I am quite certain there are tons of things like this all over the internet and many of them done a lot better than I can write them because I am not a serious gamer. I am a filthy casual that prefers 1-player games and rarely, if ever, plays any games with anyone that I do not know. It's just too toxic out there in competitive online play.
So I tend to gravitate towards games like this one, even though it is basically exactly the same style of games as a myriad of others out there. There are, I don't know, like dozen AC games and this is the first one that I have played. I learned something the hard way pretty early on when I was at level 10 an found myself in my first big battle where you are taking on an entire army in a battlefield. This is where stats that I had never considered before became a major part of why I was losing so badly and I adjusted them rather than give up like I normally do :P
To keep things from getting boring this game mixes things up and gives you a number of different ways of playing and it is up to you how you are going to implement them. For the most part AC games are about stealth and this is all fine and dandy until you find yourself in a situation where you can't possibly sneak up on anyone like you would be able to in basically all of the game I have seen up to this point.
This sequence / quest is called "The Final Push" and it is the first huge battle that you are subjected to outside of the one that happened right at the start of the game where you are basically not allowed to lose. I tried this battle twice using my current loadout of mostly Assassin damage items and was getting absolutely worked on the battlefield because, well, there isn't a lot of stealth involved in an open field filled with dozens of warriors.
So swap out your melee weapons and armor for those that will benefit "Warrior damage" instead for these sorts of things. If you are a truly dedicated player you will have a loadout for this but if you are not an AC veteran you won't even understand how any of this works at this point. I know I didn't. I only adopted because what I was doing clearly wasn't working so I changed it up a bit and also swapped out my sword for a heavy bladed weapon.
Now the only thing I had to do was adjust my battlefield strategy as well.
The primary objective of these mass battles is to reduce the enemy army's overall strength before they reduce yours and the fastest way to do that is to ignore the regular combatants and head for the "captains" that are indicated with little crowns over their heads. Sure you are going to be pursued by regular warriors, but the AI on them always keeps them a few steps behind you.
As far as I could tell, killing the non captains doesn't have a very big impact on the overall progress of your side. It might do something but there didn't seem to be any end to the amount of "grunts" that they would throw at you and the action was too fast and furious for me to determine if there is any sort of XP benefit to fighting them but I don't think there is. Therefore, I think it is best to just run away from the grunts and seek out the captains.
When I encountered the captains, because I had changed out my gear to spec in warrior damage and they were currently engaged with fighting other Spartans who are my allies, I simply charged in and basic attacked them 3 swings in a row and they were felled all but one time, then I merely had to use an ability to break his guard and it was over.
Looking back, I feel a bit silly that I allowed this battle to give me so much trouble but just like in most games, if you are doing something and get absolutely worked by your opponent, you maybe should look at the possibility that you are doing something terribly incorrect rather than repeat the same thing over and over. I only did it twice before I went to bed and thought about it a bit in my bed and woke up the next day with a new strategy. It worked so easily that I breezed through it on my very first try. No problems at all.
At least during this initial battle, I don't think there is any real reason to pay any attention to the grunts that are going to engage you if you just stand there, as I did, trying to figure out what the hell you are meant to do in this battle.
Now having said that I fully expect the next battle to be completely different and all of this information will be for naught.
I'm really enjoying this game but find myself getting bored at times because there are, just like in any other game like this one, so many optional objectives to complete. If you are a filthy casual like I am, perhaps just focus on the main story until you get to a point where your level or gear is seriously underpowered for the job at hand, then maybe focus on the side quests to level up a bit.