I can say that I really like the Life faction. Of course, the Haven faction is the strongest, but Life is more interesting to play. I will tell you how I play with it. In general, at the early levels, Life is very strong; having archers in the army greatly simplifies leveling up on neutral creatures. I only build ballistas on small maps; on large maps, they are simply useless, so it's better to use spearmen in such cases. We can talk in more detail about the 3rd-level creatures. I really like monks; these guys stand very well on towers, and they are excellent ranged attackers. Their competitors, the Crusaders, have a double strike, which is also annoying, especially when sieging a castle. You are wrong to criticize champions; they hit even harder than angels. Heroes only provide support, but in my opinion, that is quite enough.