The ninth stage of the Kanigem Tournaments

I'm afraid I won't be the one telling it. Reducing it by one day was quite possible, just too lazy.
And Iron, looks like he did it in 5, since he's refusing 3-4. :)
Hm. I'd also love to hear about the "5 days" :eek:.

No :) I did it in 7 (6 in the table). I think 6(5) is probably possible, but you need to be as savvy with the battles as you are, since you broke through from the respawn with two heroes. I pushed through with a crowd and focused on armor :) because they were hitting me in the head way too much. Moreover, I found it easier to save mana with a crowd.

I'm just taking it slow... I didn't touch the Mages; on the 2nd day, I took the cyclops with two heroes.

Well, see? :) While I had 4 heroes taking out the cyclops on the second day. Let's call them: Regenerator (Life), Muscle (Life) who had armor+sword from the inner clump, Healer (Life), and Archer. The Nature hero stood aside, otherwise the cyclops would split into two squads. And another bad thing is that the accelerated fairy (A. Fairy) in the Fortress stable had to be moved to the Nature hero as well. This fairy must be guarded like the apple of your eye! Don't let the Nature hero summon a fairy when the accelerated one is in his squad, otherwise that fairy will lose the acceleration from the stable. But fairies are valuable, so at the end of every turn, the Nature hero and the A. Fairy had to be separated.

Nightmares with boots, ice, vampire nest, Death castle on the 6th (all this with two). Vamps with a grave on the 7th reached the nearest barb castle. On the 8th, a newly bought one finished off the barbs.

It seems to me that this is a weak point in your Walkthrough. On what day did you take the vampire nest? On the 4th or the beginning of the 5th? How long does it take them to get to the central barb castle across the sand? 3 days or 4? Can the Vamps reach it on their own a day earlier? In theory, you can take the vampire nest on the 4th day (I was a few moves short on the 4th, so consider it taken at the start of the 5th turn). In short, for 7(6) in your Walkthrough, it's absolutely necessary to at least take the Vamps on the 4th turn and it's possible (though the heroes' moves will be nearly exhausted), BUT they can't be taken earlier (or am I wrong?). And considering how long they trek through the sand to the central barbs, you can get 7(6) from 8(7) with such a Walkthrough option. But 6(5) is probably definitely not possible. I took the Vamps at the start of the 5th turn and two went for the barbs (Regenerator and Muscle on an accelerated stable fairy, and from the 5th turn onwards they used full turns only with boots) — they reach the central barbs from the vampire nest in two days, using two oases along the way (and in the second one, Regenerator's grave accelerates). And Muscle arrives at the Fortress with Regenerator's grave in his pocket. And Muscle still has about ten moves left, I don't remember exactly. And roughly speaking, on the fifth turn, near the Vampire nest in the swamp, the squad split into two more (and Regenerator and Muscle were still there). The Archer and Healer on a non-accelerated fairy went for the Death castle. And the Nature hero with the vamps went back to the Life Fortress. On the fifth turn, you've got to see :) how these three squads in the swamp passed the boots to each other. Why not — there's only one pair :) But it wasn't possible to take three Fortresses simultaneously. The Death Fortress was taken on the 6th turn. However, one of his heroes remained alive behind the fortress. And the last barb fortress and the life fortress were taken on the 7th turn. On the seventh turn, moves remained for the Nature hero (17) and for Regenerator, who took the last barb castle (12-13). Even if you somehow optimize it so they reach the fortresses on the 6th turn, you'd still need luck so that one of the death heroes doesn't flee the fortress (he had to be pinned down on the 7th turn too). Or the Healer would have to take the Death Fortress alone with the archer's grave in his pocket. Problematic, but probably possible.
PS. What's special about the map? There are no tedious, long looping battles. I had only one such battle and it wasn't key for the Walkthrough. On the last turn, I had to clear 5000 from the graveyard. First, one healer attacked and wiped out the larger half of the zombies from over a hundred, spending all remaining mana. About 40-50 zombies were finished off by two cerberi, easily, though I had to run around a bit :) I wanted to steal the artifact from under the CD using the Healer's grave with the Archer, but there weren't enough units left for that. Because on the sixth turn, 4 imps with all the loot were sent across the swamp in a chain. The purpose of the chain was to catch up with the Nature hero and give him all the loot for the battle with the Life Fortress.

Added after 14 minutes

plz post the save of the battle with the cyclops, if you have it, or the end of this turn.

Let's start throwing saves around after the preliminary results are announced. Maybe ours won't even be needed :) Under, I suggest that after the preliminary results are announced, you post your saves for the end of each turn. It's useful to see how to break through with a small number of heroes, at least from the respawn. I want to see that too. Otherwise, it'll be like those gypsies pushing a locomotive with their butts in a friendly crowd, only to find out a year later that the locomotive had no wheels :)
PS. I mean, after watching the "movie," people will decide which specific battles they'd like to see in more detail.