The only piece of Europa Barbarorum II fanart in existence

[Shoebopp]

Adskoros from Cisalpine Gaul are ready to serve as the first boss of the Roman campaign!

[Bethencourt]

Are all these beauties based on real facts?

[Shoebopp]

Are all these beauties based on real facts?

These drawings are based off of Europa Barbarorum II's depiction of soldiers circa 272BC. I've added a few creative flairs, such as the Roman-style helmet feathers for the Hellenistic Machairaphoroi, or the neck bandana for this Gallic Adskoros, but for the most part I tried making them decently faithful. If the historicity interests you, I highly suggest installing the EBII mod for M2TW at https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...-R3-5-released !

That mod is indeed a "beauty based on real facts", since nearly everything in the game, from visuals to game mechanics, is based off of archaeology, historical documents, recovered art/artifacts like mosaics or pottery, and historical analysis. It's like a history lesson and video game in one immersive package. The only features not based on history are alternative history scenarios, which are still very plausible and grounded in historic trends! You can Hellenize the Nabataeans (who historically never expanded out of the Sinai Peninsula and were absorbed by the Romans), restore the Antigonid Macedonians' former glory by taking Antiochea and Babylonia (Antigonus One-Eyed nearly did it in real life!), kickstart the Parthian Empire 100 years early (I've speedrun Imperial Parthia by 252BC), and more. If you do install the mod, make sure to read as many descriptions as you can. From buildings to regions, from units to historical pop-up scrolls, to even special "Biography" traits for the many historical characters present at the start of the game, you are bound to learn a ton about history.

[Shoebopp]

The Carthaginians didn't learn from the first time when their Sacred Band was destroyed at the Battle of the Crimissus in 341BC, and reconstituted it with fresh citizens. Less then a century later Carthage lost the First Punic War. Coincidence? I think not

[Shoebopp]

In 280BC, Celts from modern-day southern France migrated to and settled in modern-day central Turkey! For the next century, their raiding and mercenary antics will destabilize the region into an uninhabitable hellzone. Meet the Galatian Colonist

[Shoebopp]

Silver Shields (Argyraspides)


These were Alexander the Great's veterans, serving from the time of Philip II in the 340s BC all the way to the Wars of the Diadochi in the 310s BC. They proved to be an unstoppable force on the battlefield, always grinding up everything in front of them and sometimes winning victories or salvaging draws by themselves alone. This elite corp also proved to be rather disloyal - they betrayed their then-commander Eumenes in 316BC after the battle of Gabiene by handing him over to Antigonus One-Eyed (Antigonus managed to capture the Silver Shield's baggage train). Upon gaining command of the Silver Shields, Antigonus, rather than risk leading such a venal battalion, sent the now 60-70 year old Silver Shields on suicide missions in the far East. Their numbers dwindled to nothing, or so they did allegedly. It isn't too wild of a guess that some hardy Silver Shields survived their suicide missions, discovered their betrayal, and melted away into the local populace as fugitives. Who knows, maybe some locals married these veteran gramps (or in the case of this drawing, grannies) and their descendants exist to this day: legacy of one of the greatest elite units of all time: the Silver Shields.

[realm56]

I see no old grumbler here

[Narf]

I eagerly await more art

[Shoebopp]

This is Nairi, daughter of an Armenian Azat noble. She was born in 217BC in Armavir, and enjoyed a privileged upbringing in Armenian society. Under the watchful eyes of her father, Nairi trained in shooting, riding, and speaking the truth, and unlike a certain pathological liar of Scythian origin, she actually excelled in all three. Before she even turned 16, she was inducted into the Aswar corps of the Orontid dynasty. Equipped with a Xyston lance, scale armor, and an ancient Urartian helmet, Nairi served as medium cavalry. She repelled raids from the neighboring Sarmatian tribe, the Siraces, but only for a year.


Sadly, her stint in the Aswar was not to last long. In 200BC, the king of Armenia, Orontes IV, was overthrown during a rebellion. Then a roving general from the Seleucid Empire to the south literally waltzed into Armavir with his army of Greek maniacs. They looted and pillaged, and regarding Nairi, took political hostages from the Azat nobility. Artaxias himself examined Nairi as she was paraded up to him by Seleucid phalangites. He asked her "what would you like, young philos?" to which she replied "to punch your balls off." Artaxias laughed and then punched Nairi in the tit.


From 199BC to 190BC, Nairi served in the Seleucid army as part of the Agema corps. No longer was she medium cavalry - her new Manica arm protection, metal face mask, linothorax skirt, and greaves turned her into a Cataphract, the ancient equivalent of a tank. She dealt smashing blows to the foes of the Seleucid Empire. In 198BC she stormed a hill and steamrollered the occupying Ptolemaic cavalry at the Battle of Panium, before wheeling around and grinding the Ptolemaic phalanx to a paste. In 196BC she set foot into Europe when she landed on the shores of Thrace, and managed to catch a fleetfooted Thracian Peltast. She then punched his balls off. For the remainder of the 190s, she and a select group of Agema strutted around Asia Minor and intimiated the Greek city states on the Eastern Aegean into submission.


While her stint in the Seleucid Agema had so far been manageable owing to her extreme armament and respectable skill, Nairi met her match in 190BC when facing the Roman Republic in the Battle of Magnesia. She was deployed on the left flank of the Seleucid army to command the non-Agema cataphracts, right behind the portable war crime machines known as scythed chariots. The Pergamenes, lapdog of the Roman Republic, sent their light infantry to harass the scythed chariots into a panic, causing them to retreat and run through the left flank. In the confusion, no one noticed a heavily armored Armenian sneaking away from the chaos and embedding herself in the Seleucid phalanx.


When King Antiochus III of the Seleucids led his right flank in an overzealous pursuit of the roman left, the phalanx was left isolated. With no support on the flanks, the Seleucid phalanx formed a box, protecting in the inside the light infantry, elephants, and a now-conniving Armenian. Nairi, driven by newfound resentment and the exhilarating high of revenge, seized her opportunity. She ran behind an elephant and punched its balls off. That elephant flew into a frenzy and spooked the toher elephants into a rampage, rupturing the Seleucid phalanx box from the inside. The Roman infantry then fell upon the disorganized Seleucids, and gutted them from the inside.


History will credit the Pergamene skirmishers for ostensibly riddling the elephants with projectiles until they ran amok. History will forget Nairi, the Armenian Agema who promised to punch a Seleucid in the balls. And in a way, she managed to do that.

[Shoebopp]

This is Stena, an Iberian critter from the Bastetani tribe in southeastern modern-day Spain. She was born in 412 BC into abject poverty - her parents owned few cattle, and the entire family often went hungry. Not one to accept her destitution, Stena trained her body and kept herself as fit as her pitiful calorie intake would allow. Her dream was to become a roving mercenary serving overseas in the great maritime empire of Carthage. The problem was, although she had the wiry body and attitude for the job, she lacked any equipment. That would all change one sunny afternoon.


In 398 BC, a raiding party originating from the nearby Turdetani tribe left Stena's Bastetani tribe ten heads of cattle fewer, and one dead critter greater. Strangely, upon being discovered by his peers, this Bastetani victim was lacking his oval Scutum shield, two Soliferrum full-iron javelins, and curved Falcata sword. On an unrelated note, a proud Stena returned home armed with a Scutum and a Falcata. Her parents then kicked her out of the house, much to Stena's delight. With nothing but her weapons and a dark maroon cloak on her back, she left her Bastetani village. Her mercenary career has begun.


Having traveled through the wilderness to the Carthaginian colony of Gader in southwestern modern-day Spain, Stena was then recruited on the spot and then shipped to the great port metropolis of Carthage itself. She arrived in 396 BC at the height of the 3rd Sicilian War, and joined a small scout force comprised of Numidian cavalry, Balearic slingers, and Iberian infantry. Stena and her Carthaginian squad jumped from settlement to settlement in eastern Sicily, waging a guerilla war against Carthage's mortal enemy, the Syracusians, who were on the campaign offensive.


With each skirmish, Stena gained more experience, and sometimes more equipment. From a Cisalpine Gaul under the employ of the Syracusians that she slew in single combat, she pilfered his Montefortino helmet and his gold torque necklace. From a Syracusian she stalked and subdued, she stripped her Greek victim of her Linothorax cuirass. Later on she succeeded, albeit with some difficulty, in cramming her boobs into the Syracusian's armor. Finally, in the aftermath of a raid in 396 BC, she broke her Falcata on the Corinthian helmet of a Syracusian defender. So, she took his Kopis sword, which had similar armor-piercing capabilities. It was then she learned that the Carthaginian main army had evacuated Sicily, effectively abandoning the rest of the auxiliary forces on the island. Stena and her party were left for dead.


The hardy Iberian once again wouldn't accept her fate, and thus devised a crazy plan for her squad to deal with the looming Syracusians. They joined the Syracusians.


On a sunny day in 396 BC, her troop of Iberians, with the Numidians and Balearics following behind, waltzed into the Syracusian camp while singing a merry tune. The stunned Greeks watched as the procession stopped a respectful distance away from the Syracusian tyrant, Dionysius I, and offered their services to him. Having known of this group of guerilla fighters, Dionysius accepted, and designated this group of former Carthaginian mercenaries his elite bodyguard.


Every critter had their panoply beefed up until they were as protected as the average citizen-hoplite. In the case of the 16-year old, but stacked Stena, all she needed were metal greaves. Next, they were to paint Syracusian motifs onto their armor. Stena chose the symbol she dubbed "feet swastika" and another one of a sea creature with 8 limbs.


Stena then served in the 4th Sicilian war between Carthage and Syracuse, but this time on the side of the Syracusians. When she is not invading familiar territory in east Sicily, she was patrolling the streets of the metropolis of Syracuse. In one incident, she had to arrest and rough up a "Sicilian War Denier" who claimed that the 1st through 4th Sicilian Wars never happened, "but they should have".


In 368 BC, the 44 year old Stena and which ever Iberian from her original squad hasn't died or retired yet were shipped from Sicily to Greece at the personal order of Dionysius II. Their objectives were to aid the Spartans in taking Corinth in the Theban-Spartan war.


Now, as a seasick Stena departs from her transport ship and stumbles onto true Greek soil for the first time in her life, she reflects on her life so far. From a piss-poor village in Iberia, to the war-ravaged battlefields of Sicily, to a wondrous new land full of slave-owners and pedantic academics, she has experienced quite the life, and still has decades more to adventure.


In 1995 AD, in modern-day Turkey, a peculiar metal shield boss was discovered submerged in the Bigas River, at the probable site of Alexander the Great's victory at the Battle of the Granicus. The shape and design indicated, somehow, an Iberian origin.

[Akar]

REEE IMAGES ARENT LOADING

[Shoebopp]

REEE IMAGES ARENT LOADING

Probably because it's 2000x3000 pixels, or because I copied the image link from my post on the website that shall not be named. I'll upload to Imgur, gimme a sec

[Shoebopp]

[Shoebopp]

Fanart of an unreleased EBII unit. Stare at it all you want before it gets taken down.

[realm56]

Oh no! The devs took it down! Just kidding, We cannot see the images, try shrinking them to a smaller resolution

[Shoebopp]

It works for me . Which setting do I toggle in order to offend your eyes with my artwork?