Ouch. Just tried a game as Marignon with 16 impossible AIs. Everything went well until I went for Ashen Ermor's throat around round 25. Massed friars and inquisitors backed up by crossbowmen and knights of the chalice mopped up all before me with nary a casualty...
...Until I ran into Ashen Ermor's main army. Which apart from the usual hundreds of fodder featured about 10 Dusk Elders and Spectators, all of them with plenty of death gems, who cast multiple shadow bLasts straight into my formation.
Seing 35 knights of the chalice (and 20-30 crossbowmen, but who cares about them) destroyed in the first two rounds of combat,
THAT HURTs! 
This is great fun.