1st annual offline tournament "Best Of The Best"

Yes, and AmberSoler also seemed to promise ;) If I remember correctly... I was interested in this battle from the start

Everything depends only on the starting layout before the fight. There is nothing special about my tactics - the battle was led by Dessa 15/10/8/10 on day 3-3-6, and she had about 900 upgraded Vampires, which determined everything... :) So there isn't much to tell.

As you can understand, the Efreet's Fire Shield has practically no effect on Vampire Lords because the damage dealt by this ability (20% damage returned to the attacker) is nothing compared to the Vampires' ability to restore their own health (100% of the damage dealt to the opponent). And they weren't particularly stressed by the direct damage from the Efreets... This means that after every strike, the Vamps restored practically their entire pool of health lost in the previous round.

To avoid the retaliation from the Efreets, kamikaze volunteers from among the gargoyles were used at the start of the battle to remove this retaliation. Then the Vamps attacked (naturally without retaliation), followed by a shock battalion of gargoyles, who cynically finished off the damaged Efreet stacks.

Additionally, Dessa had the Armor of the Damned, which timely slowed down the Efreets (6 hexes of speed after the usual 11 simply demoralized the enemy in the very first round of the battle).
There were also 5 Azure Dragons in the army, who first ensured the first turn (so that the Armor of the Damned could take effect), and then struck such fear into the Efreets that they missed about a quarter of their turns... :)

***

So, essentially, the battle looked like this: (5 AD, 24 BD, 1+1+1816 gargoyles, 584 liches, 933 Vampire Lords against 1296 Efreets, split into 5 stacks).

First was the turn of the fastest units on the battlefield - the ADs, who successfully pass their turn, but allow the Armor of the Damned to work. The Efreets, feeling the mass slow and expert weakness (attack power reduced from 16 to 10), were completely bewildered. :) Estimating the prospects of fighting the azure ones, some of the enemy stacks prudently stood in place and looked for a reason to slip away... Those who dared to rush forward only managed to cover half the distance.

After the retaliation was removed, the vampires rushed into attack, followed by the gargoyles. Then, the liches hit the most distinguished enemy stacks, and the Azure ones and BDs finished it all off, wiping out the weakest enemy stacks.

Towards the end of the battle, we apply Animate Dead to the Vampires, although they restored themselves quite well even without magic.

Losses: 2 BD, 254 gargoyles, 61 vampires - and even then, only because someone forbade digging for the Medal of Vulnerability. :) Otherwise, both the BD and probably most of the gargoyles would have been restored.

The Efreet losses were much more significant. :)

***

Battle analysis:

It was a mistake to take BDs and gargoyles into battle (they cannot be restored). It would have been enough to take only 1 AD (for the first turn and fear), liches (ranged mass attack), and Vampires (the main shock stack). In this case, we finish the fight without losses (see screenshots below). The battle tactics are as follows: End of the first turn - Vamps, after waiting, fly to the nearest Efreet stack (if we don't reach it, haste can be applied). On the second turn, we fly to the opposite edge of the field.

The Efreets can only reach the Vamps with their turn (slowdown), and therefore (due to dumb AI tactics) on the second turn, instead of flying toward the shooters, they return to the Vampires and spend the whole battle standing around them and frying them slowly. There was, however, one smart Efreet - he rushed at the shooters, but such ones don't live long... :D

The Vamps respond only to the first of the attackers, however, the constantly applied Animate Dead magic + the innate ability of vampires to restore themselves compensates for all losses. Additionally, the uncommon clustering for Efreets leads to very high damage for them from lich attacks (2-3 stacks are always under fire).

At the end of the battle, we leave one of the weakest enemy stacks, fly away with the vampires, restore them over 2 turns, and take down the opponent with liches... The result is obvious :) I didn't bother replaying for this, as it was already the end of the game, and there was still plenty of meat (BDs were taken out in auto-battle :), I didn't look for oil)...
But the debriefing was nonetheless carried out thoroughly.

Dessa's photo session is below:

1. Deployment before the battle. Armor of the Damned has already taken effect.
2. Efreets are clustering around the Vamps. Naive! :) One is already gone... :)
3. Result - no wounded! The whole battle - 6 rounds. Necros definitely rule!