[Adept]

Lol, japanese steel was superior? It's the exact opposite PristlyMan, I'm sorry to say. We can talk about this at length if you want to, but the short story is that Japan never got the technology (from china) to produce high quality steel. The laborous folding and hammering of the katana is a way to hammer-purify the steel. It also drives away the carbon, so the best katana's are actually the ones that needed to be folded the least.

Yari is just the japanese word for a spear. The important thing is though, that the spears are used with two hands, so they should have the bonuses and damage appropriate for two handed weapons (attack +1, damage 5, length 4). The same goes for any other troop that just has a spear, as they will use it two handed.