I am well know swordself Sareve Femeli, defeater of countless goblin menaces and those headless things. My armies never consist of less then 15 units, and 1/3 of them are civilians. All the civvys die in the battels, and most the warriors too. But I have only fled from one battle! And that was because I had just defeated 3 huge goblin tribes without any recouperation. Out of the 30 something men I started out with, 4 returned.
I also got the humans in a large portion of the map to hate me in the beggining by stealing all the stuff from the stores. I had 4 men with me at the time, one left, 2 more died in a skirmish with lions, and the last one turned on me when I assaulted a fort.
Also, if you ever group with miners, DONT MAKE THEM SWIM. Nearly everyone else can swim, but miners cant. THey always drown. Also, Hinters rage endlessley.