[Squirrelloid]

So, the grail hero theory wasn't working especially well for me for a couple of reasons. (1) Grail heroes success rates weren't as stellar as i hoped. I took crippling injuries occasionally to really silly things, and lost to indies i probably shouldn't have. I'll try it again, but thus far not impressed by them naked. (2) It eats the commander buy from the capitol every turn until you get a new fortress up. Seriously uncool.

Works really well for expansion: ~20 archers + ~equal numbers of men at arms kills many independents surprisingly well, especially if you do something really weird like put your lord right behind your troops (yeah, not way at the back, weird) and use his banner to reinforce morale (or just have a KotR or two around). And your casualties tend to be purely men at arms, which a lord can replace, so you can field supply at least your first army. And yes, that's right, your starting army + a handful of archers can expand. Crazy.

After that you're going to want to use indie commanders as your troops leader, because the goal here is to free up that valuable commander buy in your capitol for researchers. Especially that juicy 10RP cap-only mage that you want to start buying every turn ASAP. When those indie commanders burn out their army's expansion pretender, they should build a fortress. *Now* you have somewhere to recruit those Bretonnian Lords and Grail Heroes and whatnot you want.

"I still can't use all my cash" - buy Grail Knights (you have some sort of bless, right?), KotR (and sprinkle them around - if Burnsaber is right, and i haven't checked - every 2 let you increase the tax level 1 step with no unrest! Sold!) Also, it would be useful to know if they provide the benefit the turn you buy them, because that way you could do clever things like instantly bump your capitol taxes to 110% without patrolling, and just buy 2 KotR.

Edit: I am a little disappointed the archers don't have longbows. I mean, their precision sucks, and it should, but in WH they have longbows.