Quote Originally Posted by Zett View Post
That's interesting. Hypaspistai have sword as primary weapon and spear as secondary, Thorakitai Hoplitai have spear as primary and sword as secondary. And still they beat up Hypaspistai? Would be nice if someone could make some costume battle tests with Hypaspistai and Thorakitai Hoplitai.
That`s because non-phalanx infantry units with 2 melee weapons tend to switch to secondary arm durin melee. Thus hypaspistai were fighting mostly with spears and Thorakitai with ap swords. No wonder, that Th. hoplitai won. The above mechanics makes all sword@spear infantry (mainly elites) much weaker than it should be. They receive cavalry charges with swords, and melee other infantry with spears - exact opposite of what they should have been doing.

Spear as primary and sword as secondary works pretty well for the very same reasons.