I want to share my impressions about the lack of magic among the Orcs.
All the concerns that were expressed about the impossibility of playing against them with mages are, to put it mildly, not entirely true – you can play, and play well! :) The so-called Orcish Anti-Magic is as much of a myth as Snickers with hazelnuts))) :)
It has been said more than once that this is definitely not an overpowered ability. Now, with the release of the expansion pack, we can draw some conclusions that have already been tested in practice.
Firstly, “Strength against Magic” – a racial ability designed to reduce the opponent's magic, is not as effective as one would like, since the “reduction” is a rather small value, which does not have a significant impact on enemies.
Secondly, all the Magic Silencing abilities, which were almost declared as another form of cheating (remember the Dwarves :) in my humble opinion, are not as scary as predicted. Everything turned out to be quite balanced; any “silencer” drops for a barbarian hero with a probability of only 5%, and Battle Cry even less – 2%. :) It turns out that in order to develop at least one Anti-Magic ability more or less decently, you will have to spend 3-8 levels on it, and it is far from certain that with such a low chance of it dropping, you will be able to prepare quickly enough for a meeting with a real opponent.
Finally, thirdly, the new expansion pack has significantly expanded the number of skills in the skill tree, thereby giving the player the opportunity to look at their tactics in the game in a new way. Now it is no longer so obvious what the opponent will prefer and what magic he will make his main one. It should not be forgotten that the innovations have significantly affected the balance of power in the game; it is unlikely that now, in a confrontation with the Orcs, serious players will standardly develop Sylvans and Haven through Light magic, Necromancers through Darkness, or the League of Shadows through Chaos – it seems to me that the most likely thing will be an attempt to deceive the Barbarian and not go along the standard “well-trodden” path, but choose something else, thereby forcing him to rack his brains over your preference in magic.

because a barbarian can learn Light magic, and any knight without Bless and Resurrection will quickly die

Maybe you are making agreements with the opponent about which school he will definitely prefer :) , but I like to give the Knights Darkness, because the chance of it dropping is exactly the same as Light, or, when playing Inferno, I often bet on Chaos spells, and I won't even talk about the academics – for me, all schools are almost equal. But an error in choosing a “silencer” can be very costly for the Barbarian, as the experience spent cannot be recovered.
In general, I have expressed my opinion, which is based on a rather small experience in hot-seat mode in “Lords of the Realm”; I would like to hear other opinions, preferably well-reasoned, arguments are welcome :)