Early on, to prevent casualties before I got better troops, I would use both Priests and Inquisitors. Priests with healing to keep hp high of a tank and inquisitors to resurrect the odd tank unit I would lose. Royal Snakes work well as a tank early going, plus help to get that poison/fire badge fast. Stone Skin also helps and again, it's one you can use for a badge as well as the healing spell. The other 2 units I would use beholders as it seems I always get them early. Another part of this strategy is have the dragon use it's stone wall. This strategy is for early game only as later the wall is worthless except as a delaying tool.
I then managed to get a handful of Paladins. I kept them alive easily and their second wind ability is far better than others seem to think, especially with a no retaliation unit like the Royal Snakes. I replaced the priests with the paladins and haven't used them since. Still with the paladins, the stone wall strategy really works if you close off big areas but allow chokepoints where your tank awaits.
After this I try and get Shaman to replace one of the beholder stacks as they're not only useful with abilities, they have higher health and ok move. Shaman are like a priest tank and it's totems seem to make the enemy focus only on destroying them.
For THIS game, I then found Knights as far more useful than previous ones. Yeah, they have stunk up to this version,lol, despite their strength. I replaced the snakes with the knights and I use Second wind on them, along with adrenaline to get them close up to the battle. With a stone skin on and paladins coming up behind to resurrect, it's hard to lose any knights. Without second wind though, they'd probably not be used. Also, since my fire/poison is high, the summon phoenix is a great "attack absorber", especially vs the fire based units. I just stick them in front of the archers and force them to deal with it, meanwhile I'm closing in on them with a huge knight stack with stone skin and when I get it, Divine armor.
After this I found some demonologists...the best unit I've seen in the series. I put them in place of Evil beholders. Now it's a miracle if I lose a troop. Like the last enemy stack has to kill itself against one of mine before I can resurrect type of miracle. I'm beating bosses with "lethal" and not losing a single unit. The phoenix is still useful for battles vs fire based foes, but not much against power stacks. For that I rely on defense and delay and whittling down the biggest stack.
This is first playthrough with it. I found the pirates are fine 'en masse" but die fast and that gets expensive as you refill. It just adds up.
I'm at mid level I think for strategy. Late game strategy will probably change as I find different units. I've long since gotten the level 3 badge for no losses and the only losses I really got were from experimenting with pirates.
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