Thanks for your response!
I agree. While a lot of people here seemed to survive without a few key ingredients, I think I put myself in the perfect situation where I am missing EVERY key ingredient. That's what I get for misreading a lot of different threads with different intentions.
That said, I am a high level mage, so I wouldn't have expected to hit attack 100ish easily, but I thought I read some mages here were able to do so.
I have around 63 intelligence before the wanderer scroll, and nearly every nifty spell. I have plenty of money so I can swap to any other troop fairly easily. The only unit I don't think I recall seeing in my game is archdaemons.
I do not have any special attack items / combos / sets. I just have mana items, int items, etc. I pushed more towards defense if anything. I have maybe 23-28ish defense.
I was under the impression that there are just certain combinations of troops that could do well, regardless of equipment. Mind you, I am a mage, so I figured some of that gear isn't quite as important, I mean things like raising archer critical% and such, not the physical resists.
I am loathe to go with paladins, knights, royal griffons with some phantom mania assault. But I even wonder if that team could survive.