So, this is something I had promised @Magnus Grendel on another topic about fleshing out the fast rules we used for mass combat. So here we go:

Armies

Every army is composed of five Rings, Composure and Stamina, just like a character and Tactics and Command. The difference being, that if the commander of an army has a better attribute than the army, then the commander's attribute is used. Skills are always the skills of the commander, though.

• Peasant Levy : basically just a bunch of peasants with no formal training and using makeshift weapons and farming tools. Air 1, Earth 2, Fire 2, Water 1, Void 1. Stamina 8, Composure 6. Command 1.
• Ashigaru Army : the backbone of every Rokugani army, an Ashigaru army is composed mainly of drafted and trained peasants and a few Samurai officers. Air 2, Earth 2, Fire 2, Water 2, Void 1. Stamina 8, Composure 8. Command 2, Tactics 2.
• Rōnin Army: a mercenary unit hired by the Great Clan, mostly looked down by Great Clan Samurai, they can turn the tide of a battle. Air 1, Earth 3, Fire 3, Water 1, Void 3. Stamina 12, Composure 8. Command 3, Tactics 3.
• Samurai Army: an army composed of only samurai, possibly being the most elite unit on a campaign. Air 2, Earth 3, Fire 3, Water 3, Void 2. Stamina 12, Composure 12. Command 3, Tactics 3.

The idea of the whole thing is to Compromise or Incapacitate the enemy's army (in one, you completely rout them, on the other, they are completely destroyed). Every day of combat gives you two rolls and if, at the end of the day, any of the armies are not cut off from supply lines, they can reduce their fatigue and strife to half.

You use the same rolls for Mass Combat but instead of inflicting/recovering attrition and panic, you inflict/recover fatigue and strife and they are compared to the Stamina and Composure of the unit.

It works way faster, with a not so shabby commander, you can defeat most units in a day of combat with 3 rolls (one for initiative, two for two assaults), instead of rolling infinitely trying to reach 30+ something for panic or attrition.

Looks interesting. I have to admit that separate units rather than the weird one-army-but-multiple-cohorts it is now certainly appeals.

You can still use strength and discipline instead of endurance and composure.

Well, sure, you can call it that. It was just a way to keep the rules similar.

Looks really slick.

Thinking about this system (which I do think is elegant) - FFG did something very similar for Rogue Trader way back when - essentially modelling a unit as a one guy with wounds equal to the number of members in the unit. It's a great approximation for the 'a few dozen soldiers' on each side, rather than a force of thousands, and as such feels a lot more in keeping with the sort of big-skirmish-verging-on-battle of a few hundred soldiers or so we've had described in the fictions.

One thing they also did was give a damage bonus similarly proportional to the number of members of the unit.

"For example, if the characters where accompanied by an Imperial Guard company of 40 guardsmen with lasguns, 6 guardsmen heavy bolter weapon teams, and 20 guardsmen veterans with shotguns, these would be divided into four units. A unit functions just like a single individual armed with the most common weapons and armour of the unit and with Wounds equal to its number of members plus a damage bonus equal to +1 for every 4 members—so in the example above, this would count as: 2 guardsman with lasguns and 20 Wounds each with a +5 damage bonus, a guardsman with a heavy bolter with 12 Wounds and a +3 damage bonus, and a veteran guardsman with a shotgun and 20 Wounds and a +5 damage bonus."

Doing something similar - so the endurance and composure of a unit is either based off a unit's numbers, or at least gets a bonus off a unit's numbers, and their weapon similarly gains either a damage bonus or a number of bonus successes (the latter is probably a bit more flexible as it would work on things other than the equivalent of 'strike' actions) related to numbers.

Making 1 point of endurance roughly equivalent to one kill gives you a nice 'translation' scale if you do end up having a lone samurai attempt to attack a unit and don't want to play the skirmish out in full - an attack which would kill, incapacitate or critically strike one of the component NPCs is one point of fatigue.