Quote Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios View Post
Which should mean a combination of Thrakioi Doryphoroi, Komatai and Falxmen + some support units will make a cheap regular army, able to stand up to much heavier counterparts and do some damage to elite ones too. Shouldn't take such an army out to the steppes, though.

Naked spearmen: use them for their morale effects, and the occasional javelin hurled over the battle lines. Cheap man's Gaesatae -- but 'scares enemy' is a very valuable attribute where they come from.
Both units will be killed very fast by archers before they can do any damage. The flaxmen even have no shields what might provide at least some protection against anything sharp flying through the air. And that doesn't even require Skythians or the like, Toxotai or Skutjanz and the like do this easy job very well. The moral effect of naked units isn't so dramatic on fresh units, what means that they must be kept alive long enough to make "shaken" units routing.

Iphikratous Hoplitai: they just became more useful, just like the Sweboz Pikemen and others who had their Short-pikes removed. Exceptional anti cavalry material, very few units of their price tag are actually able to stand up against Hetairoi and the like. Guard mode is your friend, paying some notice to their formation depth when deploying them too.
The difference between Iphikratians and Germanic pikemen is that the Sweboz variant is the only decently armoured unit for a reasonable price available to this faction. That makes them so important. The Greeks have Thureophoroi, Classical Hoplites and Thorakitai that can do anything the non-phalanx Iphikratians can do, and a lot more. That is, a unit of Iphikratians against Classicals will be killed in 9 out of 10 time, the same goes for Thorakitai Phalanx vs. Thorakitai Spearmen.

No, I can't see any reason recruiting them without phalanx mode. A weaker underhand spearmen formation is definitly not needed for the Greeks.