TE Lawrence - Observations based on my play....

[H Gilmer3]

I had TE Lawrence on retreat immediately, plus he has a characteristic where he can retreat 80% of the time when faced by overwhelming odds.

In my current play, out of about 8 battles, he managed to retreat before any casualties one time. Every other time a slower but more powerful force was able to force battles and he has been completely wiped out.

[Merlin]

I haven't picked him up yet, but that sounds suspiciously like the raider traits in CW2.

A few tips:
Keep him moving. He'll evade better this way, and there's no way the Ottos can afford to keep units zipping up and down the tracks like some Willy Wonka machine.
Keep his stack at or under 12 CP. One of the more common evasion traits for raiders in CW2 requires their commands be =/>than 4 CP. 12 CP is the EAW equivalent.
Have him on evade combat whenever you don't want him to actually fight.
Keep the lowest possible ROE whenever possible.

That should help.

[H Gilmer3]

Sadly, I had all of that and none of it helped. It was all cavalry and it was definitely under 12. And it was always on retreat immediately.

But!! He is alive and recuperating in Eritrea, so he'll be able to rejoin the fray and I lost no NM for the lost units.

[Merlin]

Try cutting the rails on either side of your intended target before engaging it.