another sick challenge from impy:-)

[impy]

You say you wanted to prevent all powerful combos from your challenge, but would allow dragon lightning ball. I wonder if you are aware of super powerful combo in round 1 : gorguana cast double damage spell on strongest enemy stack, pet dragon: lightning ball on this stack, hero : awaken dragon, hero: phantom on gorguanas, phantomed gourguanas cast double damage spell on second strongest enemy stack, pet dragon : lightning ball. This way in round one you eliminate 40-96% of two strongest enemy stacks in enemy army (there are few exceptions). So NO to dragon ball if you want your challenge to be challenging..I hardly use damaging spells apart from ball with pet dragon, usually it is mana recharge. I only rarely cast low level dragon dive to move opponents back one tile,when they come to close and represent a danger.
Not using creatures provided in "horde" amount to buy is not really a problem. That is normally level 1-2 creatures which I never use anyway. So once you get to Verona, you should have plenty to choose from. Since it is not no loss game, you can use anything you want. Example you found 150 druids, use them until their numbers drop, then take other unit on board. Also, due to general mage lower leadership, once you find for example stack of 200 demonologists, you're ok, since you only suffer smaller losses until Reha if playing smartly.