Wulfsten's Challenge - "Laslo" [Campaign 2, Mission 5]

am I in shock? how do you all beat it?

Actually, it's not that complicated. You just need to develop rapidly, meaning build the town every turn and try to capture mines as quickly as possible (so you have resources for construction). If you are still short on resources, you can skip building/buying dragons (although they actually make the battle with Laslo much easier). Since the heroes are already well-leveled at the start, you can capture all the mines and creature dwellings almost without any problems with a small starting army. With this tactic, by the time Laslo arrives, we will have a fully built Castle (be sure to build the watchtower) and a quite capable army. If I remember correctly (I played it a long time ago), my army was quite comparable to (if not larger than) Laslo's. It is better to fight in the castle (I think it's obvious why), as Laslo attacks the castle regardless, even if he has a smaller army. Well, that's all, good luck.