<Bug> Spontaneous Combustion of heroes

So the sovereign of my Tarthan kingdom is hanging out with Janusk and Rega-something in the latest city I founded. Magnar III comes calling looking for some gold in exchange for letting me live and I laugh at him.

He sends his cannon fodder to try to intimidate me but he doesn't realize I've pumped up both my heroes with lots of essence. Magnar III sends 6 different squads at me, some with 12 soldiers some with 4. I came up with something like 56 soldiers total. My sovereign, Rega and Janusk blast away at them with infernos and the last soldier is all nice and crispy before they are even within a tile of my heroes. Yay me.

I get to the battle victory screen and both previously untouched heroes have now lost all hit points and when I close the victory screen and click on the city, my sovereign is left all to his lonesome. A quick reload of a previous auto save turns this into ground hog day as the events repeat themselves but this time the victory is actually a victory. We make the soldiers crispy critters, again take no damage, but this time the heroes survive.

Obviously I'm reporting this as a bug, but can't get any supporting screen shots since I haven't been able to reproduce it. I've reloaded the save a few times now and it seems to be working ok but something happened that first time that made my heroes spontaneously combust. 

Also, I like playing Tarth, its a swamp thing, don't ask. I used to be able to create female soldiers, but now when I choose design, I only have the option for men. Was this one of those mysterious undocumented enhancements?