Just to clarify the pet dragon issue.
One of the features how pet dragon gains experience is - it gains exp. quicker if hero level is higher than dragon level. Try it. Start a new game, kite, and start in debir level 10+. You'll see your dragon gaining exp. MUCH quicker and that happens without your input = increasing his experience gain.
Point is, you'll finish the game level 50-60, so your pet dragon will if you use it here and there, at least 40+. Now do not tell me, you will not max out tresure skill, mana acc, and lighting ball in 40 levels. If you are struggling, do not pick up skills of limited use - mystic egg, wall..at all. That way you increase the probability of getting the "right" upgrade choice.
So there is no need to boost dragon exp. for mage. Spend might runes somewhere else

Latest save uploaded to Box.net

I added Archmages back to my army, taking red and black dragons out from reserve only when needed (Fear continues to be very powerful in battle).

I somehow forgot to learn Linguistics III... but I can get it next and that will be very soon. I have plenty of might and mind runes to go around - and important skills that need them are already maxed.

I wonder if I can unlock Skull of Death this late... but I gotta try, +5 Int from one artifact is not something to be missed.

I'll also need to equip that bird skull and get the new spells (Armageddon, plus Ice Snake and Geyser on Reha).

Chance to get Elven bow looks pretty slim at this point... so no hope for +9 Int and an elven army. There are some demon artifacts and lots of demon troops to buy though, so maybe I can try that.

you need to max out 2 very important skills.
1) pet dragon mana acc. There will be plenty of paladin's resurrection later and concentration 3 even with wanderer scroll +mana/int might not to be able to keep up. Btw. I always carry some phantom scrolls in the backpack in case i run out of mana.
2) Summoner. I have it maxed out even with warrior character. It raises the number of phantomed paladins and increases summons from griffins and demonologists.

Get ready for Elenhel fight coming soon:-)

Yeah... that fight could be troublesome. T_T

It is problematic alright.

Before I can make a move my demonologist stack was reduced to 33 from 68. He has 191 Archmage, 2 stacks of 66 Demonologists, 186 Evil Beholders, 90+ Necromancers, 130+ Druids, 2 stacks of 17 Executioners, and about 400 Fire Dragonflies.

I have pretty much the same army in last upload. I removed the Skull of Pain before getting to level 40, but still his army to too big. Teleporting my trolls (it was evening) into the fray does me no good as his stacks will just run away (possibly getting rid of range penalty to shoot at me).

I'm now inclined to dismiss him... I already extracted much wanderer scrolls, I'd trade +4 Int and some artifact slots for a successful no loss game. T_T

Maybe you could try some other, unorthodox strategy. When I was playing the game for the first time, and was level 39, I tried a new strategy for fighting tough opponents - a single stack of Emerald Green Dragons. I had the skull of necromancer and was a mage. I battled "impossible" pirate, got loss-free victory and, surprisingly, a new fight with traitorous, sneaky elf (the fight was optional, but I weren't willing to part with my artifacts placed on this bastard). So I started the fight with 18 points of mana halved and a stack of 6 EGD. That was the most spectacular fight to that point so I remember it quite good :-P Anyway, it was another no-loss, but I wasn't believing I would survive that till the end :)

Beginning of battle, each of these pictures is about 400 KB:
http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/4...enhelbegin.jpg

Middle:
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5...helmiddle1.jpg
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5...helmiddle2.jpg
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/9...helmidend1.jpg

Bitter end (for pointy-ears):
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/837...helmidend2.jpg
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/5...enhelscore.jpg

Of course, I had fairly good magical defense, that's why it was possible. The key points were:
- magical defense (items, from gift bag)
- amazing EGD with their mana steal ability
- good spells: invisibility, time back, healing level 3, and demon portal to spice things up
- luck with treasure hunter, i.e. Volcano :)

But the fight is at lev 40, so I think most heroes would be quite good by that time. Note that invis is not good against plants, droids, gobots, some other creatures and spells, because they can target invisibles and these would reveal themself by retaliating. For this reason I hate guard droids and thorn warriors.

you're not giving up at the first serious obstacle are you?

1) improve your magic resistance. majority of his units are ranged magic dealers so if you put on chaos helm, magician cloak etc. they'll do only negligible damage.
2) improve your physical resistance. His geyser is physically based.
3) dump level 5 creatures. facing those many,many geysers you do not want to spend tons of mana on time back. Replace temporarily or permanently with unit with god resistances - knight, horseman..
4) better artefacts. I remember seeing those fire protection boots, shark tooth.. which are not helpful in this fight.
5) This is one very nasty fight where you either have to wait until he spends all his mana before you start resurrecting or leave last unit - dragonflies and cast fear. So you are actually quite lucky with him having dragonflies. Cast fear on them in the first round.
6) Once last creature is standing start resurecting. position all units around paladins in the circle and go. Phantom paladins, repeat.
7) have you improved those skills are was telling you about - mana acc., summoner? You can improve your resurrection also by - higher intelellect, increases strength of summoning spell, inquisitors blade, increases number of paladins you can have

I've read about Invisibility + EGD strategy, but never used it.

I have Invisibility (III I think), 6 EGD in Verona plus an egg... I guess it's time to fetch them!

Also, one of the best abilities of pet dragon for mage hero is Ligthning Ball, because it's percentage based and hits where it would hurt most. It is the second ability I max, after treasure hunter. BTW I use mostly Invis II, because it's kind of sweet spot between duration and mana spent, but it depends on enemies and their positioning. Amount of Mana recovered by EGD depends on damage (1 mana per 100 HP I think) and sometimes you get less than you'd like to - when enemies scatter or have high magical resistance. Another one known and good strategy against tough guys is paladin+phantom, but I had no phantom at level 40, and I think that paladins are better against bosses and physical damagers.

In KBTL there was unlimited rage and mana thanks to inquisitors and ice spirit, so almost every big fight was easy (with gift or resurrection), even if tediously long, but in KBAP it's impossible. Either EGD or Calm Rage (rage->mana) are way to go for mana, and lower level creatures and resurrection if you want to bring more troops. Unfortunately with nerfed/changed Anga's Ruby (Ring of Arianna boosts pirates instead of ladies) there's no universally good low levels, but I prefer priests and inquisitors, and beholders too (beholders suck against magic resistant but are perfect for aggro ;)). It depends on items and availability, human troops are also good and durable. And dryads are still very good with their summons and lullaby. Ah, and demons (meatshield/avenger angel carrier) can be resurrected, even summoned ones, and I prefer to summon them than to pay and bring them to the fight. Besides, demons lower morale of most other races if you keep them in the main army.

Elenhel Fight
 

Here was my setup for Elenhel: Setup

Presumably because I used two half stacks of black dragons (3/6, 3/6) and one stack of green dragons ( 8/8 ), he used summoning spells instead of geyser (snakes and fireflies, hah). He had a large stack of demologists who summoned some cerberus that I had to avoid, archmages, druids, and necromancers in smaller stacks, and one stack of 20 green dragons.

To nullify the dragons I placed one of my black dragon stacks on a square two squares away from a trap, and made him the only unit the dragons could reach. They fell for it, and never got another turn.

Each round was simply one use of ghost blade followed by geyser. I went into the fight with full mana and rage, and used mana accelerator to keep my mana up. Nobody could really do any damage to my units except the cerberus, and I avoided them throughout. I killed him on round 5 and had half my mana left; this was one of the easier fights I've encountered so far.

I find an army of only dragons, or dragons and archdemons, is highly effective for no unit loss as it gives you mobility, strong special attacks, and makes fear a viable spell.

[edit] Finally found where KBAP saved my screen shot for the win. See here. [/edit]