So, you have phantom, and Royal Griffons. This is generally a good combination. Try phantoming out some griffons, and have the phantom summon some Guard griffons.

Use your cyclopses as tanks. Run them out into combat, and use their melee skills when you can. Put stone skin on them if you have to, and they'll soak up a lot.

A good question though... have you pillaged Verona well? There is a lot of stuff you should be able to pick up there. If you win ONE fight, it would be with the stack guarding the bridge to Montero. It isn't too big, is on an easy arena, and will unlock another huge continent to loot (which will also unlock at least 3 no-fight battles).

It is almost always worth it to sneak around enemies and pick up loot when you can't fight them. A good way to 'catch up' if you are falling behind.

Lastly, make sure in combat that you are developing a good plan. Who is the enemy going to attack? How are you going to keep that unit alive? How do you control stacks that are too strong? Get good answers to these (especially as a mage) and you'll start doing a lot better.

No kidding of course I tried that. How long do you think 2 griffons (phantom on stack of 8 ) last against 45 unicorns ?

Would you mind posting your save game? I think the best way to assess how you could continue would be if I could load your game up and have a look around at how you've built your guy, what's available to you, etc.

Hmmm... given that you are a mage, what offensive spells do you have at your disposal?

Try this lineup: archmage (verona), paladin (verona), guard droid (bolo), repair droid (bolo).

This is a survival lineup, with the only real damage-dealers being the paladin and guard droid. Given that you are on Hard, I assume you have either (or both) Ball Lightning or Dragon Dive. Split the repair droids into two stacks (since they can't repair themselves if only one stack). Guard droid and paladin as tanks, archmage casts mage shield on whoever is being attacked more. If necessary, even the two stacks of repair droids could do some minor tanking since you can "resurrect" them with their repair ability (which is a reload ability, thus could continue ad infinitum).

Unfortunately my verona did not pop paladin. I do have 15 from debir but that's all that is available so far. The only decent troups I've found on verona are royal griffons, archmages and assassin. I made some progress last night and am level 18 but still in a rather bad position but at least I have a few coins (90K) (current troups are cyclops (2), royal griffon (up to 11), archmage (around 19), assassin (aruond 21), paladin (15; leadership allows 16 but cant' find anymore for sale). I've not done any of the castles on verona (the one with the fence might be doable if I want to suffer huge (80-90%) losses as well the as the orc on Rusty anchor under the same condition). I did return lady what her name to debir so I might be able to do her castle (not sure; haven't gone back yet). I was hoping to up leadership enough to get 3 cyclops but still a bit short.
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if I buy a 20k shield (3int/2d my int willl reach 20 and I can pick up what his face on verona whcih will up int to 24; tempted to do that but not sure it is safe to risk the coins yet).
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spell selection kind of sucks; I have fireball, fire arrow, phantom, resurrection and a few utilities like slow, trap and stone skin. I've seen lighting for sale on verona and might try that (shock effect is good at slowing enemy).
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I might try dropping the cyclop and assassin for the driods; not sure how well that will work. You think that would help ?
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I can make a save available (other guy who posted) but not sure where I can put it to be accessible.
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I have ok items (sword that gives 10 runes and banner that gives 10 runes) but I'm unable to upgrade any of them (mana ring, cloak, boots) without high losses. In reserve I currently have inquistors (I swap them with assassin and 22 royal snakes (no more snakes for sale either).
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In my normal game (which is a breeze) by this stage of the game (i've been switching back and forth) I have fire rain and tons of good mobs for sale in verona (paladin, royal snakes, royal griffons, archmages, royal thorns, and a few others).
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Well let me know if you think driod1/driod2 will work better than cyclop/assassin - my guess is they might esp if i phantom the repair driods.

Edit: Check your PM.

You could try using the Army shop mod from the russian forum. You have to pay double the price for the troops but I think it is a fair deal.
I am currently using a summoning army: royal griffins (with 2 phantom spells in first turn due to lvl 2 higher magic), royal thorns, dryads (from song of the wind scroll), demonologists and red dragons.
In first turn my initial 5 stacks army becomes a 13 stacks army with the added 2 stacks of phantom royal griffins, 3 stacks of summoned heavenly guards, 2 stakcs of summoned thorns and 1 demon stack.
This way I have a lot of tanks and the griffins and the demons are furious so always retaliating.
Now I can win lethal fights with no or minimal losses.

The droid team only works if you have a stack of guard droids and split the stack of repair droids in two. As such, they would occupy 3 slots, not just 2. Just having two stacks of repair droids and forgoing the guard droids is not advisable since the main tactic is to tank with the guard droid, and continually do powerful repairs on it via the repair droids.

For your current lineup (cyclops, assassins, paladins, archmages, royal griffins), if you are hesitant to drop the royal griffins along with the cyclops and assassins for the 3 droid slots, then another good change would be to drop the cyclops for either beholders or evil beholders. At that stage of the game I'm assuming you could no longer let your cyclops tank since enemy stacks could do massive damage to them (even with archmage magic shield) and there is no way for you to heal them (unless you have time back). If you are just using them as range attackers, then you are better off with the beholder types who have the added benefit of consistently putting to sleep low level enemy stacks; you can resurrect them too if needed, via spell or the paladin.

No evil beholder available either; but lots of regular beholder.

Why wont't he driods work if I use phantom instead of two stacks of repairs ?
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I currently only get one spell per turn but will get higher magic (first level) next level (i drove chaos spells to level 3 which might have been a mistake); other two are level 1).

I misunderstood your intent on the application of Phantom on the repair droid in your original post. That is indeed a powerful solution to their only weakness... if Phantom works on them.

I am not yet in a position in my impossible paladin game to try out spells on the droids as I am just at the 3rd island (Debir-Scarlet-Bolo) and sometimes replay battles simply with the intent of grinding "useful" wanderer scrolls (Ancient Knowledge, Call of Death, etc.).

Can anyone confirm if Phantom works on droids? Also, does Sacrifice on other (living) units to "top up" droid stacks work? KBScanner on my current game shows Engineer's Badge somewhere in future islands; right now, I consider droids at Bolo as "near-perfect"; perfect if Phantom and Sacrifice works to support them.