For my main game, The black eagles :
Early game : I recruited every person who ever want to fight by my side. I encountered a group of bandit. Five of my group of seven mercenaries died. I flee in a hurry to narrowest city. I recruit people. They die, killed by a team of orcs. But the core of my team survive and start to gain experience ; and they begin to be very powerful, and then, to cover the rest of the team.
I tried numerous builds and i ended with three bowmen, two billhooks men – my main DPS- , one double-hand axe man – who often surprise me- , and the rest are spearmen. I have a turnover on two person, one billhook who died against orcs (my bad) and the second is my double handed axemen which never survive long but is very useful. The rest is hitting level 12, and my bvowmen are very deadly against the most of enemies, even skeletons.
Actually : I explore boards of the map, fighting every enemies with “deadly” or “challenging”, wainting the others to be more powerful. I only have one men lasting of my first group, Owen the disowned. I think that if he die, i will abandon this game and starting another.