it seems that if every animation variant (variant/quadraped/horse/Spearman for example) if you put them all together in the same <group/> it will randomly call 1 of the variants leading by the frequency, but if you put every variant in the same file separated by a group for each variant, it will read his similar variant and sinchronyze the animations reducing the amount of files needed per unit type a good example are the unit capes, they are divided into: Swordsman, spearman, etc; then it will be much better just pick al the capes and make them just by type of cape and civ using variants instead of using an actor for every cape.
So the same goes for the blankets or front armors, i put all the horses variants animations together in every prop so i only need 1 front armor for bronze and 1 for iron, instead of 1 per cavalry type.
Btw did the iberian/spearman_e armor since the texture is quite low res to be recognizable.The blanket isn't part of the armor texture, it is the same blanket prop over the armor, just missing the mask.