[Handel]

I played the game almost to the end (untill after Haas labirinth) before stopping to play because there wasn't anything more then battles (like quests and interesting dialogues) and never ever got 4 stacks from 180 creatures from this level. As for the ogres and such - blast, blast, blast...
I never wrote I won the battles without losses. First I didn't have rez spell and besides I found it is too boring to prolong the games too long.
But As I said I won most of the latest battles with just 2 stacks - from spearmen and royal snakes because I was keepeing those in the reserve and could easily replenish the losses. Sometimes I was buying other creatures too although they weren't really needed and I was too lazy to go back to restock so after few battles they usually were reduced to unsignificant quantity. And yes - the AI goes for ranged troops first and if they are hit early they may take big damage - but who cares. A mage don't need them and they make excelent cheap cannon fodder.
As for the Gatts - basicly he wrote "I didn't play as a mage but nevertheless let me teach you about the mages".
And what I wrote IT IS FROM MY EXPERIENCE as a high level mage you don't really need all those fancy spells besides the few highly offensive spells simply because it is much easier to blast the enemies instead of trying to cast buffs/debuffs and such. It is true - after the 3rd turn and after 6 water/poison (for dragons)/fire spells there are very few enemies left. Usually most of the battles finish at 5th turn at most. So providing there are no more quests and dialogues and choices to make and such the game becomes pretty boring.

Besides - don't forget most of the damaging spells are area spells so untill I kill the ogres the fireballs are killing zillions of smaller critters too so after turn 5 there may be some other critter left but not much.