[Humakty]

I think the Assartut low resource cost mahes them interesting for beginning the game. I had a SP game where I was facing man and I had no problem punching through their lines (mostly used glaives). I almost never use chaff units when I can avoid it, I prefer to use my gold on powerfull units. I think chaff is mostly a weakness, specially the harpoon throwers, which will do almost no damage at range before getting killed rapidly in close combat, closing your army to the deadly 40 % loose.
LA atlantis must rely on damage dealers (glaive people) 'cause you've got no archers at the beginning, and it's pretty hard finding cold immune indeps.