[Mightypeon]

Armies can still be viable later on, but depend on buffing spells.
It is however, very hard to defend armies against thunderstrike spam, unless you get decent access to thunder wards.
The other problem you had was being tien Chi, one of the races where Caelum has scant issues with aggressivly entering close combat (immidiatly attacking f.e. Black Plate Flails or Dai Bakemono will hurt comparably frail eagle units much much more, although army of mist changes things quite a bit). Especially if you largely utilize infantry. TCs cavalry is rather cool though, and its numerous attacks are quite efficient in quickly bringing down enemies that to an extent depend on Defense.

I have posted a sub wanted post.