What role did samurai play in battles? They seem way too well

>>1689893
>implying any army would use soldiers as canon fodder
off yourself

>>1689893

Samurai were a social class, not a unit in a video game.

They were the warrior class. They were knights, officers and Generals. Mercenaries sometimes.

They played the role of cavalry.

>>1689893
Basically any role. They used any weapons and when guns started appearing they took them too since guns were expensive and rare.

>>1689951
Depends on the era, in the 1400's and 1500's a lot of samurai couldn't afford to fight on horseback. Only like a fourth or a fifth of the samurai that formed most armies were mounted, either armed with bows, melee weapons or guns.

>>1689970
This, though in the late sengoku they were mostly officers, either directing troops or directly leading them into combat

in a nutshell: being a samurai meant you owned a fucking sword

you went where whoever was paying you told you to go. Exactly like mercenaries in Medieval Europe, except a bit less destructive

>>1689893
in earlier eras they were shock troops who used their armor and superior weaponry to break lines of peasants

in later eras they formed a combination of archer cavalry, elite guards, and people to hold lines that absolutely could not be broken

after that they mostly just starved to death and wrote poetry