help with impossible (mage lvl 10)

[morfor]

I went though KB:TL as a paladin on hard. Right now I am playing KB:AP on impossible as a mage.
Current stats:
Items: Blackthrone crown, symbol of valor (+100 leadership), and the +1 moral to humans painting.
1 attack 1 def 5 int 20 max rage 34 max mana.
I have higher magic and made 2 mistakes so far in terms of skills. I leveled chaos magic to 2 and picked up alchemy early.
1704 leadership
Dragon lv13

I desperately need a sacrifice scroll or trap or something but I can't find anything. I can buy a phantom image scroll if I need to though. Basically I rely on my dragon 100%. I leveled crushing blow so it does 800-900 dmg for 14 rage. I also have dragon dive which is quite nice for aoe dmg.

My army so far:
2 Royal thorns
5 Evil Beholders
inquisitors split into 2 groups
1 Cyclops.
Sometimes I merge the inquisitors groups and add some other random mob in there.

I almost cleared isle of scarlet wind and bolo completely. I can't kill hector though on scarlet isle. On rusty anchor though, my 1 cyclops isn't cutting it and I can't replenish my royal thorns/ beholders anymore. I need a new set-up.

I have 27 000gold right now.
Any advice?

[Zechnophobe]

There should be a fairly poorly defended navigational chart on Scarlet Wind that leads to rusty anchor. Unlocking that will help a lot.

Do not assume you have to kill all hero's on first pass through island, as they can be tough.

[morfor]

I'm on Rusty Anchor, just everything there is too tough for my army that I can't replenish. I was looking for some advice as to what troops to get.

[Zechnophobe]

ah, Reading for the win, sorry.

You have a pretty decent lineup actually. Do you have stone skin by any chance? A stone skinned cyclops is a decent early tank.

Even more, however, is a green dragon. Do the quest to bring the guy 50 robbers, pirates, and bowmen, and he'll give you a key for a door with a 1900 leadership dragon behind it. If you need more leadership, try to scavenge some up (Another point in glory, banners, items, whatever).

[morfor]

Yeah I have stone skin. I'd be a decent line up if I could get more troops. If I could just fill my royal thorns up... it'd be GG. Those things hit HARD with +100% dmg crown and they spawn a lot of little dudes. Thanks for the tip BTW, Free green dragon is pretty neat.

[morfor]

I managed to get to Verona using 1 emerald dragon. I didn't screencap the fight but this was another scroll fight. I think I went to Verona at around lv 12? or something. Verona was my savior. I found more royal thorns and evil eyes. Also found a scroll of sacrifice in one of the shops. I tried fighting the map guards on Verona but it's not possible with one dragon. There is just too much ranged damage to mitigate.

On the navigation map fight to Verona there were a bunch of necromancers, goblin dudes that get hasted when a spell hits them, sea dogs and skellies. I ran around having the necros take out everything with their aoe attack.

[Nihilius]

I managed to get to Verona using 1 emerald dragon. I didn't screencap the fight but this was another scroll fight. I think I went to Verona at around lv 12? or something. Verona was my savior. I found more royal thorns and evil eyes. Also found a scroll of sacrifice in one of the shops. I tried fighting the map guards on Verona but it's not possible with one dragon. There is just too much ranged damage to mitigate.

On the navigation map fight to Verona there were a bunch of necromancers, goblin dudes that get hasted when a spell hits them, sea dogs and skellies. I ran around having the necros take out everything with their aoe attack.

round 107 !!!!
cant imagine how many hours you spent in that battle!