OK, I might be creating too many question topics in this forum, but here is another one.

Stealth, according to the manual: (emphasis mine)

I haven't used the skill myself, but from what I read on the net, the bolded part can't be true, else you wouldn't be able to go deep into enemy territory, without an army following you.
Is this true, or has it been changed, or am I not reading it properly.

Effective Stealth is calculated as the worst value of Stealth for all members of the army performing it. Generally, that means that you can only use Stealth with:
a) An army composed of a single hero with Stealth.
b) An army composed of several heroes. The hero with lowest Stealth level determines the Stealth ability of the army.
c) An army composed of Bandits and possibly stealthy hero(es).

There is no limitation to other armies nearby, each gets its own Stealth score calculated separately.

Note that Stealth isn't really a very good skill. It used to be very efficient in the early versions of the game where stealth-XP value of monsters didn't drop for higher difficulty levels, because you could get more XP sneaking past neutral stacks than fighting them, but once that bug has been fixed, Stealth is no longer efficient: 1) Most maps place strong stacks at key chokepoints, making it impossible to use Stealth to pass these areas. 2) A skill invested into Stealth is a skill not invested into something better. Admittedly, you want to have Scouting skill for its Pathfinding subskill, but instead of getting two levels of Scouting (Master and Grandmaster) and five levels of Stealth, you could have invested the same number of level-ups into four levels of Combat and three levels of Melee, which is a far more useful combination. Or, say, three levels of Nature, two levels of Herbalism, one level of Meditation and say, one level of Combat, which would give you an access to Water Elementals and Quicksand, always a useful combination.

Note: Don't worry about your heroes venturing alone into the opponent's area. That's generally what you want to do, anyway, as heroes are far more powerful than creatures, even at low levels (as low as level 5 or so). Just make sure you get Expert Melee and as high Combat as possible, load up on Potions of Immortality and go ahead. You can fight just about anything if you have plenty of ImO's, and you can always use the hit-and-run tactics of killing what can be killed, then fleeing to your closest town to replenish your ImO supply.

But what about the information about stealthing hero having to be at least 6 tiles away from friendly units (which I understood to be 6 tiles or less, but I see it probably means 6 tiles or more)? Is this used in the game too?

Regarding its usefuleness, I was reading the discussion here:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=7853

I specificially found this post interesting: While stealth generally doesn't match my style, those are some good points. I might play a stealthy hero once, just to see what it's like.

Thanks. Just one last thing, this might be a stupid question, but what kind of cretures give your hero a movement boost. I thought hero movement was a constant 22 (assuming no artifacts, stables, skills... etc). I had no idea creatures could change it.

And another thing, sorry not really related, but I can't find the answer anywhere, and since you see to know this game well, I'll ask here:

How much duration do spells have? Do all combat spells now have duration for end of combat? What about adventure map spells like Pathfinding?

Hero acquires the speed of the fastest unit in his army. Early in a map, Sprites are excellent carriers. Duration of H4 spells is unlimited for battle-map spells and until-the-end-of-turn for adventure-map spells. With obvious exceptions such as Berserk or Hypnotize.

Thank you!

I tried GM stealth at one point, and it was quite amusing to go prancing past pretty much everything. Each turn, end your movement in a location where your hero isn't going to jump on a passing army, and you can pretty much go anywhere with impunity. If something doesn't have a creature stack right on it, then you can likely take it.

You'll still need killing power in some fashion (whether on this hero or another), but stealth can let you get some extra experience. Stealth past a stack for xp, then kill the stack for more xp. You'll have to be deliberate about killing the stack, though, since Stealth messes with the auto-engage logic.

I think you're likely to pick up GM stealth in the Chaos campaign, since Tawni starts as a thief. Been awhile since I played it, so I don't remember the level caps and how many skill boosters are available. Your heroes will generally move at the speed of your fastest creature. Look for fast creatures and/or fliers. When you look at the screen for splitting armies, you can see how much move each group will have while you are splitting.

Creatures will generally NOT get a move bonus from stacking with faster creatures. The speed of waspworts is a big part of why I don't use them.

Creatures might get a move bonus while stacked with your hero, I think depending on your hero's skills.

Skills (Pathfinding) or artifacts.

Are Tactics bonuses from 2 different heroes in one army cumulative?

Also, do I understand Tactics do not work on the hero who has them, but on the creatures in his army. So does Tactics from Hero A work on Hero B, assuming they are in same army, and vice versa?

I think only the highest skill level applies, and I don't think they work for other heroes in the army.

To test, you could get the heroes killed and check the readjusted stats mid combat.

It does look like Combat is way overpowered. You basically don't need anything else. 1 might hero with combat + 1 spellcasting hero seem to be able to take care of anything.

(This is based on the first life campaign. I hope/assume the later ones will be more challenging.)

If you truly don't need creatures once your hero gets above level n, then it's truly sad.

Depending on the monster stacks and sizes, and the hero's skills, you can roam without creatures pretty freely after reaching a certain power level. Potions, especially potions of immortality, can really strengthen the hero.

The potential strength of heroes in this implementation is one of the complaints about this game.