Sorry to post in my own thread (upping).

Yes, they need micromanagement, but i think not too much. Also they are expensive (mostly it's their support cost), yet i find them better than cataphracts, which come much later in the game anyway. Most annoying thing is the 2-turn build time but cat's have the same as well. I use them against certain cav heavy factions. That way i don't need too many of them, 2 units are ok +1 spare to fill losses, as they go amok when they start with too few men. Good thing is you can retrain them in almost any town as they only need a blacksmith, quite low tech. Cat's on the other hand are much much higher, tech-wise.

If anyone is interested on results of 1 vs 1's in different difficulty lvl's drop a line telling me vs what unit and i'll run the test some times publishing results, tho you can do on your own anyway.