Phantom paladins help in the final stages, but oddly enough it really is more of the "best defense is a good offense" build.
However, you really need to abuse turn back time with a native paladin resurrection. I take SEVERE losses from ktahu's first hit. I did have leather dress and twinkling but oh man... that really doesn't do much. But yes, I keep the archers in a circle so phantom or paladin resurrection heals more efficiently.
I also got the inquisitor's sword specifically to abuse this, as my intellect is low (11) and I did not spend runes for the mage tree "resurrection" spell power. Does that even help a paladin's resurrection?
Contrary to what the info thread says, I out-initiative ktahu with my hunters in the first round due to quick draw. Not that there is much I could do with it but it was funny.
A few surprises. I actually NEEDED tactics 2 so my paladin and royal griffins can hit his arms in the first round. His AoE blast slows my units afterwards. I am fairly sure this is critical to prevent him from summoning an early wave or to do another area of effect blast.
Yes, I found magician's cowl in a chest (huge shocker to me), chaos crown (gift bag 50% magic and astral resistance), and diploma.
Oddly enough, ktahu's minions are more troublesome, but not by much. Reason? Almost all lizardmen take HALF damage from my attacks due to rugged scales. However, after retooling my items and using flaming eyes, I can wipe them out nearly as fast as they come up.
I literally have 3 archers that have 100% critical rates (thanks to black bandage, another gift bag item!)
The key to ktahu for me was to keep hitting his arm, even if it meant teleporting the paladins to hit it. It was a tricky balance between that and preparing for a turn back time resurrection.
Yes, I tried to keep a ranged unit alive so I had enough time to do phantom resurrection. I suppose it is a little cheesy, but if all no-loss methods are chessy, I would rather kill the boss very fast.
Baal's minions do not do anything for the first round, so I can kill them all handily, but I do not want to!!! I need them to stay alive longer so I could resurrect more. The gilbert army ends up killing the imps...
I can probably do the baal thing better as long as he does not shift my paladin to prevent the turn back time resurrection. My first run where I only lost 51 guys was the best one.
I probably will not try it for too much and leave it as it is.
Seeing as how useful physical resistance is, I am going to try an impossible mage using some archers too.
To compensate for the lower leadership, I will experiment with precision, hell breath, and berserker.
[edit]
sorry was at work when I responded, here are some screenshots.
Haha, took out the frog in 2 rounds.
Spider took a while because you cannot use range to hit him. So, the ranged waited many rounds and took out the summons while the paladin and griffon did the real work.
I included my embarassing baal battle. Bleh. Maybe I will redo the battle, but I am just so excited about the possibility of using a mage with archers instead.