Perdan has an SF centre with decent training and equipment values (60-70%). I recruited a unit of them once, and they were not ranged, did not charge and did considerably fewer hits in melee than an infantry unit of comparable CS. Would this mean they have some esoteric ability that I didn't get the chance to see, or that they're just a crap unit?
Those values aren't actually very good for SF, on average.
SF are not always very effective. We have a number in Astrum that are 70ish weapons, 50ish armor, with 70 training and they are simply not worth recruiting. They can hit hard (if they don't get shot up by archers on the way in) but they are guaranteed to take heavy casualties in the melee thanks to their mediocre armor, and that gets very expensive very quickly when you consider that they attract a lot of attention. And frankly, they don't hit *that* hard. My character Rowan died leading about 70 of them. They used to come in swinging for 1k+ hits in the first round, but in the second round that would typically drop to half of what they inflicted previously.
If you go for SF, look for high equipment ratings and training. That's what makes them so good in the first place. SF with only medium values in these areas are generally overpriced for what you're getting, or at least that is my experience with them. There is no such thing as a 'good deal' when it comes to SF, unless you have time to take a unit with good equipment and only average training and train them up until they're nasty.
