Fellow Kensei main here! Played a good ~50 hours during the recent beta (1/29/17) and love the Kensei, despite the most common use of nodachi's being ceremonial instead of actual combat. :P
I've always been a fan of simple, well synergized toolkits which require true mastering to make shine. I look forward to the developments of the near future and the release of For Honor!
May our clan never wither!
yes when you dash, you can block normally. So for instance, if I am getting attacked on my left side, I can hold my stance left for the block, and then time my dashing guard break so I both block the attack and follow with a guard break. I'm not entirely sure if this guard break can be tech'd out of. This catches a lot of people off guard.
After testing with a friend, i found a couple of oddities regarding kensei:
1: After a RIGHT side dash light (need to actually hit, doesn't work on blocks or misses), if you up heavy fast enough it will do a different animation, a jump slice, which is much faster than usual.
2: As the guy above me said, if you dash forward while blocking an enemy light attack, you can GB right after blocking, and this GB will be uncounterable.