I'm worried that I'm missing something. Right now my main army has level 2 Lambert, a level 5 knight, and three level 1-2 guys. But every five turns or so, the elves send a five-man level 7 army against me. I fended off a couple of these using spells and runes, but I'm at a loss for how I'm supposed to proceed. Am I somehow expected to keep defeating these armies on my way to the fallen star, or am I supposed to make a beeline to the star, and hope for the best?

I can't believe there are level 7 armies in the first scenario.

Any thoughts or strategies for this?

SWC

In some ways, the first map is the hardest. Once you get Lambert levelled up, the game gets easier.

I find the best early strategies tend to be using summoning runes. You can buy them in your capital. This lets you summon a fairly high level champ to the battle board. Costs some coin, but they come in handy.

I've found that I really have to readjust my thinking to overcome some of the obstacles in the game. Going into it, I expected that my army was what had to get me through. Spells, etc, were to help my army in peripheral ways. Here, the reverse is often true. You need a spell to lead the charge while your army supports it.

After playing a while, I look at challenges as preparing myself properly and knowing about the enemies I'll face. When first starting like you are, I'd run screaming from a few zombies because they had pounded me into a paste before. Now I know they move so slow that if I have any ranged troops and a couple damage runes or beefy summons, they'll never touch me. It really has been an adjustment of my TBS thinking.

True, the first mission seems the hardest yet. in the first i frequently lost units, and, having only the capital, took a lot of time too go back and resurrect them. later missions are easy-er.

possible Spoiler:







Inoel is a all unit healer. this helps a lot.

In the first Empire mission, I remember there's a ruin nearby that spawns zombies every once in awhile - the first time I tried taking them on, my stack got mauled. Then I realise that the rotting shitheads have only two movement points. When they are halfway across the tactical map, I sneak a guy past their line to behind them. And the AI seems to have the priority of trying to attack the nearest enemies first. So, by alternatingly putting my men near to them on either side, I made them go back and forth 2 hexes at a time without touching my army while my archers/mages whittle them down.

This is somewhat related to this post but not really, haha. Just an anecdote I thought I'd share. I remember the first Empire mission to be the hardest too but overland spells and runes really did help a lot. Don't forget to get those resistance and stats bonuses from statues and buildings to help you along. They "respawn" quite often.

Also, since it's Empire, a stack with more than one healer can help a tonne

Possible spoiler too:







And Inoel can join a stack even if your leadership slots are maxed out

Archmage Lord Class double-cast bonus for the win. Empire should always take the Mage Leader bonus type. ( Now that Legion has healing spells, I don't see any reason to choose any other bonus now, regardless of faction) I've yet to encounter any stack that couldn't be made more manageable by double nuking them with cheap (150 resource cost) spells first. In the rare case they are immune to global map magic, send a couple golems or Living armors against them first to soften them up.

As others have said, this is mostly only an issue in the first mission. Lambert gets so powerful in later missions, he is winning battles by himself, and the only challenge is keeping low level squishies alive from ranged attacks long enough to benefit from the XP gain.

Got tip for empire first act is to go down and put your rod/ guardian in specific hole in ground for converting space, they can help you to defeat elves, and put some armies on them too, to weak elves army, like some1 say first one is HARDEST in campaing )))