Alexander's ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge

[Wendigo]

Zooko said:
Regarding "we walk in shadows": I don't understand the point of putting three Groups of two units each in the square directly in front of the mage. Why not instead do the thing that you want done: a squad of two units in the same square as the mage, a squad of three units in the square in front of the mage, and a squad of three units in the square south of the mage?

Or for that matter, why not just make a squad of 8 units and put it right on top of the mage?

Both your suggestion & Pocus are valid, yet for different targets.

Body ethereal is area 1 (1 square), thus you can etherealize Groups of 3x size2 infantry as you suggest, or Groups of 2x size3 horse, such as knights.

A different issue is whether to group everybody together or use small Groups. Both options have advantages & disadvantages (higher morale for a big group, but also higher loses & when you fail a check everybody is gone, which might result in an army rout).
One further reason in favour of using small Groups as Pocus suggests is that you have more control over battlefield placement (which is important to get everybody etherealized), when you stick a bunch of leaders in the same place as a unit (say, 3 mages & 24 troopers) they do not always end in the exact center, and if they are not well placed some of the soldiers might be out of range. Using multiple small units increases the micromanagement exponentially however.