Demon invasion.

In ShoM there is a cool trick - you level up/mentor the image with a scholar and learn all of darkness from allied demons. After that, manticoras for a couple or three berserkers:) I also found a couple of spots where demons won't pursue - at Kha-Beleh's Stronghold and behind the passage where death knights stand. But going for manticoras is the best - it's easy to intercept the Castle and there's also a well there, so you can constantly summon troops from Hrottar.

In 4, the 3rd month is coming to an end - I'm dominating in all Articles. In the first 5 weeks using bdp, slow, and ballista, I pushed left to the very end where the mine with bears on guard is; only dwarf/mage armies and phoenixes with dragons are left , . I wiped out the first enemies during retreats, it was harder with the orc, he had already brought a dozen and a half cyclops by that stage. In terms of losses at this stage, only imps; other troops waited for ransom in both castles. I quickly managed to build up horses + a couple who joined; in the 2nd month, a hundred horses became the main stack. I broke through to the mentor somewhere in the middle of the 3rd month , dropped machines and defense, took attack with image + eagle, although so far I've only learned punishing from witches; no idea where to get scatter, it hasn't dropped anywhere. Now, essentially, I've broken through almost everything useful on my territory; got shield, greaves, and dragon cloak + ring + sword from the dragon packs from drowns/mages. Took three dwarf artifacts, ring and staff of init too. Only didn't break Sar-Issa's artifacts, but only the staff there will be useful against Duncan, and he is in another place. On the second wave of enemies I wiped out the elf ; Ellaina with a force of ~2 hundred horses preferred to flee when half of that army fell without losses on my side. I'm currently flying via portal away from the mage and orc, I don't want to fight them in the open field, they don't attack in the castle. Maybe I won't even hit them, I'll gather every possible army and go storm the humans - decent darkness in the last castle + Sar-Issa's staff = easy Duncan, hope I get lucky.

Image + subjugation in the last castle, well that's normal. Still no scatter - that's a problem, but it seems I wiped out almost all of Vitka's shooters in the very 1st battle; Duncan has crossbows, which isn't as dangerous, but I still need to swing by the library, maybe berserk will drop.