito if you've got tons of cavalry early.
Elite Cavalry:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: A, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 20 knowledge, 150 food per stack
The best special cavalry unit in conquest! It's widely available and hits way harder than the generics thanks to Long-distance Raid. 14 move too! Rarely will another special cavalry unit be a better option if you have this available.
I can't entirely recall how its availability is in campaign, but I'm sure it's pretty good since this unit isn't really associated with one particular clan. Also, because horse harnesses are in huge demand and there not being a good way to farm them, this is likely to be at a higher level than the other units, so it's really great for Tenkabito too.
Horoshu Cavalry:
Campaign: A, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 18 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Basically just a tankier version of the Elite Cavalry. It's arguably weaker in conquest though since at lv.20 it caps out at lv. 2 Long-distance Raid instead of lv. 3, and it's less available overall. It basically only exists in Kiyosu, and only Shibata can spawn it in with a tactic. It's really good in the early game though since Keiji specs on it, and it's generally pretty widely available in Campaign since the vast majority of it is played from Oda's perspective, definetly worth picking up.
Akazonae Heavy Cavalry:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: B
Conquest price: 24 knowledge, 200 food per stack
Actually kinda middling as far as cavalry go. It SHOULD be really good for Tenkabito at least, but the trouble is that you have to play conquest in order to unlock it and it just isn't really that feasible to start doing that first. Maneuvering is also less effective here than on the other two units because it only has 1 range. The ability to attack again after killing something is usually way more powerful when you've got a ranged attack to go with it, Just look at the heavy tanks in WC4. And it's also just a less effective ability in general than in the other games since it doesn't trigger if you hit cities and it's capped at activating once per turn. Maneuvering can get to 100% in this game, but it's basically not a thing since you have to get to lv. 20 to have it on any unit, which means you have to complete the campaign (when ET does it) and you're almost certainly done with Tenkabito too in that case.
Elite Cavalry is available anytime Akazonae Heavy Cavalry is, so it's really hard to justify spawning any. Takeda and Sanada can make some with their tactic though.
Hatamoto:
IAP-players: Campaign: A, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: A
F2P-players: Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 220 food per stack
This unit is vastly different in usefulness between IAP and F2P players. F2P players can't use it in Tenkabito and they can't upgrade it, so it's hopelessly weak for them. It's one of the best units in the game for people with the battlepass though. Kenshin has pretty much a monopoly on it in that case and its even a viable unit to spawn into campaign.
Sanada Akazonae:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 24 knowledge, 200 food per stack
This is one of the strongest cavalry units in the game, and it still somehow sucks. This is because everything surrounding it makes it extremely impractical to use. You need to reach lv. 44 in the campaign/tenkabito Battlepass to unlock it, so it isn't really feasible to use it in those. And in conquest it's only available in one territory in the last two conquests. And in Resurface of Chaos you have to get the kami to build it. And even then it's not really worth spawning because Sanada can make Elite Cavalry from the get go anyway. So the ONLY benefits you get from upgrading it are in Martial Arena and to make Yukimura a bit better when you play as Sanada in conquest, that's it.
Though I suppose it might be worthwhile if you've bought Yukimura when you started playing though. Probably not since there isn't a good way to efficiently farm horse harnesses like with flags or arrows.
Archers:
Archer Ashigaru:
Campaign: B, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 50 coins, 80 food per stack
Your bread and butter archer unit in conquest. It's so much better than the regular infantry Ashigaru while it barely costs any more than it. Not quite as powerful as the Cavalry Brigade or the Teppo Ashigaru, but this is arguably the cheapest unit that's worth using generals on.
Elite Archer:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 90 coins, 120 food per stack
Just like all the other mid-tier units. Just less cost-effective overall and basically never worth spawning in conquest. Though sometimes it might be worth putting a general on one at the start if you have one for free.
Yumi Samurai:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 110 coins, 160 food per stack
Basically Marksman-lite. That's still not good enough to be spawning over the Archer Ashigaru. Atleast Snipe is pretty good for conquest, and some clans get to make them via tactics. Valor is something that's vastly more helpful in Campaign and Tenkabito over Conquest because enemy units there can have cheated up HP, and it's more helpful early on. In conquest it's almost worthless. Still, it's just entirely outclassed by the Marksman in Tenkabito and you're probably not going to have room to use both unless you get a TON of archers at the start.
Flame Arrow Squad:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 10 knowledge, 90 food per stack
The fire gimmick of this unit is arguably more harmful to you than to the enemy (like it is in every ET game with a fire unit) because each unit they have is relatively less important to them than to you, and also because one of the principal reasons you attack a unit is to clear out the space they occupied. You're going to walk into ALOT of fires that you've set yourself. This isn't really good enough to justify using in most situations, though you might open up with them in Conquest if you've got some for free and REALLY desperate.
Archer Warrior Monk:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: B
Conquest price: 12 knowledge, 90 food per stack
This thing has some serious offense for its price actually. I mean it's got higher attack than the Marksman and is cheaper. You're probably not going to use it in Campaign or Tenkabito, but you could consider opening with archer generals on these in conquest. Oh, and it's WAY better at defending cities than the infantry Warrior Monk.
Crossbowman:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 18 knowledge, 120 food per stack, in practice 81 knowledge 540 food for a 3x stack
This is a unit another unit that's much better on paper than in practice. MOST enemies in the game are going to have lower HP than you, and Rapid Fire grants you essentially another layer of crit. But Tenkabito/Campaign enemies can have cheated up HP, which would make the Marksman better for that, plus boosting crit chance is much more consistent than boosting crit damage, especially since there's not really much gear to boost crit on archers. And in conquest it's just too unavailable and pretty much never the best unit to spawn for knowledge. And lastly Motochika/Muneshige is just more useful than Ieyasu in every facet of the game except maybe Martial Arena.
Apparently it just outright does not exist in conquest too. I swear I remembered it being spawnable, but I'm wrong about that somehow.
Marksman:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: A, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Pretty much identical to the Yumi Samurai actually. Neither is really worth spawning anyway so the price difference doesn't really matter, and it has more or less the same availability and the same abilities too. Much better for Tenkabito though since Motochika and Muneshige specs on them and it has a stronger Valor to go with it.
Mounted Archer:
Campaign: A, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 20 knowledge, 200 food per stack
The best special archer unit in the game! Motonari basically has monopoly on it and it's amazing for the Campaign and Tenkabito if you have him. I don't think that combo is quite as good as Swordmaster Musashi or Mounted Teppo Masamune though. And I generally still don't find it good enough to justify spawning in campaign since archers just do less damage than cavalry and Elite Cavalry is often available at the same time, though sometimes it is.
Shadow Ninja:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Fail. And those ratings applies to both players who have it and players who don't. I mean this is just a ninja with a ranged attack, yet it costs more than 2x as much AND it's always available with the ninja in conquest! You should never under any circumstances spawn one. Completely useless for campaign too, and you totally don't need two ninjas to do ninja things in Tenkabito either. You shouldn't even let Chiyome use her free lv. 12 Shadow Ninja in the Takeda campaign because it doesn't have Impale or any other damaging abilities for killing units. One of the very worst units in the entire game.
Musketeers:
Teppo Ashigaru:
Campaign: A, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 80 coins, 90 food per stack
This... is pretty much how Nobunaga drew it up and did it! Yeah so like 95% or so of all teppo you spawn should be this. It's even pretty good for Tenkabito since it's likely at a higher level than your other teppo units except for the Mounted one.
Oh, and I do know they're actually called musketeers, I just like calling them Teppo.
Elite Teppo:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 120 coins, 120 food per stack
Slightly stronger but more expensive and less cost effective overall, just like all tier-2 units. Slower too.
Teppo Samurai
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: C
Conquest price: 160 coins, 160 food per stack
Like the Elite Teppo, except that some clans get to spawn them in with a tactic. Fuses are a bit harder to come by than some of the other upgrade materials unless you have Ginchiyo, so you could very well have this at a higher level than some of the other teppo.
Rain-Covering Teppo:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 22 knowledge, 120 food per stack
The primary reason you use this is to have a teppo unit in rain. Weather isn't a super common element of the game so that's not very useful overall. It's stats are pretty solid and it's pretty common in Campaign. Garbage in conquest though. I don't really recommend getting this unless you get absolutely showered in teppo generals in the early game.
Shield Teppo:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 24 knowledge, 120 food per stack
Really lousy teppo unit. It's got less attack and more defense than other teppo units, but as has been established pretty well by now, offense is just far more important than survivability. It's especially useless for a teppo unit of all things because their defense is to simply attack from range and shoot things down before they start hurting. And they can't counterattack, so they're terrible on enemy phase anyway. Teppo are still a pretty great unit type and it's available at the start if you play Azai, and Shigehide specs on it, so it's not completely worthless, but definetly not good. Also that -1 movement hurts.
Tanegashima Teppo:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: A, Conquest: D
Conquest price: 30 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Probably the best special foot teppo in the entire game. That's not saying much though since the others suck. It has some serious availability issues since it's spawnable in like one campaign level and is only available for Shimazu in World Unification. And even then it's really not worth spawning since its cost is colossal and they can make Elite Cavalry anyway. They do start with some for free and can spawn it in with a tactic though.
I will say though, that IF you have Nobunaga, then it's probably an S-tier unit in both Campaign and Tenkabito.
Mounted Teppo:
Campaign: S, Tenkabito: S, Conquest: S
Conquest price: 28 knowledge, 200 food per stack
The only unit I'm gonna give three straight S's on. Admittedly this is really influenced by my own playstyle since Masamune is the guy I usually spawn into conquest and it's not a consensus among everyone here that that's the way to go, but I'm pretty sure it is, even if you don't have Kuragiri Kagehide. Now this is easily the best teppo unit in the game and quite possibly the single best unit out of all of them. Masamune just obliterates everything with it, and he's MUCH better on this than on any other unit since he specs on it, AND he has high cavalry adapt too. I'd even go as far as to say it might be worth making them in conquest when you're playing Ashina in Armed Unification or Date (just not 3x stacks). Date in particular can spawn them in themselves.
Sidenote: I'm not really sure why ET seems to associate the Date clan with mounted gunners so heavily in this game. All their tactics relate to it and their unique one is called "Dragoon Tactics". I can't really find much on the internet that indicate that they did that much of it.
Warrior Monk Teppo:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 32 knowledge, 160 food per stack
Everything about this unit is hilariously overpriced. You have to shell out 1950 ban-kin to unlock it and it's obscenely expensive in conquest, and all that for a unit that's roughly as powerful as the Rain-Covering Teppo, which is also not worth using. This might be the least cost effective unit in the game.
Odzutsu Handcannon:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 32 knowledge, 160 food per stack
The strongest foot teppo in the game! And it's totally not worth using! I've seen people here get it if they have Nobunaga since his Devil King version specs on it, but it costs 2150 ban-kin to unlock and isn't worth spawning in conquest. You could just have him use Tanegashima Teppo instead for Campaign and Tenkabito which probably has just about as good offense because that one has Fighting Will. Hojo is the only clan that can spawn it in with a tactic and most of their other options except for the teppo attack boost suck, so that's the only conquest where you really get anything from upgrading it.
War Gear:
Ballista:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: A
Conquest price: 120 coins, 60 food per stack
I'm going to call these artillery since, like with Teppo, it's a more commonly used word than War Gear in this game.
This is the only ashigaru tier unit that doesn't get the S rank in conquest. Mostly because it's much less cost effective than the other unit types against enemies in the field and you need to make sure you have that covered first before you focus on killing cities, even when you generally want to have most of your guys hit cities and not units in the field. Otherwise you'll get swamped. Pursue Attack is actually a fantastic ability for artillery since they do guaranteed crits against their preferred targets, so this is actually a viable general unit. Mostly you'll be using it to apply that +50% damage taken debuff on city walls though.
Another thing I'll mention is that artillery CANNOT ever capture cities on their own outside of the very rare instance (especially in the early game) where the AI doesn't make a defender and you're using Sorin or Ujimasa. The early stages of a conquest can be a bit limiting in terms of action economy since you want to spawn your generals in first before you spawn tons of 1 stack ashigaru-tier units, so this hurts. Just another reason to not open up with artillery.
Most artillery units are going to be more or less worthless for Campaign and Tenkabito too since they're not really available nor the best option to use since those two revolve more around killing units. Plus it's the only unit type where there's more units available than good generals.
Trebuchet:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 160 coins, 80 food per stack.
I really don't see much reason to use a middle of the road unit between the Ballista and the Odzutsu Artillery. Neither a 1 stack lv.20 Trebuchet or a 1 stack lv.20 Ballista one-shots a lv.3 branch castle with Musha Bugyo active, so there's really very little purpose into getting a more expensive one. Heavy Hit is also WAY less useful than Pursue Attack. Yeah this is trash.
Odzutsu Artillery:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: B
Conquest price: 200 coins, 100 food per stack
The rare unit type where the higher tier unit has a purpose! This is due to a little bit of a quirk with how artillery works since the two biggest benefits to artillery; Huge city wall damage and the +50% damage taken debuff, work a bit against each other. Basically, if you're looking to just do as much damage as fast as you can at any cost whatsoever, which you're pretty much only really able to do past formidable, then you want this, and the debuff ISN'T as important. Most of the time you should just auto at that point if you're looking to save real time in conquest though. Because it's usable in conquest and thus one of the few artillery worth leveling up, you can make some use out of this in Tenkabito if artillery happens to be one of your stronger unit types (though that's unlikely given the scarcity of them, plus IIRC it's unlocked somewhat later in Tenkabito).
Furanki Cannon:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 30 knowledge, 80 food per stack. In practice 135 knowledge, 360 food for a 3x stack.
So you're going to see something strange with the conquest prices since special artillery units can NEVER be spawned out of camps, only through the tavern, and since Challenge Conquests are basically the only worthwhile thing to play, their prices are 50% higher. That makes basically every single one of them garbage for that. This one is the weakest and the worst. It's so bad that I hadn't even EQUIPPED it to someone before I started doing this. The only way that happens is if you never equip it in the first place. And I started at launch, crazy.
16-pounder Cannon:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 32 knowledge, 80 food per stack. In practice 144 knowledge, 360 food for a 3x stack.
You're probably going to see Ujimasa use this a bit for Tenkabito since it's extremely likely you'll get him early and this is somewhat easily obtainable.
Mortar:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: A-F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Tecnically 36 knowledge, 100 food per stack. In practice 162 knowledge, 450 food for a 3x stack.
The usefulness of this hinges almost entirely on how early you get Ujiyasu since you have to beat his legend in order to unlock it, and it's pretty much exclusively used by him if you get it early. It can be amazingly helpful for Tenkabito then, or completely worthless if you get him late.
Destroyer of Provinces:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: B, Conquest: F
Conquest price: Technically 38 knowledge, 100 food per stack. In practice 171 knowledge, 450 food for a 3x stack.
This is a pretty popular opening unit in conquest. I really don't like doing that due to my previous issues wth artillery. And you basically outright can't spawn it in if you don't spawn it in first because it's the most expensive unit in the game. You really don't get much from the AoE since artillery damage is extremely inconsistent out on the field and it doesn't really do good AoE damage anyway. It's highly effective if the AI clusters around a main castle, but that's still not something worth bringing into campaigns for and you have to play way slower than you should if that happens in conquest. It's also the only artillery unit you have to buy to unlock. Admittedly it's pretty affordable, but you probably shouldn't get it unless artillery happens to be your strongest side early in the game, which isn't too likely.
One level where the AoE actually helps in Tenkabito is like 2-4 Takeda. See, you later in that level get the ability to immobilize enemies, and everything that takes damage there gets affected by it, so you can immobilize large swathes of goons that are trying to kill Shingen there.
24-pounder Cannon:
Campaign: N/A, Tenkabito: N/A, Conquest: N/A
Conquest price: N/A
Not available yet. Looks to be just Destroyer of Provinces without Firepower, so most likely worthless.
Navy:
Light Sailing Ship:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: S
Conquest price: Free!
This is the only ship you're going to see this way since it's not a ship you can give someone, anyone who doesn't have a specific ship gets this for free. You should never under any circumstances buy a ship in conquest so this is the only one you should ever use in that, save for maybe the Thousand-Koku Ship given its mobility. It's so weird to give it an S rank since it's not useful and the goal of any naval venture is to get to land as quickly as possible anyway, but its literally free!
I really don't have much to say about ships in general since navy is such an insignificant part of this game. Imjin will probably have a bunch of naval missions, but for the vast majority of the game it's irrelevant.
Large Sailing Ship:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 60 coins, 15 knowledge
Like I said, there's very little to say about ships, but look at that price. That's such a ridiculous thing to spend those resources on.
Heavy Cannon Ship:
Conquest price: 100 coins, 25 knowledge
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
This is the strongest ship you can buy in conquest. And actually one of the better ones outright. It's basically exactly the same as the Iron-plated Atakebune, like literally the only difference is 1 point of defense and that Heavy Cannon ship has Naval Ram and Iron-plated Atakebune has Iron Plated.
Flame Arrows Bune:
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: F
Conquest price: N/A
Okay so here's a bit of a weird thing. Ships, like all ranged units, count as two types of units. In the case of them it depends on what they're shooting. Most use artillery adapt, but this one, the Light Sailing Ship, and the Thousand-koku Ship uses archer adapt. You might see that some ships can inexplicably not counterattack and others can, and this is why. Given that there's two top tier archer generals in the game that can double as an admiral and that you're extremely unlikely to switch around gear for naval purposes, the archer ships can be pretty good overall as far as navy goes.
Ballista Bune:
Conquest price: 40 coins, 10 knowledge
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
This may be the very worst ship in the game.
Teppo Bune:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: 50 coins, 12 knowledge
So despite the fact that this ship is the only one that takes teppo adapt and Masamune is the guy you open up in conquest, you still shouldn't give him this for that. This is because its base attack is just lower, so he STILL does less damage with this ship than the better ones that take artillery adapt.
Thousand-koku Ship:
Conquest price: 55 coins, 14 knowledge
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: B
So this ship is actually pretty good! It's the best of the archer ships and has one thing going for it that makes it arguably the best ship for Masamune in Conquests: 10 move, which makes you land faster than the others!
Atakebune:
Conquest price: 70 coins, 18 knowledge
Campaign: D, Tenkabito: D, Conquest: F
So now we're getting into the real ships. That's not really saying much though since this is navy.
Iron-plated Atakebune:
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: F
Conquest price: N/A
Pretty much identical to the Heavy Cannon Ship.
Carrack:
Campaign: F, Tenkabito: F, Conquest: F
Conquest price: N/A
The only ship (so far) that you have to buy. That makes it F tier in everything since you should never do that unless you're basically done with everything. It's pretty strong though.
Tenchi Maru:
Conquest price: N/A
Campaign: C, Tenkabito: C, Conquest: D
This is another reason why the Carrack sucks so bad. If you for whatever reason wanted to give Masamune a ship to fight with in conquest then this is strictly superior to that one AND you don't have to buy it. Your best admiral should be using this for any naval level.
Galleon Battleship:
Campaign: N/A, Tenkabito: N/A, Conquest: N/A
Not available yet, but this is the most powerful ship in the game statistically.
