If that's true then it's pretty retarded, yeah. Germans and Gauls seems like the most sensible choice for European barbs if you're cutting them down to two for some reason. Eight playables (no, you don't count the ones that have multiple families more than once) seems a really low number, even after you factor in that they'll inevitably be making new factions playable through DLC.
So wait, if that's true, then we're looking at four more factions after Rome, Carthage, Macedon and Iceni. Those will almost certainly include Gaul and the Seleukids, Parthians or some other eastern faction and... Ptolemaics? I dunno, whoever they pick they're still missing loads of basically essential stuff.