Why does the -1 matter? its trivial to offset and worse it can do is make them revolt which is utterly CRUSHED by the defenders.

I looked but found mood doing nothing.

And some defenders are too expensive in the "single handedly bankrupt your entire kingdom" sense not in the "can't afford to place them in every province". Also IIRC monsters give a -2 to happiness and cannot be dismissed.

I do not think ignoring price is fair when looking for the BEST rather then the STRONGEST.
I do hear good things about barbarians, I forgot to incluide my standard "non-evil" disclaimer. t1 units are too disposable to use an evil unit there (constantly have to buy new ones and it ruins your karma which means nagative random events...)

Swordsman at level 30 (as pictures) might be able to... but they don't normally survive that long. at levels 0-3 they are as weak and disposable as other t1 units and at that level (and what they are used FOR, which is fighting lowbie enemies to gain XP for hero) they are better.

Somewhere between hero level 5-10 I replace all t1 units with crossbowmen and let the higher tiered units come to the front. Grinding this unit to level 20 for the piercing shot is extremely unlikely considering it is the weakest unit in the game. If you can do it then wow... but it is really really unlikely.
Even getting it to level 12 for the double shot is extremely unlikely.

Im guessing Gremlion knows how to get em to 30 reliably, tell us, oh wise man! Altugh if the answer is "dont let them die because of your stupid mistakes". try to put it gently?

I only once got a Gryphon to 30, with a mage I just cast stoneskin,magic armor, word of life and then repeated astral energy. It didnt take long, but I cant see that way working with a slinger.^^

I mean that pikemen one of the worst choices at the start vs barbarians. They activate their
berserk due to first strike and take higher damage from axes.
OK, level 4 swordsman vs knight:
http://savepic.su/1812984.htm
Some more battles:
http://savepic.su/1801723.htm
http://savepic.su/1784315.htm
http://savepic.su/1806842.htm
Slinger can get doubleshot at first level. Later on you can hire them with it straight away
because of "+exp" buildings.
For slinger tricky only first 1-2 levels until first medal of sniper.
Magic weapon (+ammo, +2 damage), fire weapon(+4 damage), blessing(+1 damage) = you have at
least 11 ranged damage. If you have doubleshot - 22 damage. Astral energy - 44 damage/turn
until buffs fade. If your hero is a strategist with ranged tactic - add 6 more damage*4 for 68 total damage per round.

That is awesome, your posts are always like an eyeopener,Gremlion, so many tactics possible I never thought of, I'm gonna try that right now with some slingers!

How do you manage to get all that medals so quickly? Levele 2 and 2 healing medals?
2 maps back I had pikeman who was level 15 and I was offered 1 medal during his level up and I refused that one (resistance+morale).

http://www.eador.com/B2/viewtopic.php?p=111627#111627

Mapmorale - morale, which unit had before battle.

You need to lose at least 4 from 5 units. Summoned and hero doesn't count. (Really good medal for evil caster with, for example, minotaur and 4 goblins - let minotaur make kill, then sacrifice goblins with spells) Killing own slingers with fireballs is fine too.
If you completed requirements for more than 1 medal, game will offer medal which is higher on the list. I am not sure that in this post was exact order of them.
1 unit can get 1 medal/battle. But each unit can get a medal.

Thanks for that link to the medal requirements. That will be very handy indeed.

Oh I see, good point.
Ok that is cool. I noticed the healers, so the swordsmen dish out damage and soak it back while the healers keep them alive for the battle, eh? nice.

The random component of the requirements for getting the sniper award seem kind of harsh:

Random(21 + RangedDamage + 5 * RangedKills - 3 * RangedAttack * Ammos) >= 30

For example, if you've got a horse-archer with 9 shots and a ranged attack of 8, and it kills 4 units during the battle, then it looks like:

Random(21 + RangedDamage + 5 * 4 - 3 * 8 * 9) >= 30

which simplifies to:

Random(RangedDamage - 175) >= 30

So it would have to do at least 205 (or 206?) HP of damage in one battle just to have any chance at all of getting the sniper award? (Even if you get 9 kills from your 9 shots, you still need to do 180 HP damage total, which is 2.5 times what your attack and #shots would indicate you would normally get against targets with no ranged defense at all.) I guess you really need a hero to baby-sit (buff, astral energy, sleep/web opponents, etc.) with a battle strategy that is designed for the sole purpose of getting the one unit this award. And if you're going to cast astral energy that many times, your hero better be a mage and better have a whole lot of instances of that one spell prepared.

Magic Weapon also recharges ammo, and with double shot units it might not be too hard.

Probably for these medals there must be
-3*ranged attack - ammos (makes more sense)

because for horse archer usually 1-2 kills and 4-5 shots enough for medal.

To get a bit back to the topic of bests, I really like the Fairy as healing/support. With the right +experience buildings you can get them with healing from the start, they can haste your units, can heal at range, and even pack a small magical ranged attack. And all that in a unit of the first rank. On top of that, they have far better defense than Healers.

The only drawback for them is their very low health, but with their high ranged defense and resistance they can shrug off most low-end ranged attacks, and their speed of three (later four) lets them avoid melee attacks from all but the fastest enemy units.

The trick, of course, is finding them, but anytime I do I always replace every one of my healers with Faeries.

Yeah, Fairies are great, I always get one when available. Especially good to hasten the tank unit.