One fairly insane piece of advice would be to try if you can kill the Kraken (talk to Miranda). I did it with swordsmen, guardsmen, archers, standard bears and griffins, which means I had big stacks of everything except the griffins. I took a lot of losses, but the victory was worth it.

The kraken is hard, but not very hard compared to the rest of the stuff you find on the islands. You just have to be prepared to lose a lot of your troops (not a problem if you play with mainly cheap troops). And you can't use rage spirits against it, so your disadvantage there won't hurt you in that fight. If you win, you'll get a huge amount of experience - probably enough to level up once.

was that camp tough for you? I still cant beat it and im basically the same level as you :( theres like 2 stacks of 30 horsemen, 2 stacks of 30 mages and a massive stack of archers.

I never fought that pack. Everytime I want to buy something from that camp, I just lure that stack from the camp, then buy units, and then run away :D

same here, also can do the same thing with mobs that guard flags, chests and runes. Save and lure them away grab the items and come back later.

Glad you manage now. But from my perspective it depends on play style my char mage lev 11 is in dwarf lands as well and rage box level 4-6 (the frog fishes rule for me now) and I have fireball max with +30% spell dmg at the moment and I don't have problems there although I heaven't clear the starting areas. But I have to say I can't save dwarf son just yet so I am comming back to finish what I left in starting areas :P