Latest Shogun 2: Total War screens reveal new units

A series of new Shogun 2: Total War screens have landed, revealing new units and features, from the eagle eyed bow monk to the huge siege engine of the sea, the tower ship. If you're looking forward to next year's strategy epic, you'll definitely want to check these out. All the images can be found below. Click on them to see them full size.

First up we have a scene showing a boarding party in action. As with Empire and Napoleon: Total War, you'll be able to attack enemy vessels with boarding parties. If your forces manage to annihilate the enemy crew then the vessel becomes yours, and will be a part of your fleet in future battles.

The mean looking guy in the foreground is a bow monk, an elite type of archer that even outstrips the famously skilled Ashigaru and Samurai archers. He's so good that he doesn't even need his right arm to be able to shoot his enemy dead at a hundred paces.

Far away from the horrors of battle now, we're on the peaceful waters just off the coast of Japan. Naval warfare along coastlines is a new for Total War games, and the addition of the extra terrain promises to add an extra strategic variant to Shogun 2's naval scraps.

In the last few Total War games the pride of your fleet would be some sort of colossal battleship boasting hundreds of metres of sails, bristling with cannons. They did things quite differently in 16th century Japan. Pictured below is a floating fortress, a giant floating box packed full of highly trained warriors. The most important difference between the stately vessels of Napoleon and Shogun 2's fleets are that many of the ships are driven by oars, which means you're no longer slave to the winds, and the ships will be much easier for players to command. Smaller boats like the one in the right of the image will still be agile enough to outmanoeuvre a floating fortress.

The wooden vessel taking up the foreground here is a tower ship. These seaborne beasts are designed as the siege engines of the open waves, and will be a useful weapon when trying to board and sink enemy craft. The tall ships are packed with gunners and boast a belly full of troops just itching for a chance to duke it out on the enemy decks.