[melnorjr]

One thing I want to note(though its somewhat offtopic) is that you mentioned how you are somewhat hesitant to split your mages up because of various factors.

in all honesty though, there is almost never any reason to NOT split them. I've been bitten by it more than enough times that I now always split my mages up.

Youll go into a battle with all your amges together...and then they get hit by a fireball and you lost 3 mages to one shot. that really sucks, especially if you are relying heavily on your mages, or have large numbers in the battle. even if the enemy doesn't do this to begin with(due to larger HP stacks in front) if your army routes before your mages do, THEY will be targetted by spells to the exclusion of any routing units, and this can happen anyway. I once went into a battle with about 15 mages, and lost 12 because I forgot to split them up and my army routed, then the enemy mages blew them all to pieces with one or two spells. Enemy archers can also do the same thing.

Regarding being worried about flying enemies, what you do there is put a bunch of infantry(preferably slow) behind your mages on hold-attack or some such(or stick a single commander back there with a bunch of infantry guarding him, and him on hold,hold,hold,hold,hold, stay behind). This way the flying units attack your rear guard, and probably die because most flying units suck.(unless they are a thug/sc, in which case you've got additional problems)

Basically you pretty much never want your mages grouped up for just about any reason(I can't think of one to do it).