Maybe I'm missing something, but could you share replays of completing the very first mission?
I'm especially interested in how to defeat 114 Daughters of the Sky and Earth with an army of 70 Imps, 18 Beasts, 24 Miners, 8 Overseers, and 1 Mistress.
Or with the same army, how to defeat 555 Plague Zombies + Rotting Zombies.
And along the way, there are 16 Messengers, 47 Higher and Regular Vampires, a couple of squads of 15 and 18 Liches/Archliches/Higher Liches, etc.
All while, of course, the army must maintain its combat effectiveness to defeat one and a half hundred Cerberi + who knows what else on the surface.
Ideally, I'd also like to see replays of defeating a dozen Necropolis Dragons guarding the hut, and at the same time, defeating Demonesses + Temptresses for the +1 Knowledge bonus.
What are these units for?
Secondly, it's clear from the start that Chaos and Summoning won't be effective. So, it's either Darkness or Light. Choosing between them, Darkness is obviously the better choice. The question is: why does a hero from Darkness need such a fast growth rate for their magic power? To then slow down for 30 turns to cast on a legion of mobs with zero attack and kick them for 30 minutes?
I'm also playing on Veteran difficulty - it's slow, but in the end, I killed everyone at the bottom except for the Succubi guarding the Crystal of Secret Knowledge. Furies and splitting up the units (splitting up the Beasts works best) are the key. And save more often!)