Are they? Interesting, because I always thought that due to their low armour they would suffer overly heavy casualties. Even the elite armoured Thraikioi Rhomphaiaphoroi die a little bit faster than I would like them to, with their minuscule shields and 24 defence. Don't you have to merge and retrain the Drapanai quite often?

I'm playing as the Romani currently, so the only way I could get Drapanai is to hire them as mercenaries, which I actually will not, mainly because they are not my type of troops (I like well-armoured units better) and because Druhtiz Basterniska are better (stat-wise).