I'd like to comment on this, since I am known for despising kiting, wanderer scrolls, overpowered units, combos,basically anything that makes your game easier.
If you are not looking for superfast game then any game with any character no loss can be started like this (i start this way pretty much all of my challenges). If i can do it anyone can do it. So if it helps anyone:
After training, sneak around debir,scarlet,bolo and collect everything on the ground. If you're lucky you gain access to rusty as well. Get amulet from bolo, collect archmagi from scarlet tower. Now we know that 2 most important medals are +1000leadership, +7%res, and it would be nice to have trap medal out of the way as well, while enemies are low on hitpoints which makes trapping lot easier. Grand strategy is done by no loss automatically, so you have to focus on guardian+trapping only. make a line-up archmagi-archmagi-paladins-archmagi-archmagi. Archmagi cast magic shield every second round = 4 x 5 = 20 hits on guardian medal, so teoretically you can have guardian 3 after just 20 fights, realistically after around fight 30. Advantage of having archmagi apart from hits on guardian medal
- 4 x telekinesis. So 4 x tel + dragon kick can get enemy unit up to 5 tiles away! Purpose is obvious - trapping.
- shocking. If dangerous enemy stack is approaching quickly, focus all archmagi on it. From 4 hits it is high chance it will get shocked. Shocking is also useful if you want to slow down the last enemy very weak unit which would get killed when it hits your back rank. Purpose is to pro-long the battle to 10 rounds so you can work on your medals
-low firepower. As mentioned above, if you want to keep the last enemy unit alive, single archmagi by retaliation can hardly kill anything.
If you want to work on your pet dragon at the same time, replace one unit of archmagi with inquisitors for casting holy anger. I would not worry about pet dragon too much, since once it gets behind in levels compared to hero, it will start to gain experience quicker. So do not take more than 1 group of inquisitors this early, you can always focus on your pet later when you're stronger.
So the battle starts. If you were lucky to find trap spell on starting islands, it should be your main priority. Distorsion 1 goes without saying, for warrior who might be the only character having problems to get it straight away- training experience, shrine in bolo, runes laying around, monk in debir - should suffice. You need mana - so get your hands on some cheap mana boosting artifacts - white slippers, warm mittens are usually around. Check how much damage your traps will do. Immediately start planning strategy which 1 unit is to be kept alive (shooters); which units are close to traps; which stupid melee unit with way too many hit points is going to run into your trap = needs luring away or kicking away or teleporting away from its natural path; which units with bit more hit points need to have their hit points lowered immediately with spells or pet dragon in order to be succesfully trapped. Sometimes you have to actually walk away with paladins so enemy stack does not kill itself by retaliation (or you can lower number of paladins & inquisitors) Realistic goal on Debir is 3 successful traps per battle on debir.By the time you get tired of trapping, you'll have 70+ on scarlet at least and you'll go on to finish it. wandering stacks on debir are so weak that recommended army will kill all of them with ease. For 3 hero battles i would take inquisitors for ranged power and help with healing, but only so i do not have to waste too many spell points on healing and can concentrate on medals. When fighting heroes (after you have guardian2), cast magic shield on inqusitors + archmagi. Enemy spells with spell power 2 will be very weak. Archmagi with 140 hitpoints and paladins should easily survive them. Keep shooters close to your paladins for circle resurrecting purposes. Keep always different stack unshielded - enemy hero will likely attack it with spells - you will save your weakened units and last longer. Those spells may be annoying but i never go for less than 6 rounds with these heroes. When you hit scarlet kill all easy stack first without changing your setup, it should be cca 5 wild fights. I should mention one extremely important thing now - i can only assume many players naturally would like to play offensively, that is why they struggle with early no loss. You have to play carefully, sit back, lure the enemy away, kick them back etc. just to get more and more time to do what is neccessary to do in your back ranks = walk shooters to the side where enemy is not approaching, stick paladins in the way, cast fear, slow, nature call, shocking with archmagi...Offensive playing = even green dragon from rusty can easily get killed if those hundreds of pirate units get some criticals in.
Once you have guardian 3 or if things get too messy, get royal snakes, but keep 2 stacks of archmagi for working on the trap medal. By the time you have guardian 3, trapper 3 (early Bolo latest) get any set-up you like those medals will be a strong boost.
If you're unlucky and haven't got trap spell, then from the start use hero mana on character specific medal - mage = fire arrow (or oily mist in order not to kill enemy too quickly on debir), paladin= heal, warrior = cannot cast battle cry (i was going to write battle orders as in diablo
) yet, so i usually help with guardian medal by casting stone skin.
All of this can be done, and i;ve done it many times, without any investment in glory, and with simple units. Once you've got these medals out of the way then runemages, royal snakes, paladins, beholders, inquisitors, and orc units are excellent choice. And if you actually get access to rusty straight from the beginning then you're laughing - before you do any fighting get captain hausen maps + extra artifacts and 2 cases from scarlet, then mercenaries for sohaty + green dragon.