Against air magic, mechanical men work quite well as a front and a shield, but the need to protect your commanders/mages will kill you. I prefer Iron Faith/Black forest to standard ulm any day. IF is probaly the best forger in the game, even if it loses the 120 points for free drain scale. Summon the creatures to use the items with pretender
. BF gets the always-as-cool mile-wide mass of Vampires, that while not exactly a winning strategy, will provide you with defence that is nearly impossible to (Really) kill and will likely cause heavy casualties on any attackers who come too close, securing you time to prepare another strategies. Add battle fortune/will of the fates/haste/mass protection/antimagic to help dealing with enemy magic.