Best archer units to have for AS?...also Thorakitai do seem some what vunerable

[athanaric]

The thing about heavy persian archers is that they're still terrible in melee (unlike bosphorans). Their armor really only helps them out in archer duels because their terrible sidearm hinders them so much in melee.

Well their lethality is still 0.1, so it is at least a sword. And they have a range of 198m, which is better than standard Persian archers and far more than the Bosphorans sport.
This also means they out-range all HAs except Saka riders (tied), Yuezhi HAs (same IIRC), Saka Early Bodyguard, Saka Early Nobles, and Yuezhi Nobles.