IN THE SHADOWS WE WALK:
This is the standard operating procedure for nations which have an easy access to body etheral. The aim is to toughten quite a lot some choice units with BE. You dont need awesome units, good ones are sufficient.
Have a mage on BE thrice.
I) In front of him, put 3 Groups of 2 units on hold& attack (yes in the same square, the front one, see below). During battle, they will be placed by the dom2 tac engine with one unit in the square you requested, and one in the south-west square (below the mage, if you follow me). This give you a total of 6 units in 2 squares.
II) In his square put 2 Groups of 1 unit.
Overall you have 3 squares filled, each with 3 units (8 combatting, 1 mage). The hold&attack will make your combattants move on the third round. The mage will cast BE during the first three rounds, on each of the 3 squares. He will commences on his square, has the value is the highest (thus protecting him ASAP).
This lead to 8 etheralized units attacking on round 3.
This formation can be repeated for several mages,depending on mage availability and toughness of opposition. Against indep, you can generally win a battle at 1 against 3 w/o too much problem.
A further interest is that your small Groups prevent you from a total rout. Groups will rout one by one, when some soldiers are wounded. On high end units, like paladins or knights they will rout if direly wounded, and this is what you want : each wounded retreat, thus preventing the loss of the unit.
By the way, for cavalry, adapt the formation, as they are size 3. You can BE 5 cavalry for each mage, put one horseman in each square.
Yes, it asks for some micromanaging
edit : typos.
[ January 17, 2004, 07:35: Message edited by: Pocus ]