Great write-up - couple quick thoughts (just finished two big SP games with them and love em).
Natural clammers
Natural wind guide and (power of phoenix)Flaming arrows. I found myself with every army having a A2 and an F2 mage with a gem scout. If one dies the 3 flying map move makes it easy to reinforce.
Flying mages
I've had a lot of trouble getting 2E - so generally need my pretender to make boots
First game I used a lot of cav and sacreds - second I used pure tower/spear and archers. I liked the simplicity and cost of the second method I think.
1 cruddy hero, 1 ok (3N, heals), 1 AWESOME SC hero (play with worhthy heroes mod, so not sure if he's stock)
Summons - IMO and only used minorly, generally save my gems for items and globals.
servant - blah
rivers - sweet with a good melee bless
Fire - awesome in numbers, firey ranged, flying
dogs - blah
soldiers - so so
In SP (big caveat) I go for a rainbow pretender - as many 4's as possible to help out with path jumps, or an astral 3 min combat pretender. Although this last game with a rainbow i had a tough time getting a good SC out, ended up going the golem route. Only got 1 hero all game
Both games I played
Turmoil 3, sloth 1, growth 1, heat 2, luck 3, magic 1, sleeping. Slow start - but I've just had such good luck with luck
i think I could easily take death for a bigger jump.
Fun fun nation, moved up to the top of my list