How to most effectively use some units?

[Nelson]

Watchman, I think we went to the same ludus. I employ pikes in the very same way. Line 'em up and march 'em forward while delaying the pike drop until the last moment. A few peltasts immediately behind them are nice too.

As for the scythed chariots, I mostly use them for bandit-hunting or as low-maintenance and easily-retrained stand-ins for proper heavy cavalry, naturally with every sodding armour and weapon improvement I can get (rule of thumb: if you have access to a smith-type temple line, have at least a few training centers furnished with those). I tend to treat them as cheap and cheerful terror units that go in just before the main force impacts to mess up the other guys' formation. They keep cavalry off the flanks of your pikemen just fine, too.

I use chariots like this too. They even enjoy the advantage of having only a small impact upon population growth.

[Kraxis]

The SC are definately bad as lone gunmen. I had a single unit of rebel Estern Infantry outside Hatra. THe only unit capable of reaching them was a unit of SC. So off they went.
The battle was a horrible disaster.
I marched them up fairly close, rested a time then charged in. At first it seemed to go good, but then the chariots took losses and suddenly the EI killed the general. RATS! Lost 19 out of 28 and killed only 33.