[Ygorl]

You can take death with reduced consequences, and your guys are cold-blooded so taking heat can be nice. With death and heat turned up all the way, and maybe a little other tweaking, you can make a pretender (the obese trampling woman) with level 9 fire, earth, and nature. Bless a few sacred soldiers and watch them kill everyone.
In single-player, you'll do fine. In multi-player, there are obviously ways to counter this strategy, but it's not trivial (and you certainly shouldn't fall victim to an early rush - you could even try one yourself)