Yeah good tactic to try there V. I don't have the Lena Ball spell yet but looking forward to it
I did however get in there with a maxed out stack of high level Snakes, and Spiders - Bears, Wolves and a huge stack of Lake Fireflies. I took out the Beholders easier than I would have thought....and raced with the Rage to take out 2 more large enemy stacks. The last fight was rough though and I ended up with only a handful of bears & snakes, and about half of the Spiders left over. All in all it was a great, but costly run. BTW, Beholders can put pretty much anything to sleep. So it was good to find that out for the future.
Having cleaned out the Mines and gotten the Ore for the Dwarf Gilt - I went back and finished the Griffin Painting quest and ....it was nice to see he once again offered me a huge stack of Griffins for sale.
I now head to Upper Hadar at the head of a huge Human Army with Griffin support. This will be fun