Well, things are looking good
Just finished a game on hard with a paladin. It was a lot of fun, mainly because this is my favorite char. 13 days, all quests completed (I think they're 83, since I checked under every nook and cranny for quests) except one one - it would force me to lose 14 hours to travel to Elona and back to give away some stupid papers, which would take me into day 14.
I must say I have underestimated the Paladin's skill Resurrection. I was very, very wrong in thinking it isn't as useful as higher magic or warrior's Bloodthirst. It's wicked usefulness lies in the ability to abuse it like hell once you get it up to lvl 3. Even if you lose 100% of 1 troop, but lose nothing else, you will get all those soldiers back (100% resurrection of a random troop that suffered casualties in battle), no matter whether they are Thorn Hunters or Black Dragons, practically leaving your army intact. Still, I must warn you - they do count as losses, so that's not a no loss battle, and no loss battles are very important - winning battles without losses gives you up to 1000 leadership.
EDIT: Also it's good to note that the AI usually resurrects the troops you need the most and/or cost the most. For example, if it has to choose between 20 inquisitors and 120 horsemen, chances are it will choose the horsemen. For example, in the final battle vs baal it had to choose between 156 archmagi, 417 inquisitors and 185 horsemen. It chose to resurrect the horsemen, which in my eyes was the best choice.
As for the final battle... I'd see only 1 way that it may go without losses. Baal is killed, some imps are left alive (no retaliation, so magic spring FTW) and Bill Gilbert has lost all his units (so that he doesn't kill the imps). Way too many variables and way too many if's for my liking
It was a fun playthrough. I must say I got a lot of nice items early on, but the game compensated it by giving me few useful troops. I had only 4 Paladins to tank and 3 archmages (and they remained 3 up until I got to Elona, the elven lands, mid-game) to support them for quite some time till I got the shield that gives out a dragon each level. So I started abusing it. The Paladin can indeed become a natural Dragon master as soon as he gets Voice of the Dragon lvl 3 (+2 morale to animals and dragons). A dragon with +20% atk/def and increased chance to crit is a force to be reckoned with. I strongly suggest that everyone tries it out. It's a hell of a fun, and it's rewarding
I'm a strong supporter of high morale, even if it costs me a unit to carry around (like the royal griffins, +1 morale all humans). +30% Atk, +30% def, 140% of normal chance to crit is just uber. Top it with some items and you get something crazy. Take a look at the last screenshot. With these paladins every hit is a crit (however, there is some margin for missing, because I think everything is capped at 95%), because I even have prayer lvl 3, which adds an additional 7% crit chance. I really wanted to try it out along side the warrior's last tier skill "Retribution" (up to 20% increased crit chance when counterattacking), but it's hard to spare that much runes if you're not a warrior. In addition to that, my entire army (even the priests) had a chance to crit over 60%, which is 2 out of 3. Suffice to say, that's like having not 33k, but 50k leadership. There is only one unit that's hard to kill with this army... The ancient vampires have the uncanny knack to evade crits all the time
Suffice to say that once I managed to fill the army as I wanted to (Inquisitors, Paladins, Knights, Archmagi and Priests), the game was a breeze. "Impossible" enemies were dying like crazy and with hardly any losses. The priests were really doing their job.They can be considered a real scapegoat, since the enemy usually goes for your weakest unit, and with lvl 3 in resurrection, you don't have to mind if they make it till the end of the fight as long as your other units are intact. Still, they do quite a bit of damage, since the Paladin can get a medal to upgrade the damage of the Paladins, Inquisitors and Priests by up to 40%. Besides, the only place I didn't use them was in the last 2 battles - with Ctachu (very tough end-game boss that summons a lot of powerful units like T-Rexes, so strong melee units were required) and with Baal (he's got a wicked smashing ability that hits multiple units regardless of the distance for massive damage).
Hope you like the new inputs... Although they do contain a lot of spoilers. The screenshots are pretty much self-explanatory, even if they are in Russian. Note the crit rate on the last one. I just love it
BTW: I do realize that my end stats are low. That's because I used a ton of utility items. +20% paladin crit chance, +10% crit chance, +45% reistance vs. magic damage, +25% resistance vs. Physical damage, and so on. They did more for me than any other item would do. It was really funny seeing a stack of 3k fairies (magic damage) hitting me for under 100 damage
EDIT: Fixed the formula by which I counted up the "leadership" you gain by critting.
For example, if you have:
=> 189 Paladins with 94% chance to crit for a total of 33700 leadership
=> this is close to 100% chance to crit (and they did crit in pretty much every round both on defense and offense)
=> a crit is worth 1.5 of the base damage, so you can practically multiply the leadership by 1.5 and get the total value of your troop
=> the result is that this troop actually weighs 50550 leadership or 284 Paladins with no bonuses
Wicked, right? The same goes for troops that crits, say 50% of the time.
For example:
=> You have 481 inquisitors with a chance to crit 50% for 33700 leadership
=> that's a 1 out 2 crits with a multiplier of 1.5
=> so the leadership of the troop is 33700*1.25 = 42125
=> that is as if you have 602 inquisitors without bonuses