Greek city states armies were composed of the adult male citizens (his friends, neighbors and relatives) who generally fought prearranged single, decisive battles with similarly equipped foes. This later changed and battles got very bloody when it did. Hanson's "The Western Way of War" is a very good book if you want to understand this sort of warfare. The problem is that Praxians don't want to play by the rules that made Greek hoplite warfare work.
Pure shock infantry is not the ideal type of troops to try to fight light mounted archers and shock cavalry. The pikes will keep the cavalry from getting to hand-to-hand (usually), but the mounted archers will shoot the pike formation to pieces. Therefore it would be logical to assume that the Yelmalio guys have a lot (20%+) of missile troops, but they don't talk about them. The basic strategic problem is that infantry cannot force cavalry to fight them, while the cavalry can chose when and where to attack.
You don't need an 18 foot pole to make an effective formation. They could use much shorter spears. The classical Greeks are argued to use 8 foot spears in at least one reference. They were made of inch diameter cornel or occasionally ash, but did tend to disintegrate on the impact of the armored lines charging into each other. Hence the comments in classical literature about how useful butt spikes are (once the tip breaks off) and how bad the short swords were as weapons.
The Agrimori have always seemed a bit of a bad fit. Exactly how they are supposed to be pike armed infantry has always seemed a little vague.
My personal Glorantha has the Loskalm militia armed with pikes and heavy crossbows (basically Swiss), with the regular army being more like the Spanish Tercios. Of course I also have knight being a rank and not a description of guys on horses. . .
Kevin
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #266
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