Your first start in Blood for Land may or may not be promising. You either get clobbered on your first attack on Stallions Pass or end up winning- none the less here are some tips to help you when you get stuck.
A quick reminder, this game can end up being very unforgiving. There are many design decisions in some missions that just baffle me- and feel extremely unbalanced. There is one mission where you are put in a castle against an endless spawning number of bandits armed with bows and crappy swords, and if the fight goes on for a bit long they can quickly overwhelm the castle and your spawn, forcing you to surrender or await defeat. For this reason I've made this guide, to help everyone have a better experience playing this game.

For starters, you should put most of your points into three attributes; 1. Strength, 2. Intelligence and 3. Agility. These are the only ones that are used in the game, and for skills the ones that are used include the fighting ones (Power Strike, Shield Riding Etc.) and the intelligence ones (Iron mining, Gold mining, Farming and Forestry) Any other skill is useless to the game and a waste of perk points.

When you first go to your town, don't be afraid to buy some armour and go take a tournament. The tournaments can give you a quick boost of money, reset after every victory and can help get you some early levels. Just make sure you have atleast 2000 denars leftover, so you can attack Stallions Pass, the first castle you will take. Also remember to hire the companion by the campfire, he costs 2500 denars, respawns for free and can level up and you can give them better equipment later on.

Remember to save often when at your hometown before attacking land or doing missions, as these can end up turning out very bad and theres no issue with savescumming because this game tends to be extremely unforgiving at times.

You can hunt, which can be a quick boost for money, or equipment, but you need a minimum of 650 denars to access the hunting grounds. Sheep and cows will spawn around the map, although be cautious because there will be bandits attacking you and tree archers shooting at you.

The first few minutes in a battle should be spent acquiring resources and buildings, basically focus on your economy. Do not waste a bunch of resources on units in the beginning, because then you will get clobbered by the opposing enemy which spawns units based on the number of units you have, not the quality of your economy. (Because of this, you can solo destroy castles if their units guarding them are weak or distracted) Spend time running around and maybe hitting a couple trees or rocks, and scouting the enemies base and units. This will prove very helpful when you decide to amass your army and attack. Remember that you want to destroy the enemies castle, a tower which has HP and after being destroyed will grant you victorious, but don't forget the enemy is also trying to destroy yours, so make sure if things get bad you have a backup plan, or enough resources to hold them off.

So build up your resources, weaken the enemy a bit and recruit units based on the enemies equipment, if they are archers get shields, hard infantry then get archers, etc etc.

There are missions which you can do, but unfortunately some of them can be giant pains in the ass, mainly because they are overpowered, or otherwise unbalanced. Before taking a mission, make sure you can afford a defeat or are geared up and skilled enough to take the mission. You can take these missions by talking to some of the people at your home town, or heading to Wesfrak and taking missions from NPCs there.

After capturing land and defeating the enemy that castles lord will be added to your dungeon. Ask the Magistrate on clues for what to do with a prisoner, or ransom them for money. Executing them, however, is pretty much useless and has no benefit besides a neat scene where they get guillotined.