Maybe he considered the battle not worthy to use gems to win, Psycho? My Dragon did the same thing in some of the smaller battles, instead of Cast Flaming Arrows-Change Shape-Fire Enemy Archers as scripted, he used to cast something like fire shield before changing shape, if the army was engaged by little enemy forces - to save gems for more worthy battles, i'd say.
Loren, if I understood your problem correctly, it's working as intended. Armies, with their commanders, always go at the speed of their slowest unit; if you want the Seraph to go above the forest and immediately attack the target, you need another commander to lead the elephants in the forest the first turn, and to the target the second one. Armies don't move without commanders or to different (even half-way) provinces - so, yes they need to be "babysitted" (led?

), and yes WAD I think.