Battlefield Tactics cheese

[Benjamin]

The manual states that it is impossible to execute a "defensive battle" - i.e. not move or wait for your opponent to come to you.

But there's guard commander.

With this in mind, is there anything that stops someone with high range evocation spells (read: thunderstrike) neutering their opponent's evocations by hiding at the back of their placement box?

Let's say it's EA Aby vs Caelum.

Aby puts his infantry at front on attack and mages at center on phoenix power, falling fires (range 25)

Caelum puts everything all the way back, troops guarding mages, and mages on thunderstrike.

Battle starts, Caelum defending. Caelums mages thunderstrike fine, but Aby will cast flare(!) because thats got the 35 range needed to hit enemy troops.

Aby could try to respond in future battles by placing everyone at the front, but then all their mages get hammered when caelum in the next battle uses normal placement.

Aby can mitigate to some extent, but is still at an annoying disadvantage because it can't script to control mage range, and it's opponent has no such hindrance.

Am I missing something?