Mid-game help needed

[Kalenden]

I've gotten to the midgame (Verona island,) and I'm having a bit of a problem. All remaining enemies are either strong to lethal, making it difficult to defeat them without a lot of losses.

I'm a lvl 20 paladin , playing on normal with 6500 leadership (+-), 50+-rage and 30 mana. my army composition is as follows:

Royal Thorns
Paladins
Inquisitors
Rune Mages
Red Dragons

I've gotten 3 Order magic and 2 in the other one (not chaos, forgot the name). Also 1 in Resurrection, and I'm working on bringing that skill to 3.
Basic strategy is to use the Red Dragons to tank, giving them stone skin and healing, making the rune mages/royal thorns summon up other units to help my main tank and using the rest of the units to resurrect any losses.

However, other heroes rape me with spells ( mostly because they are Lethal ) and non heroes are at very strong/lethal. The next island (the one with all the orcs) is also way over my level.
Any suggestions?

[ckdamascus]

I've gotten to the midgame (Verona island,) and I'm having a bit of a problem. All remaining enemies are either strong to lethal, making it difficult to defeat them without a lot of losses.

I'm a lvl 20 paladin , playing on normal with 6500 leadership (+-), 50+-rage and 30 mana. my army composition is as follows:

Royal Thorns
Paladins
Inquisitors
Rune Mages
Red Dragons

I've gotten 3 Order magic and 2 in the other one (not chaos, forgot the name). Also 1 in Resurrection, and I'm working on bringing that skill to 3.
Basic strategy is to use the Red Dragons to tank, giving them stone skin and healing, making the rune mages/royal thorns summon up other units to help my main tank and using the rest of the units to resurrect any losses.

However, other heroes rape me with spells ( mostly because they are Lethal ) and non heroes are at very strong/lethal. The next island (the one with all the orcs) is also way over my level.
Any suggestions?

I'm not really a Paladin expert.

If you have Phantom, you should be fine, since you can keep phantoming the rune mages to revive.

If you have enough spare magic runes (19-20 unused magic runes), you can keep attacking with the Rune Mage and hope to trigger "sheep".

Target might help draw ranged units damage to the red dragons.

The only spell you should be worried about would be Geyser. In that case, try putting your soft units in reserve. Dog it out, until they run out of mana, then start resurrecting.

If you have enough mana for Resurrection, you might have enough for Call Phoenix.

At level 3, Ancient Phoenixes are very strong and can resurrect too!

I'm actually clearing out some normal Verona monsters (and even some map guardians) with just 2 black dragons, 2 red dragons, 2 rune mages, and the ancient phoenix. Even though I am a mage, I am just using oil mist and ancient phoenix for now.

[Minecontrol]

Avoid enemies with Goblin Shamans, Blood Shamans or Dragons for the moment.

Use mana ball dragon ability to extend the lifetime of your spellcasting so you can resurrect more at the end, don't waste it on volcano or fiery phantoms, for long battles start stocking your blue balls where the enemy cannot get them early on. To delay a battle when your enemy is whittled down and nearly gone send up just your summoned creatures which are expendable (and won't kill the enemy too quickly) to melee with the last few enemies while you regather your real troops in your back line to resurrect them - this extends the length of the battle while also giving you more rage.

When you do win a battle try if you can to make it so you have lots of rage and spell points when the battle is over, as soon as the battle ends pause and save... Then run to the next battle and you will enter it with a good bit of rage.

I would forget about the Royal Thorns, the enemy will always go for them and without fauns you cannot resurrect them.... If you can get Orc Shamans (flying axes) they are a brilliant support unit, the healing ability of the axes are great for dragons and the Totem of damaging if placed well can score you a massive amount of cheap rage every round (every lightning bolt it sends down gives you rage), if placed two squares from creatures with movement 2 they will never be able to destroy them (because they also reduce speed by 1)... They are so incredibly powerful that in my current game i am using a stack of 9. I have 13000 leadership but haven't been able to find anymore anywhere yet still i would prefer to keep the 9 - for Rage generation purposes.

[Kalenden]

Thanks for the tips.

I was kinda wrong in my assertions about enemy strength. There is/was an area on Verona were a Lethal enemy patrolled, but, once properly kited past, all the enemies behind him were between weak to strong. So I've gotten a lot more experience.
But your advice is still welcome! Royal thorns are really really nice, but as you say difficult units to manage. Orc shamans could be a good alternative, I'll see.