Also don't forget that nodes with groups of Sky/Great Drakes are meant for very late game. Once you master the game you can bring them down earlier, but don't go thinking you need to take them down just because they're there. Maybe wait until you can get some Sky Drakes of your own.

One way to take down strong nodes that hasn't been listed yet here is to start with all books in life magic, and summon Torin the Chosen with the incarnation spell right away, and once he powers up with some levels and magic items, especially if he has the agility ability, he can win most fights solo, especially if you or him gets a prayer spell past the node.

Edit: maybe the OP was stipulating that you had to start with sorcery spell books, in which case my input can be ignored.

I can all but confirm this as false. In a recent game I faced 5 colossi and 4 sprites in a keep and when everyone left the field exhausted after the first combat, all that remained of the computer's forces were 3 sprites. Next turn the sprites fell quickly and my reward was 2 retorts (nature mastery and artificer I believe). a very generous reward for the starting forces and unheard of for 3 sprites.

Hey all just edited my post # 14 above with the following;

"EXCEPTION: Apparently even though Halfling Slingers show a Rock their attack is actually a "Bow" attack like archers. Therefore they are not effective vs missile immune troops really."

This came as quite a surprise to me as it basically just makes them better archers, and it's stupid that halflings have both Slingers and Bowmen especially since the Bowmen only have 6 figures compared to the Slingers 8.

Also the Warp Wood spell can destroy the Slingers ammo as well.

Now to some more fun stuff. My Hero Malleus, at Champion level 5, was able to take down a Sky Drake single-handily. That's right he took down a Magic Immune unit with Magic Ranged attacks hahahaha.

His Random was just Lucky sadly.

He had 17 Base Ranged Atk and +20% to hit with an extra 13 Ranged Atk and +30% to hit from gears. Also had 7 total movement and flying via Chaos Channel.

30 Ranged atk with 80% chance to hit = an avg 24 damage per shot.

Sky Drakes Magic Immunity boosts his Defense to 50 when attacked by magic which really only reliably stops 15 points of that damage. So with only 25 HP and taking 9 damage a turn it lasted 3 turns. Actually the one I fought got a bit lucky and took 4 shots to finish off.

Imagine if I had Warrax around the same level with the gear from above. Remember his attacks are Armor Piercing so would reduce that initial 50 Defense bonus down to 25 so the Sky Drake would only be blocking around 7.5 damage instead. Makes me a bit more willing to invest in the proper artifacts now even if they do take like 20-30 turns to make.