Just finished my first game! =D

[Coq]

As a Paladin on normal. (Orcs on the march)

Took me about 50-60 hours. my team for most of the game consisted of
Inquisitors - Paladins - Thorns hunters - Royal Griffins - Cyclops

I got to summoning phoenixes rather early so they actually ended up in my most effective troops. along with the summoned griffins.
I also got the level 3 summoned dragon from the Chaos school at the very end game and the two fire-breathers were wrecking everything in sight, along with summoned griffins and plants.
Aside from that I mostly used support spells (I ended the game with 1% damage done as spells, 27% dragon and 72% troops)

Inquisitors and paladins allowed me to revive pretty much any casualty suffered by paladins, inquisitors and griffins, and Cyclops rarely died (I would often Stone Skin/Divine Armor/Armor of Gloth them to make sure) so my paladin skill would revive any dead thorns at the end of every battle.
(Though early on I had to rely on fighting no loss battles)

I have to say the game is awesome, I finished it in several months because I would play non-stop for a few days, get bored, then come back to it a month or two later etc, but I really love it.

Anyway, kind of a random post but I just felt like sharing my victory I guess!

Which campaign should I go for next? Champion of the arena or defender of the crown?

From what I understand both of these are a lot shorter than the actual campaign right?

Oh I had 944 score, 20 days, pretty much every quest done except for the Return Time scroll (I don't really get scrolls anyway, it's practically impossible not to fill you spell book, I had like 300/20 scrolls lol So I found it but I couldn't buy it.) killing Scrounger and getting the mercenaries for that guy in Rusty Anchor.

[the benevolent adversary]

congrats!
personally I sell any scroll that I do not plan to use. but I usually just cast the scrolls when I have used up my mana quotient for a battle (i.e. I plan to end every battle at full unless I am thru with an area or otherwise going to go somewhere else).
a good scroll trick is to have one of the items that allows more scrolls but not equip it until you need to buy a scroll.
so you know the rune mage can heal plants (not sure about the Cyclops though).
the other campaigns have a slightly different design. one is just boss battles the other only has 7 fights but with special arenas and acccelerated xp.