It depends on what you consider "effective." I'm a fairly large "noob," at this game and normally have a hard time making money, so each time I play this game I generally start out in the Sarranid region and rush a lot of CHA for prisoner management. I then use the Sarranid troop tree line for a while which uses blunt weapons and then normally transition over to an ENTIRE army of manhunter-ish units. I normally have 5 companions devoted to int/agi to cover things like healing while I focus on doing damage and stuff. An entire army of manhunters(and their upgraded versions) I found can demolish any bandit army, and lots of enemy armies. It mostly depends on really which side is more upgraded. I find that in castle attacks/defense they are OKAY, but the fact that you don't have archers can hurt in both cases. The good part about them is their huge shields and the fact that your entire army is literally a shield wall. I think they are pretty good in general, but I think I am going to soon try my luck with a Rhodok based army and see if I can figure out a good way to earn money while doing it. Even though I have sinked 300+ hours into this game overall I still haven't figured out a way to earn decent money without a crap ton of Prisoner Management, which I would like to avoid for once.
