Sengoku Rance Unit Types: All 15 Troop Types Explained

Sengoku Rance has 15 troop types, and each one is a fixed stat block wearing a different job title. Your class sets base attack, defense, intelligence, how fast the unit acts, how large a troop it can lead and what its skills do — you never choose a stat independently of the class you recruited. Read one table, and you know what every unit on the field is for.

Two things trip up first-time players more than anything else. Cavalry is effectively Takeda-locked, so an early roster built around it stays empty for dozens of turns. And INT, not ATK, governs four classes outright — Ashigaru guard rates, Tactician buffs, magic damage and healing — which is why a stat-6 Onmyouji can matter more than a stat-6 Samurai.

Everything numeric below comes from the community AliceSoft Wiki, which documents the 2006 Japanese original (v1.04) and the MangaGamer English release of 2019. The official Steam build — appid 3867170, released October 1, 2026 — has not been independently re-tested against these tables, so read them as the best-documented model of the rules rather than a Steam-verified spec.

Official source: AliceSoft Wiki - Sengoku Rance: Parameters & Formulae (community-maintained from the 2006 original and the 2019 MangaGamer build; its class table and icon list are the source for every number on this page).

All 15 troop types: class constants and roles

Delay is slowness, not speed — lower acts sooner. Delay 6 for a Ninja and 20 for a Tactician or Sohei is the gap you actually feel in the turn order. Onmyouji are the exception the community notes twice: their listed delay is 14, but the turn-order rules add only +4 for them where almost every other class gets +10, so they act early in a battle and then wait a long time afterwards. The class constants feed directly into the damage formulas broken down in the stats guide.

Three types sit outside this list because they are not recruitable troop classes: Peasant, Hanny and Infected (officially translated as Soul Binder Victim). All three have 35 or lower base attack, zero defense, and N/A recruit costs — they are flavour and event units, not army pieces.

Front row and back row: three classes waste a back-row slot

Placement is not cosmetic. The community game mechanics page states it plainly: Samurai, Ashigaru and Musketeers can attack only from the front column, while ranged units such as Archer and Ninja act from either column. The same front-row-only rule is restated in the skills list by the fact that those three classes have no ranged attack at all. Put a Musketeer in the back row and it is a dead slot that still eats National Power.

The wiki does publish a conjectured dungeon-swap priority list that marks Tactician, Onmyouji, Miko, Archer, Cannoneer and Mage as unsuitable for the front row, and Samurai, Musketeer, Knight and Cavalry as unsuitable for the back. It sits under a heading that explicitly says the tips were spotted while reading code and should be taken with salt, and it governs dungeon and commander battles, not map battles. Use it as a nudge, not a rule.

The stat that governs each class

ATK moves physical damage ten per point and DEF moves physical defense eight per point. INT is the one people misread, because it does four separate jobs depending on the class.

Two more class-specific facts worth knowing. A tactician's buff priority is fixed: Ashigaru receive DEF first, Onmyouji receive INT first, and Samurai, Musketeers and Archers receive ATK first. And every buff attempt is capped at 29 evaluations in the code, so a huge Tactician does not hand out unlimited buffs.

Conversely, ATK past 6 or 7 is dead weight on Cavalry, Musketeers and Cannoneers, because their damage is capped by troop count. The full stat breakdown is on the stats guide; how the battle rating turns these numbers into a win is the next thing to read.

Where each type actually comes from

There is no shop where you buy a Cannoneer. Four documented routes exist.

Two further sources are National Mode clan start bonuses rather than standard-game rules, and the wiki lists them only for that mode: Iga grants +5 troops a turn to all Ninjas, Tanegashima to all Musketeers, Tenshiism to all Soheis, the Miko Union to all Mikos, Houjou to all Onmyouji and Takeda to all Cavalry.

Items confirm which classes the design treats as worth a slot. The Uesugi Assault Force adds 1000 troops to a female Samurai, the Takeda Cavalry Corps adds 1000 to a Cavalry, and the Battle Miko Squad adds 1000 to a Miko — none can be unequipped. The Commander Defense Squad adds 5000 but drops all stats by 2. Buying any of them needs a look at the shop rules first, because purchases are priced by position and skipped items still raise the price of everything after them.

Cavalry is effectively Takeda-locked

The walkthrough is blunt about it: the Takeda Clan is the only one with Cavalry commanders. Every documented path to owning one runs through Takeda, and the most obvious route is deliberately closed.

• The two front-row Cavalry units in the Takeda Blitz are uncapturable. They are scripted spawns named Takeda Cavalry Squad.
• Akiyama, the best generic Cavalry in the game, only enters the ronin pool if you defeat Takeda normally. Taking the Takeda clan package from the Second Game Bonuses shop, or assassinating Shingen instead, skips that entirely.
• Super Jockey, a generic Cavalry with random stats, is the documented exception — the wiki says he can be captured at any time.
• In National Mode only, capturing Naomasa Ii lets you convert him to Cavalry with bonus skills.

Super Jockey is the one genuine exception to "locked": a generic Cavalry with random stats and a random level cap, documented as capturable at any time. Plan around it rather than around the Takeda route, but do not expect it early or often.

The same trap has a milder form. Musketeers cost 120 gold to recruit against a Samurai's 48 and a 0.7 troop ratio, and the Arquebus-Specific Smithy is the only building that feeds them. Cheap, available-everywhere damage is Samurai, Ninja and Archer.

A roster that covers the opening

Oda starts in Owari with Rance, an average Samurai with an unusually high level cap, plus Ranmaru, who the walkthrough calls Oda's strongest early-game commander. The roster the beginner guide builds toward:

That gives you two front-row attackers, a guard wall, a ranged unit, a fast Ninja and a slot you keep open for support. Fill the sixth with a Tactician the moment one is negotiable, because buff strength scales 5% per INT point — and a roster of 30 is the hard ceiling, so which six you keep matters more than how many you collect.

What one player ignored and still finished

A published first-playthrough write-up from before the Steam release describes running the entire game with no Miko units at all, tanking with a strong Ashigaru and dealing damage with Samurai and Ninja. The same author notes the game nudges you toward what matters early and that a first playthrough is expected to end at a score of zero.

That is worth stating plainly because it contradicts the usual advice. A Miko roster is stronger, not required. Two Ashigarus, two Samurais and a Ninja will win map battles; Mikos, Soheis, Onmyoujis, Cannoneers and Mage are how you make the late game faster, not how you survive the early one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Sengoku Rance unit type is best? None on its own. Samurai for front-row damage, Ashigaru for guarding, Ninja or Archer for reaching the back row, and a Tactician to make all of them hit harder. A six-slot army with no support is where runs fall apart.

Why can I not find a Cavalry anywhere? Because Cavalry only exists on Takeda. The blitz units are uncapturable, and the good generic only joins the ronin pool after you conquer Takeda normally. Super Jockey is the documented way to get one early.

Should I build all my units around Ashigaru? No. Ashigaru are the cheapest to recruit and the cheapest to feed, and the Ashigaru Training Ground makes them the best troop sink for cheap gold — but their 45 base attack means they deal modest damage. Buy them as the wall, not as the damage.

**Do Musketeers and Cannoneers need maximum attack? No. They reach their damage cap — their own troop count — at around ATK 6 or 7 with Tactician buffs. Beyond that the points are better spent on an Onmyouji, Mage or Tactician.

**Is Archer worth recruiting? The community tips call Archers rarely worth it: they do roughly Ninja-level damage but are far slower, and their 1.5 troop ratio makes them expensive to run at scale. Nagahide Niwa is worth keeping because he starts in your roster, not because the class is strong.

**What does INT do for a Tactician exactly? One extra buff before the battle starts, plus 5% buff strength per point. In commander and dungeon fights a tactician instead gives exactly 4 buffs at strength equal to its own level as a percentage, and INT does nothing there.

Related Guides

• Sengoku Rance Stats Guide: What Level, INT and NP Do — the formulas every class constant on this page feeds into.
• Sengoku Rance Combat Guide: Battle Rating and Formations — how advantage, guard and troop size decide the fight.
• Sengoku Rance Best Commanders: Picks That Carry a Run — which named units of each class are worth a slot.
• Sengoku Rance Beginner Guide: First 10 Turns — the opening plan this roster plugs into.
• Sengoku Rance Items: What Each Colour Means and What to Buy — the troop-raising items that decide which class you can inflate.