Pontikoi Thorakitai

[Zarax]

Is it right for them to have lesser stats than thureophoroi?
In my game they are respectively 13/21 (atk/def) vs 15/22 with 1 experience point.

[Watchman]

No greaves (but scale cuirass - or was it mail ? - instead of linothorax) and short sword instead of a spear (which has around 4 points extra attack to make up for the anti-infantry penalty from the light_spear weapon attribute).
:yes:
Sounds about right to me.

[Zarax]

Well, greaves count for 1 or 2 points of armour but shouldn't mail/scale give 1 or 2 extra points over linen?

Other than that, what's the point in recruiting them when thureophoroi are at least as good but quite cheaper?

[Basileus Seleukeia]

Well, I'm under the impression that the EB team designs the units in a way that they are realistically portrayed in the game. If the unit was reported to be particularly bad, it is portrayed like that in EB. I myself, don't see a reason why I should recruit them, they have a smaller AOR than Thureophoroi and are even slightly weaker (at least that's what I have seen in my campaign), so the simple solution is that I don't recruit them.

[beatoangelico]

the problem is, historically they were widely used in late pontic armies, while in EB at the moment are almost useless :skull:

[Zarax]

I think they are underarmoured given their appearance, for the rest they look fine to me...

[Watchman]

IIRC they're basically the Pontic version of those Armenian armoured swordsmen (and share a model for that matter). Metal body armour plus helmet without cheekpieces adds up to pretty much exactly the armour value they have.

Think Legions with marginally inferior equipement.

Do note, however, that after you've substracted the around 4 points of "spear compensation" from the Thureophoroi attack value the PT end up with a noticeably enough higher number.

[Basileus Seleukeia]

I just tested the Pontikoi Thorakitai in a custom battle against sThureophoroi and I have to say: Oh my god! On even ground, the Pontikoi Thorakitai got slaughtered down to 17 men before running, and 78 of the enemys Thureophoroi survivied the slaughter. This was on large unit size. I mean, that really must be unintentionally. According to the Pontikoi Thorakitais' description, Thureophoroi are supposed to guard their flanks and provide them with flexibility, but as it is now the Thureophoroi do the Thorakitais job even better.