droids are NOT overpowered:-)

[impy]

I can confirm that you cannot bypass Marquis and fight Demenion straight away. Just tried it with wings..
Regarding getting runes from level 4-5 items via neatness skill. It is a misunderstanding. I said - "if you get crystals, reload". What i meant by this was load a savegame before you bought the particular items which when destroyed gave you crystals. That would be a waste of money. Just buy a different one. I'm not aware that by reloading or breaking the item on different island would make any difference, as with call colosus scroll for example .
Impossible no loss with peasants only. I think I mentioned somewhere that only possible way in my opinion would be very high intellect mage which casts invisibility first turn and then there are two ways - creating bucketloads of summons or unleash hell via death star for example.
Black knight game with minimum fights. I've not played them yet, but I do not think it would be that easy. Remember, you will not have staff of acolyte (-15% leadership req.) since it is a result of some fights and also no splinter of darkness. I see the following problem. You will be constantly surrounded by enemies. The moment you kill someone (and finish your turn) hoping to cast eviln, the empty slot next to you would be immediately filled in by another enemy stack attacking you. So i guess one would need to use teleporting to lure the enemies away from standing on the dead bodies...