The problem of low hit points on humans

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
They only live up to their descriptions if they survive to get experience and items and/or heroic abilities or are made prophets or whatever.

What items are you planning to give the Ulmish heroes so that they aren't killed by the first A2 mage they meet that casts lightning bolt twice? Melee commanders have nowhere near as much effect on the battlefield as the equivalent gold cost in mages, and that's part of the problem.

As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective.

The problem is that it's not good enough from a game mechanics standpoint. As a random guess, Emerald lords should probably have basic attack and defense stats of around 20 if you want to use them in a battle situation. This is necesary if you don't want them to die in the very first battle they ever see, especially with the extremely granular fatigue system that Dominions uses.

Vanheim's Vanlade is even less impressive compared to typical Vans (he's about the same), though again, mounted Vans are some of the best mounter human combat commanders (and they have magic too).

A basic van commander is about how powerful in combat without boosting spells or blesses as I would like to see most human commanders. Skilled enough to take on a dozen or so untrained or even well trained normal humans.