I've killed stacks of several rebel Gaesatae with nothing more than a few cruddy units of Sotaroas, a Gallic family member or two, and probably like one Leuce Epos. Or, out in Galatia, a bunch of those shortsword guys plus one Pontic FamiCav - and these were both in the old versions.

The OP must have been doing something wrong.

Off the top of my head I can think that to include "tired and depleted units" and "not enough missiles" - he former in particular which pretty much reads as "rout me" with the Nekkid Men. Fatigue and casualties lower an unit's morale (plus fatigue hurts combat performance), and the easily most cost-effective and convenient way to chip off the naked guys' HP buffer is to subject them to some intense ranged bombardement - they're a lot harder to hurt in melee, due to their very high defense skill.

Quote Originally Posted by TWFanatic
Personally, I find them overrated (they drop like flies under missile fire to the rear), but it is odd that naked men have 2 hitpoints and 5 armor. I reduced their armor from 5 to 3 in my personal game and my mod (see unofficial mods section). It's easy to do.
They've got armour 5 for around the exact same reason those northern longswordmen do, you know. The helmets - and in the case of the longswordmen, shirt - really do add up to that much (although Celtic and German troops without actual body armour also categorically get a bonus point for being big tough blokes).