Well, I have done with bone dragons too.
But first things first. My previous post about number of quests is slightly incorrect, this time I got it right
Quest training you do not want to do, since it raises the number of fights by 2. Also, last battle with Baal is not considered a quest. On the other hand there is one more quest - Abyss on Tekron. I find out that when you get lucky with "size" of creatures down there you may get past them. It seems there are 3 "sizes" of creatures
a) large - dragons etc, from which can sometimes hide in unreachable corner. Example - behind the house of wealthy zombie
b) medium - majority of creatures
c) small - goblins etc.
I had in Abyss goblins & archdemons.
Total and definite number of quests is therefore 41.
Playing with bone dragons was fun, although baal, gremlion and ktahu were tedious. I did not take Moro, since dragon heart + voice of dragon 3 gives +3morale anyway and Moro has awkward slots. No artifact slot and a helm? There are so many wonderful artifacts to choose from : +20mana, +5mana/-5rage/turn (my favorite), crystal ball...I also needed someone with shield slot since scaly shield is always there and mirror shield is needed when fighting gremlion.
I guess it can be puled with vampires as well. Much lower defence and no resistances would be painfull, but you have drain life