I recently tried to run on impossible difficulty with minimum losses and found the following tactic to be pretty effective. It is about tanking, protecting, healing, summoning and finally, dealing damage.

This guide requires common found units and usually common and early found spells. Specific items are not required although they help a lot.

This guide is not made for a particular class, but Skalds and Soothsayers make more out of this tactic; Skalds due to army size and Edda and Soothsayers due to earlier access to level 3 spells and Higher Magic.

Ancient Ent

Stats:

• Level 5
  
• 1200 Leadership
  
• 50 Attack
  
• 60 Defence
  
• 1 Initiative
  
• 1 Speed
  
• 10% Crit
  
• 100 - 140 Physical Damage
  
• 1400 Health

This is our tank. With 1400 Health points per unit it is the unit with the most health in all of Kings Bounty. Not even Dragons match this vitality. Additionally, his leadership requirement is rather low with 1200 for his good damage and attack/defence stats, especially compared to dragons. His main function is, of course, to withstand damage long enough that the other troops can kill the enemy. Of course, he can deal quite some damage as well. We will cast all of our defensive spells and talents on him.

Rune Mage

Stats:

• Level 4
  
• 180 Leadership
  
• 22 Attack
  
• 22 Defence
  
• 2 Initiative
  
• 2 Speed
  
• 10% Crit
  
• 10 - 12 Magical Damage
  
• 140 Health

This is our replicator. Two of his talents are slightly overpowered in my eyes.The first is the talent Phantom, which creates a phantom of a selected allied troop with 20 - 60% of it's parent's health, depending on unused hero spirit runes and consuming one defence rune of the Rune Mage. Natively, he has one charge of this spell, because he has one defence rune. The amount of charges for Phantom is equal to the defence runes of the Rune Mage.
The second talent is Runic Word, which grants an allied unit 2 - 6 runes (evenly distributed by type), depending on unused hero magic runes and consuming one rune of luck of the Rune Mage. Natively, he has one charge of this spell, because he has one rune of luck. The amount of charges for Runic Words however is equal to the amount of runes of luck of the Rune Mage.
We will only use Phantom and Runic Word with this unit and not deal any direct damage.

Archmage

Stats:

• Level 4
  
• 200 Leadership
  
• 20 Attack
  
• 24 Defence
  
• 6 Initiative
  
• 2 Speed
  
• 7% Crit
  
• 5 - 8 Magical Damage
  
• 140 Health

This is our semi-tactical, semi-damage-dealing unit. His great defensive talent Magic Shield reduces the targeted ally's damage taken by 50%. Tis will be cast on our tank, the Ancient Ent of course. While this talent is in cooldown, he can use his Fighting trance to deal respectable amounts of damage in any range, thus preferrably enemy archers which stick to the back rows.
Whenever Magic Shield is ready again, we use it on the Ancient Ents.

Shaman

Stats:

• Level 4
  
• 200 Leadership
  
• 24 Attack
  
• 32 Defence
  
• 5 Initiative
  
• 3 Speed
  
• 10% Crit
  
• 10 - 18 Physical Damage
  
• 180 Health

The Shaman is our healer. His Totem of Life will keep our Ancient Ents at good health, while his Dancing Axes grant some adrenaline for the Shaman while dealing damage. Whenever he can not do anything at range, he should skip his turn or in rare occasions attack the enemy in melee range.

Royal Thorn

Stats:

• Level 4
  
• 320 Leadership
  
• 30 Attack
  
• 30 Defence
  
• 2 Initiative
  
• 1 Speed
  
• 20% Crit
  
• 20 - 30 Physical Damage
  
• 360 Health

The Royal Thorn is the greatest summoner in Kings Bounty and a good shooter when his talent is in cooldown. This is the troop which we will use the Rune Mages Phantom spell on to create Royal Thorn phantoms which in turn summon minion thorns. Fill that arena with weeds!

Target
School: Distortion
The selected troop becomes a very enciting target for the enemy. Level 1 - 2 / 1 - 3 / 1 - 4 creatures will attack that target first with their base attack.
Mana: 3 / 6 / 12
Duration: 1 / 2 / 3

When used on our Ancient Ents, we assure that almost every enemy unit on the battlefield first tries to attack the Ancient Ents, which is a blessing if you face enemy shooters. Always keep this spell on the Ancient Ents.


Stone Skin
School: Distortion
Their Skin turning leathery and hard, the troop receives additional defence and physical damage resistance, but suffers a loss of initiative.
Mana: 3 / 5 / 7
Duration: 3 / 4 / 5
Initiative: -1
Protection: 20+% / 30+% / 40+% (depending on intellect)

If you have enemies which only deal physical damage this spell is a really good and cheap way to boost the Ancient Ents' defences. Use only if you have enough mana and no more important spells to cast.


Peacefullness
School: Order
Reduces the damage inflicted but increases the troops health. Reduces orcish adrenaline.
Mana: 5 / 7 / 10
Duration: 3 / 4 / 5
Adrenaline: -10 / -20 / -30
Damage: -30
Health +30% / +40% / +50%

This spell boosts your Ancient Ents' health to 2100 per unit. Because we don't mean him to cause much damage, the damage reduction is not so bad. As a cheap spell, this is totally worth it after the Ancient Ents have their basic resitances active. Trying to keep this spell active all the time can eliminate unwanted losses.


Divine Armour
School: Order
Provides the target increased resistances against all types of damage.
Mana: 15 / 20 / 30
Duration: 2 / 3 / 4
Health +20+% / +25+% / +30+% (depending on intellect)

First of all, this spell eliminates the Ancient Ents' weakness to fire entirely. This means that especially against demons it is a must have spell and Soothsayers can really have advantages here because they can cast it in the same round as the spell Target. Additionally this spell reduces the rest damage the Ancient Ents receive by another good percentage. Use this skill sparely as it is quite mana costly for its short duration.

Note: I will only name the skills that are core of this guide. Any other skills are beneficial.

Might

Rage Control 3
This skill increases the maximum adrenaline amount your shamans can have. Useful for longer combats where you need to cast multiple Totems.

Action Rage 3
This skill gives your Shamans a nice kick of adrenaline right on the start. It simply fills all adrenaline that you can have which enables you to cast multiple totems of life before running out of adrenaline. And with increased adrenaline they also have a chance to reload all talents.

Shield of Rage 3
Nothing is more frustrating than to see your Ancient Ent take one damage and the burn for 1000 every turn. With this skill, you have a chance that he will be saved.

Mind

Tactics 2
The nearer at the enemy lines you can place your Ancient Ent, the better. He is really slow and will usually be scaringly close to your troops.

Persuasion 3
Orcs and Elves dislike each other and it would be a shame to have drastically decreased stats due to a minor conflict of races.

Oratory 3
Having a better morale prevents stat loss due to negative effetcs. Also it increases stats while unafected by debuffs.

Edda 3
The songs of Edda can give your troops the necessary advantage against your enemies.

Magic

Order Magic 3
For Peacefullness and Divine Armour

Distortion Magic 3
For Target and Stone Skin

Concentration 3
As a saying goes: A mage without mana is a dead mage.

Creation 3
Creation prolongs the effects of your spells by up to 2 rounds, which means you are going to spend less mana on recasting them. Also, it increases the effectiveness of your spells.

Higher Magic 3
The best skill of a Soothsayer. Casting two skills in the same round offers so much more protecion for your army. Usually it is for the first round to cast Target and Divine Armour / Peacefullness

Generally, all items that boost your resistances are of interest, but there are some special items which are worth considering instead of resist gear.

Crown of Blackthorne
Taking into account that you are using Royal Thorns, which can summon Thorn minions, it is worth considering to use this item to double the damage inflicted by all Thorns.

Dragon Scale Armour
This Armour provides 10% resistance to ice and fire as well as 15% to physical. There is no better protecting armour in Kings Bounty.

Winner's Belt
Granting 50% bonus to the basic defence value, this item is really powerful to help your Ancient Ents to survive. Additionally, it increases the speed of all troops by 1, which means your ancient Ents can go further away from your troops on his first turn and move and attack on every further turn.

Crystal Ball
Grants 5% Resistances to all forms of damage. If you have the runic receipe to craft these, it would be worth it to make 1-3 of these (depending on how many artifact your class can hold).

Ghost Armour
With a resistance boost of 20% to Astral damage, you get a resistance bonus to a rare element which yet can be really devestating.

Unfortunately, the Totems of Life seem to dislike to target the ancient Ents or they simply target the troop with the least total health. Anyway, in order to make them target the Ancient Ents, you should not have any other troops in the area of effect of the totems. This is a difficult task especially when you have Thorn Warriors eager to kill the enemy. Also, the terrain will play bad games with you from time to time and offer you little to no space to place a totem safe enough that it is not destroyed by the enemy but still cover the Ancient Ents.

Use the troop setup order (left to right): Rune Mages, Archmages, Royal Thorns, Shamans, Ancient Ents
This is because the Archmages boost the magic resistance of adjacent allies and the Shamans have a natively high resistance already. Because you are going to place your Ancient Ents with the help of the Skill Tactics further away anyway, the position at the border is not too bad.

Using the Rage Eater Artifact will keep you on mana for quite a while. You will always find this item sooner or later because it is part of a somewhat common set.


+ Very strategic choices lead you to hard achieved victories
+ Battles are very diverse, because of the terrain as well as the enemy troops and his setup
+ Very endurable. You can cast indefinitely phantoms with your Rune Mages and can make indefinitely many Thorns without the use of Mana
+ Can look pretty funny if you have half a rainforest of Thorns
+ Few losses even on higher difficulties

- Partially very long battles as you are not focused on raw power
- You will run out of mana eventually as you start getting less mana and rage per round after round 10
- Ancient Ents are slow and really not initiative which can make fast enemies reach you before he can even move.
- Ineffective against level 5 creatures and shooters with very high initiative