The other night in my Sweboz campaign, I was on the losing side (just barely) of a horribly bloody battle agains the independent city state of Eubronum (sp?).

It is around 215bc and neither the Romans, Getai or Epeiros have been able to capture their territory, despite many attempts. So I took my shot and found they are a very powerful and challenging opponent.

I faced a 9 star rebel general who commanded approx 1800 veteran troops (large unit size) with my 2 star FM commanding approx. 1650. With the exception of my 2 units of light cavalry both armies were composed of mixed infantry. Mine were mainly eastern german & baltic troops while the rebels had armoured celts, a couple thracians and lighter gallic levies.

I was on the defensive and set my line atop a small but advantageous hill and waited for their line to approach. I set most of my lighter spearmen on guard mode with my axemen and swordmen in reserve and for flanking duty.

When the battle was joined neither line would give. Each unit fighting until the last or nearly to the last man - with less than a dozen men left per unit before breaking - because the fighting spirit of each side was so high.

I slowly managed to get the advantage on my right flank and send their men routing. On my left and center though, my spearmen were hard pressed and beginning to give way as they could not hold off the few units Neitos and Solduros that were attacking forever.

As the bodies piled up on the field, my general and the remainder of my exausted troops from the right flank met up with the exausted enemy troops from the left flank and duked it out in the center.

The day was theirs however as their higher quality troops had the advantage over mine. I had to withdraw. I left my last unit of german spearmen (the ones that have the phalanx ability) to cover the retreat of my general. They were surrounded and fought to the death, allowing my general and his dozen body guard to escape.

At the end I'd say the rebels had about 2 dozen troops left out of 1800 to my 12 body guards out of 1650. I wish I had a screen shot.

What was crappy was that at the end of the batte, at the stats screen the rebels had recovered approx 800 men to my 150 or so. I am currently trying to rebuild and give it another go. Very fun stuff!