I logged a lot of hours this weekend and the game has become a lot more fun. I finished Mehgard and went to the Elven Lands, where I promptly looted the entire continent blind before clearing one stack to get into the land of the dead and robbing that place blind as well.
I also replaced almost my entire army with new units:
Royal Thorns -> Dryads
Royal Snakes -> Lake Fairies
Giants -> Demonesses
Shamans -> Evil Beholders
Inquisitors -> I can't bear to let these guys go.
I don't have tolerance, but with Anga's Ruby the girls' morale is still high, plus I found the Elven Crown which is an additional +1 to elves, and the Marshal's Baton gives +1 morale to Humans. So the mixed army penalty is mostly negated.
I would love to replace the Evil Beholders with Sprites, but I searched the entire Elven Lands and they are not for sale. How disappointing, now my Power Puff Girl army is missing the blonde. But honestly I don't need them, this army is ridiculously powerful. Here's how most fights go against low level units:
Turn 1 - Send the Lake Fairies in to cripple/destroy the most dangerous stack. Dryads use Lullaby to knock out level 1-3 units. Inquisitors build rage, Evil Beholders mind control any level 4 or 5 unit, Demonesses don't have to do anything.
Turn 2 - Lake Fairies cripple/destroy another stack. Dryads summon a huge stack of thorns, then I cast Time Back on them to get the Lullaby and thorns back. I have all my units wait, and after the Lullaby wears off I deal as much damage as I can.
Turn 3 - Repeat of Turn 1
Turn 4 - Repeat of Turn 2, except if Reaper is on cooldown use Gift instead of Time Back.
With this style of fighting you can go ~20 rounds before you start to lose mana/rage. Lake Fairies generate 3x as much rage as Royal Snakes did, a good critical hit will generate 12 rage, and you get double rage for the last strike of the battle, so sometimes you get +6/+6 at the very end to carry you on to the next fight. In fact, against normal armies I end every fight will full rage and mana so you can just clear the whole continent in one go without ever stopping.
Against dragons the fight goes a little differently:
Turn 1 - Lake Fairies hit the most powerful non-magic resistant unit (usually Bone Dragons), the Dryads summon thorns, Inquisitors generate rage, Beholders mind control if possible and attack the dragons. Usually the dragons are all up in my business, and I usually lose a few units but more often than not they attack the thorn stack so it's important that you summon them in such a way that they can't breathe fire on you in a line. Demonesses can do 1 of two things here. They can deal heavy physical damage or use their infernal exchange to get a stack of dragons out of the backfield. Meanwhile the rest of the army pummels your Lake Fairies, although you get one counter attack which usually cripples/destroys whoever attacks you. Your turn 1 spell should be Magic Spring if you need mana, or Sacrifice on the Lake Fairies if you need units.
Turn 2 - Lake Fairies attack again. Black dragons attack your thorns again hopefully, if not you lose a few units, no big deal. Business as usual, but after all of the enemy units have taken their turn (you get 1 more counterattack with the Lake Fairies) use Time Back on your Lake Fairies. Make sure the hex they started on is not blocked, by the way. So basically your Lake Fairies get 2 massive attacks and 2 massive counter attacks (plus possibly a sacrifice) and they're back to full. Your demonesses plus thorns plus dryads should be able to take out whatever dragons are in your backfield. Resurrect as necessary and finish up the slower units.
Items:
The elven lands provided me with:
Dragon Slayer Shield (+2 Defense, +20% Fire Resistance)
Elven Crown (+1000 Leadership, +1 morale to Elves)
Some boots that upgrade to Spiked Boots (+2 Defense, +1 Attack)
I was also able to clear every item suppression battle with ease. So I also have:
Mantle of Wizardry
2 Archmage Staves
Great Druid's Staff
2 Marshal's Batons
My leadership at level 22 was 15,500.
I decided to take a detour and go back to dwarven territory to tie up some loose ends. First, I had finally touched all the obelisks so I got the map and traded it for the Mithril Shield. Second, I defeated my double twice. I used Dryads, Lake Fairies, Inquisitors, Royal Snakes, and I bought Miners because they were right there. Using the Lullaby - Time Back - Lullaby - Gift combo I defeated both armies without my double ever being able to cast a spell. Third and most importantly, I went to Demonis to win myself a worthy wife.
The castle Nexy fight is tough, and what made it worse was that I didn't have level 3 Magic Shackles. I was 5 crystals short, which made me seriously regret learning spells like Battle Cry which I have not used even a single time. Anyway, the fight consists of 3 stacks of Cerberi, one huge stack of Imps, 2 huge stacks of Demonesses, and a little stack of Knights and Catapults. I started the fight with an Underground Blades and a Geyser to thin out the stacks a bit, and sent my Lake Fairies to wear down the Demonesses. The Dryads could put the Cerberi and the Scoffer Imps to sleep, leaving just 2 stacks of Demonesses and the Knights. My Evil Beholders mind controlled the Knights and had them attack the Demonesses, nearly killing themselves in the counter attack.
The nice thing about Demoness vs. Demoness combat is that when they make a bad Infernal Exchange, you can undo it with your own. If the Demonesses swapped one of my units with a sleeping unit, I didn't care, but whenever one Demoness swapped the other into my back lines, I swapper her back out. That kept my Inquisitors and Beholders firing on the Demonesses and wearing them down.
Using the Lullaby - Time Back - Lullaby - Gift strategy I kept half of Xeona's army asleep for the entire battle, and whittled down the Demonesses and Xeona's Demon Portals. I took severe losses, but once I knocked out all the level 4 units, Xeona couldn't cast anymore and I could start producing insane amounts of thorns. I then used the Poison Cloud + Mana Spring trick plus Chargers to get my mana back. Because I had 15 INT, Mana Spring returned 30 mana and only cost 5. I think I spent 10 turns killing Xeona's army and then 20 turns resurrecting my losses. But I won and that's all that matters.
So I'm headed back to the Elven Lands now. I'm really hoping that one of the questgivers turned shops in the Elven Lands sells Sprites. That would make me so happy. But I'm not holding my breath. I also can't buy Hunters anywhere, but at least I got a friendly troop of 43 of them garrisoned so I could sacrifice them up if I needed to. I plan on clearing out the rest of the Elven Lands and then killing the undead.