[laffwis]

well i must admit that normal is really cheap

i used demoness (pretty awesome fighter with that ring which gives you +3 attack, defense, speed and initiative, so you're pretty sure to always attack first) to teleport the orc veteran which counter strikes. and additionally i use fire rain and soul drain to decrease enemy stack and then hypnosis. so within the first round you have too big stacks next to your enemy and one stack of the enemy next to your units at the starting point. if you are lucky you can kill at least 2 stacks within the first round and thats it. near the end of 2nd round, after hitting the enemy with your level-4 orc unit (here you can use fit for energy, that means you hit your enemy up to 3x in he first round and up to 5 times in the second round, including counterstrike and retaliation), you use demon gate and have your full stack back. nothing left from your enemy.

especiall the AI is not very clever and attacks his own unit which you used hypnosis on.

counterstrike is really very useful since you attack an enemy twice with your unit and another time when it retaliates, so theres not much left from that stack.

with that strategy i had almost no casualties in later game on normal mode. but as said, normal is pretty easy.