You may be right about Calm Rage; however, I was thinking if you got a good Distortion Scroll from Clarissa then you could put 1 point in Bibliography and then there may be a possibility of getting Distortion to Level 3 when you reach level 5. You can at least get it to Level 2, but not sure if there are any level 1 / 2 Distortion spells that would work well with Calm Rage.
Anyway, just another thought to try to vary the starting strategies for Daert.
Great job, by the way, with the Basement and Whitehill stacks!
I didn't have as much trouble as you had with them - the Spider stack was easy as you mentioned, and I did put a point in Diversion which really helped with the Royal Snake stack. The key there was to get the Royal Snake on the Evil Book and the Swamp Snakes and normal Snakes after your Bats. I was then able to cast my 2nd book 4 rounds later and they both ganged up on the Royal Snakes and took them out. In the meantime, the Snakes had moved to attack the two books and then they took him out, too. Lastly, the Swamp Snakes engaged the books and then was able to beat both of them but since I was down to just Bats versus 1 stack I just cycled them down and finished it.
The other snake stack was about the same - I was able to get two Swamp Snake stacks after the Bats and the rest went after the Evil Book. It is very important, by the way, to work on the normal Snakes first because of their Stun ability. So once again, I was able to get my 2nd Evil Book when the 1st was down to about 1/3 health and then the two were able to gang up on the normal Snakes and take them out. The other 2 Swamp Snake stacks had been split where the weaker stack was on my 1st book and the stronger on my 2nd. I did this while whittling 3 of the 4 Swamp Snake stacks down such that when both books were dead I was able to use the Bats to keep attacking all but the strong Swamp Snake stack (while that stack kept being blocked by the other snakes) such that I killed all the other stacks (the Bats' Life Steal kept them close to full health) and just the large Swamp Snake stack was left. At this point, I performed the cycle and slowly whittled them down and finished it.
I actually thought the Whitehill stack was fairly easy - there was 1 stack of 79 Swordsmen and 23 Priests to go with the Inquisitor and Bowmen stacks! The key here was to cast Jealousy such that the 23 Priests became the jealous troop. By the way, I know how that bug you mentioned works: If a stack is controlled by Jealousy and they step outside of the range of the Statue (which happens a lot with ranged units), then they will remain under its control and as long as they are not within the range of the Statue when the spell expires, they'll stay under its control. So I had this work to great effect as the Swordsmen took out the Priests. I was then able to get my Evil Book up to his Inquisitors and Bowmen and by the time the Swordsmen had gotten to my book I cast a second. The two books easily took out the remaining Bowmen and Inquisitors and then the Swordsmen was able to take out both books, but by that time their numbers were in the 20's and then I did the "BatCycle" to finish them off! It took about 50 rounds. I probably could have done better if I had used Orc Strike twice on them instead of the stupid Necromancer ability, which is not very good in my opinion. I also had 1 Vamp killed by the Inquisitors that moved first at the start of the fight, but then the Bats Life Stole their way back up to max health when just the Swordsmen were left.
I also had forgetten to equip the sword for all but the Whitehill battle (not that +1 Attack would have made much of a difference).
Overall, this strategy is quite a bit easier than the Ball of Lightning which really requires you to BatCycle troops in virtually every fight!
I also didn't get level 6 until after I had defeated all the Basement stacks and completed the quest (which shows how variable the experience gain is because I also did the 3 easiest stacks in the Catacombs). I also had 36 Mana and didn't pick any skills when I leveled up to level 6 and so I had 1 Might, 8 Spirit, and 7 Magic Runes that I didn't use. I figured I'd see if I could do it as is and if I couldn't then I'd look to a skill for help.
So far the verified winning no loss strategies are: 1) Ball of Lightning and 2) Evil Book. Both situations require the spell level to be 2.
I know for a fact that Phoenix Level 2 will work because I was able to do it with Phoenix Level 1, but in my experimental game. I also got Demonologist and Avenger to work in my experimental game, but Avenger is pretty tough due to the fact that you have to let units strike you. This is all through the Shelter fights. As far as the Basement is concerned, I don't think Avenger will help you there so you're going to have to kite those stacks and just dig up the artifacts. Avenger has a shot at working on the Whitehill stacks because you just got take out the shooters.
By the way, in all my tries so for with the latest build (V1.5.1047.1747) the middle Whitehill stack is the easiest.
Also, if you go Order you should have enough Might Runes to boost your Rage - this is what I did for Ball of Lightning and it allowed me to use Jealousy twice and use the Rage Abilities more often which is a huge help in this fight.
Lastly, I just invented a new KB term: BatCycle! This means to whittle slower troops down via your Bats as you essentially move about the battlefield in a circuitous manner, thereby guaranteeing no loss!
/C\/C\