Beating the game with no losses (Paladin)

[sector24]

I wanted to try and make a difficult challenge for myself, so I'm going through the game trying not to lose a single unit. I'm playing a Paladin on Hard for my first try, and I'm level 10 heading for the Islands of Freedom for the first time. I'd like to share some strategies, but also ask other people if this challenge is even possible when you get to the more difficult areas.

Early strategies:

My early army consists of:
Bowmen
Royal Snakes
Inquisitors
Archmages
Griffins/Guardsmen

The game is somewhat random, so before you buy a single unit, you should check the Furious Paladin and the tavern in the Marsh, the animal menagerie in Greenwort, and the mage academy and tavern in Verlon Forest. I was very lucky to get 6 Griffins in the Verlon Forest tavern, Royal Snakes at the menagerie, and 2 places to recruit Inquisitors (Furious Paladin and Mage Academy). You can also get horsemen if you abuse the pathing of the guards there. I chose not to, but if I were playing on Impossible I might.

As a Paladin you begin the game with Resurrect, but with the above setup you can only use it on Bowmen until you get Order 2. Therefore you need to save your Inquisitor's resurrect for emergencies. You should use your griffins to snatch treasure chests, and with the Archmage's Magic Shield harass ranged units. Royal snakes almost always go first, so you should use scorched earth tactics against enemies with move 3 or less. Basically you wait, let the enemy move to you, then at the end of the turn move forward and lunge. On turn 2, retreat back 2 squares and wait. The enemy will come forward 3 squares (1 square short of hitting you) then at the end of turn 2 strike them. At the beginning of turn 3, move back 1 square and lunge. You should also bless them with your Inquisitors, they benefit the most from the bless (6-10 damage becomes 10-10). Three free hits before the enemy gets a chance to hit you knocks out most stacks. Use your freezing arrow and Archmage's shock ability to slow the largest stacks, or to turn a move 4 enemy into a move 3 enemy so you can use the Royal Snake tactic.

With the above strategy, I was able to kill anything up to "match" with no rage, or anything up to "strong" (sometimes very strong) with an evil shoal at the start of battle.

For the really hard fights (very strong/overpowering), I relied heavily on trap and magic spring. Magic spring in particular is the most amazingly awesome and broken spell in the early game. Any time you weren't planning on casting a spell, you should cast magic spring on your griffins and have them hit something. They get the defense bonus, and you immediately get your mana back, with the chance of getting 10 more mana if creatures attack them during the turn. This is the primary method of using resurrect more than once in a battle because paladins don't typically have a large mana pool.

Other spells of note are Gift which resets your Inquisitors resurrect skill, Magic Pole Axe which is your only direct damage spell, and healing is very handy on your high HP units like Archmages and Griffins.

In the marsh I was overjoyed to find 2 Royal Thorns in one of the frog castles. These guys are perfect for a no losses challenge because they summon a stack of disposable units that the AI likes to attack. I use magic spring on them a lot to recover mana for resurrections.

For the Lyaro Island battle, I prevented the enemy from stomping my entire army by putting a stack of griffins in melee range and then defending with them. The Archmage's Magic Shield + Stoneskin + Magic Shield + Healing on the Griffins will allow you to survive indefinitely without losing anyone.

So I've cleared all of Darion except the abandoned castle, Rezo's Tower (I cleared all the way up to the staff), the mage trial, and the undead castle in the marsh. I took a peek at Freedom Islands, and I will have access to Devilfish, Cannoneers, Alchemists, and Sea Dogs from the starting area. I also have access to Cursed Ghosts, so I could switch to Griffins, Royal Snakes, Inquisitors, Cursed Ghosts, ???, but I don't have Sacrifice yet so I don't see any reason to.

I will probably switch out the bowmen for Cannoneers, but I doubt I'll use Devilfish and Sea Dogs due to their low hit points. Just doesn't fit with my strategy until I get access to higher level skills/spells. I'll be sure to add more strategies when/if I get Sacrifice, Hypnotize, etc.

So, has anyone beaten the game without losing any units? Is it even possible? What strategies did you find helpful? Feel free to provide knight and mage strategies as well, I can imagine a no losses knight challenge would be really tough.