[Moonheart]

Ok, I understand from your explanation why we have such a different view about the strategies.
From your sole leadership count and stats, I can guess you were playing warrior class, which is significiantly easier than the mage no-loss impossible run I did.

Under the mage class, you end the game near of level 55.
Your defense rating is lower, so your paladin stack takes about 10/15 loss EVERY turn against Baal despite of a high-ranked stonekin (70+ intelligence), meaning you just CAN'T keep it alive without casting Phantom almost every turn. Which requiers LOTS of mana you can't simply have without cheese.

Also, your attack rating is lower and you have 50% less units due to your leadership. Which means a boss like Baal have lots more rounds to live before you can reduce his hp to 0, and since his stacks increase of size at each summon, it leads to a point were archdemons simply starts to reach the leadership mark where the "halve" ability triggers... leading to 50+ losses in one strike.

Those facts put aside makes than your "you don't need cheese" point of view is understandable, but just not valid for everyone.
You can't expect to make a paladin stack survive boss runs when you're a mage without "cheesing". Because the paladins are nor as strong, nor as resilient than if you were a warrior so you have to make up for their "weakness" with spells... lots lots of spells.

As I said, the only way I know to not enter this logic, with a mage, is to use ghosts, which are both resilient to the most common attacks of enemy units and able to regenerate themselves without forcing you to use mana. Which leaves you free to not use infinite loopholes to regenerate it insanely... at least if you are able to keep the ghosts away from running wild.