I think the general phenomon in EB is that if something is not 'working' or 'too weak', there's 90% of the time the user ain using it right.

Even with akonkistai, one can slaughter a unit of done correctly. Mind, these dude are merely your average urban poor given a knife, some pointy sticks and a shoddy shield.

If you want real javalin throwers, the iberians and getai the ones you should be looking for.