Surprisingly bad units

[Watchman]

AP weapons. Don't get swamped in them. The Sacred Band are just about the most hardcore cavalry in the whole western third of the map (with the possible exception of the Iberian catas), but anything dies with enough AP-armed weenies swarming it.

Especially if high charge and lethality scores are involved. I've had some unpleasant experiences with Qarth FMs getting mobbed by multiple Numidian horse, myself.

[Marcus Ulpius]

Personally I found Sacred band bodyguards quite good. They were able to tip the tide in several battles with Romans, while Roman infantry had quality advantage over my infantry as Romans were fielding mostly Triarii and PE's (until I destroyed most of their recruitment centers). I certainly wouldn't win those battles without Sacred Band guards.

On the other hand, I think Hypaspistai are surprisingly bad. Of course they can take care of themselves in battle, but for their title and stats they lose too much men and cause too little damage you'd expect from elite soldiers. I think Pheraspidai is a much better and more versatile unit.

[Sdragon]

Pontic Elite Infantry are really bad. They are supposed to be a step up from Hellenic Spearmen but you'll find they are cheaper and are far worse, despite the armour they actually have -1 defence. Fought a 88 man unit of militia hoplies with 5XP and bronze weapon. My full strength elite infantry (160 men) routed after their numbers fell to 70. They killed just 30 hoplites. After that I threw my Celtic spearmen into the mix and destroyed those hoplites with ease, taking limited casualties This is on flat ground, in a town, a fair test. Taking into account the level barracks needed and the limited recruitment area, your left with something cheap and useless at everything. I got more use out of the Hellenic native spearmen I started with.

Iberian Heavy Infantry are the same thing really. They cost a tiny bit more and you get a little more out of them. But the loss of numbers over their light cousins doesn't make up for it. They are described as the best of the Iberian warriors, but they don't act like it. Little more than glorified line infantry.

[Zarax]

I fully agree, Pontic thorakitai were my biggest disappointment when playing with them.
Luckily galatian heavies proved to be a pretty good replacement...

[MerlinusCDXX]

My solution to recruiting the relatively useless Pontic Thrakitai...don't. Use lots of type 3 gov'ts and get Classical Hoplitai and regular ole thureophoroi instead as a line infantry (for a non-phalanx option) or recruit Galatikoi Kuarathoroi (Galatian heavies- these guys rock) where you can as your elite infantry.

[Watchman]

The Pontic Thorakitai aren't actually too bad when you look at it closely - save for numbers and the lack of AP precursors, they're about on par with Cohors Reformata although a bit more expensive. (Which actually also goes for the largely similar Armenian armoured swordsmen. I'm actually a bit surprised nobody's complaining about them in the same breath...) The real letdown is their war gear, which just doesn't really add up to armour scores better than average (9, to be specific) no matter how you look at it, so they just can't really make all that good a showing compared to, say, the more thoroughly armoured common Thorakitai.

The Iberian armoured troopers have a bit different problem, namely, they live in a corner of the map where AP weapons grow in trees. That kind of seriously nerfs the mileage they get out of their gear, goes a long way to allowing the lighter guys swamp them by sheer numbers and makes them rather cost-inefficient much of the time. They should perform rather better against opponents without AP though, one imagines.

Could be that the lot need to be given the +2 "agility" bonus to defense skill. It's not usually used on units with more than a relatively light level of armour (8 is the usual threshold), but when that's broken it is to either A) denote a particularly elite level of training or B) make an expensive unit perform more like "what it says on the tin". In the case of the three units mentioned above, the latter is probably applicable as they do seem to have a bit of a viablity issue ATM.

[MerlinusCDXX]

Good point on the Armenian swordsmen, I don't think anyone notices their lackluster performance because Hayasdan has better options for killing power, namely horsearchers, cataphract horsearchers, and cataphract lancers. I think with Pontos, the lack of a good infantry unit with proper killing power is noticeably lacking because there's not really any other outstanding killer in the Pontic arsenal except for early FM bodyguards, as their heavy cavalry options aren't recruitable in their core provinces. They do have a good pike phalanx, but they have more holding power than killing power. With Pontos, I tend to use a lot of regional troops because of their lackluster homegrown military.