Just imagine, when playing as Demons or Humans, you need to eliminate a horde of Dryads guarding a lumber mill/mine, and it's just annoying that you can't defeat them without significant losses in the first week.

In the most general case, you can only fight Dryads and any archers without losses at the start if you have War Machines and a tent, except, of course, when playing as Necropolis. Having Engineers at the start (Daleb and Vittorio for Inferno and Haven, respectively) makes things much easier. But you can also reduce losses with other heroes. Against the same Dryads, you can field an undead stack, if, of course, a Mage or Necromancer appears in the tavern, and a few level 1 units. And while they swarm and eliminate the level 1 units, you can use magic to take out the enemy. The main thing in such battles is to remember that the damage from the swarm decreases slightly as the number of Dryads in the stack decreases, so you need to try to finish off the stack completely.

As a result, you have 30-40 Goblins, 15-20 Gargoyles, and 1 Mage. And the neutral creatures on the map are mostly ranged attackers. So what? In the case of Dryads, the Mage (unit) is eliminated on the first turn, in the case of Goblins, Assassins, etc., a little later. So why bother taking him if he won't deal much damage?

Therefore, when playing as the Academy, take Hafiz (Engineers are often banned, though), Nur, and Or. The last two have Ranged Attack and enough mana, so the lumber mill will be defended by the Dryads with the loss of several (usually 5) level 1 units, which can be taken from a non-native hero, and you can save your Goblins. Don't forget to get the Sign of the Magician as soon as possible.