Gabriel on Watchmen does a nice breakdown of the tradeoffs of using Ashigaru.

Tradeoffs that are somewhat alleviated since the dev did this interview.

link

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/watchmanprivacy/Episode_125_Torchlight_Ashigaru_Vetting_a_Samourai_Wallet_Fork.mp3?dest-id=2727836