I am quite keen on buying this game, but I read in a few reviews that it is insanely hard! Can anyone confirm this, and does anyone know if there are ways of making it easier

The game is difficult in that it requires you to learn it's mechanics thoroughly over time, and is willing to punish you for sloppy play. That said it's not really *that* difficult if you're accustomed to tactical games, and the game does have a difficulty setting. It mostly boils down to careful play and calculated risks.
The main potential issue is that it's possible to lose a ton of units in one scenario and find later ones nigh-impossible. That's never actually happened to me in either Fantasy Wars, Elven Legacy, or the latter's expansions though. Again, careful play and calculated risks will take you a long way without becoming frustrating or boring. The game may smack you occasionally, but only to illustrate the need for mechanics or strategies that you've been neglecting up to that point.
For example, some of the most difficult sections, for me, came when ending one campaign and beginning the next. Not because the early scenarios were necessarily difficult, but because each faction requires a significantly different style of play and army development. It was challenging because I had to step outside the comfort zone I'd built up over the course of the previous campaign. That's the sort of wonderful difficulty that more games need, IMO.

It is not an easy game, but it is not awfully difficult either, esp. Fantasy Wars. Just make sure you don't lose your units stupidly, starting a battle without battled hardened veterans is tough. For that, stay grouped (no one isolated, except scout), don't pursue every enemy retreating (you would disperse youself) and stay focus on the objective (many tempting targets in each battles, don't try to have them all if you are short on the means).
Elven Legacy is significantly harder, though.

It is hard then you want to be it hard. I mean, Hard difficulty + Gold Victory + zero casaulties + all enemies are dead...
On easy with bronze - not so hard, but as I remember too easy. And yes - easy to start playing (friendly interface and graphic), but to know every tactic and mastery - that/s more harder )
Elven legacy was real hardcore... Yeah, I'm proud to buying a russian gold year ago. With no DRM, but with mp3-OST, many many art in jpg... Eh, sad thing - only digital bonuses, like in gog )

The game has three different difficulty levels (which can be changed for every mission) so how hard it is is really up to you. On hard even veterans of tactical games will have to think very carefully about what they're doing, while on easy even beginners should be able to mop the floor the with enemy without much trouble. The game also autosaves every turn, so if you find you really screwed up you can easily go back however many turns you need to correct your mistakes.

Thanks everyone, that was very helpful. I think I will go ahead and buy the game. Great to see GOG bringing in some newer games as well as the old.

The initial reviews said that even on the easy level, the game got insanely hard after the first couple of scenarios.
Did patches change that?

It is not my opinion. Maybe if you lose on your troops on the first couples of scenario, it might become insanely difficult, esp. if you are not good enough to save said troops. If this happens, restart the first scenarios with your new knowledge, and it will be fine.

I found the game quite frustrating the first few times I played it, but have improved my play a lot, and it's relatively manageable on Medium for me now. Some things I discovered that helped my own personal gameplay:
- Use bowmen for cover, but make sure they're protected on most sides
- Move units in large clumps, especially when approaching encampments
- Don't try to capture every town; this takes a lot of time, and may cost you the Gold victory, for which speed is essential
-Strike a balance between finishing wounded units off and wounding enough units to force the enemy to heal in the next turn, saving your own strength
- Save often, especially on early missions. The game is much stingier with money than I would like, and if you lose a lot of units, you may not be able to afford to replace them.
Anyway, everyone will find their own strategies / tactics as they play, but it *does* get easier as you go along. Don't give up if it seems ridiculous at first.

Other advices :
- Do NOT neglect skirmishers. Once they get the "poisonned wound" perk, they can take lightly protected cities with ease. They are also great to wipe out weakened unit and then catching with the main group. Orc light cav is also great in this role.
- You do NOT need a strong air force : 1 - 2 sky hunter is enough, since your casters and item with spells will be enough to clear the enemy sky (and skirmishers / light cav are better are wiping out isolated units).
- You do NOT need a strong heavy cav force : 1-2 for Humans and 0-1 for orcs is good enough. Heavy cav lacks versatility and you will spend a lots of time resting them due to the units size being 10 and not 15
- The skill "march" is extremely important to get Gold Victories and take all cities. It is especially true for heroes.
- Artillery is very important. Improve speed before improving range (including with march). I suppose you could replace artillery by air bombers, depending on your preferences (both have the same usage).
- Do not build your orcish army the way you built your human army.
Of course, yet again, difference play-style might lead to different usage of units (for instance, I find Light Inf mostly useless, esp. for humans,but YMMV).

At first I found the game very hard, but it gets easier the more you play it. Sometimes if you make big strategic mistakes, you need to restart the mission. In those cases, I found my 2nd strategy worked much better than my first.
The biggest problem to me is that the documentation is very weak. There is some help on the 1c forum for the game, but it is very limited. I couldn't locate any other useful help on the web at all.

hmm i thought it started off easy, then got pretty challenging.

But towards the final end i thought it was just idiotic how overwhelmed you become.

Instead of versing a slightly larger force with hard AI, you face forces 3xs your size. This is when it gets hard. Sucks loosing your vet units b/c they face mass mass numbers.

Yes, the game is much too hard to be any fun, even on "Easy" setting. Within a scenario, you have many battles. Within every single one of them, you will be wildly outnumbered, usually at least 3 to 1.

The enemy will have at least as good "special" units as you do, and often better.

Add to this insane pressure a "time limit".....you can't know where the enemy is du to fog of war, but you MUST rush toward to goal of the mission, you cannot plan or be careful, so every mission is a suicide mission......ULTRA STUPID DESIGN.....because the game carries over your surviving veterans, and there won't BE any veterans, because you're going to get wiped out because there is NO WAY TO ShUT OFF THE TIME LIMIT!

Each scenario must be completed PERFECTLY. You cannot make one single error. You cannot lose one single unit. You cannot fail to collect any of the gold. You must meet the GOLD level turn limit. Everything must be flawless, right from the very first mission. Why:? Because it starts hard and goes immediately over to insane.....you need every tiny crumb of money and manpower just to BARELY survive. You MUST survive and "level up" your units......no one can get killed, ever, so you play conservative? nope, can't do that because of teh FKING time limit! This game sucks donkey balls SO hard.

This game needs a level one step BELOW what it calls "Easy".

Yet another JUNK game...."frustrating" does not equal fun. Reloading a scenario literally forty-five times in a row until you finally defeat it does not equal fun.

SUX donkey balls.
Yes, can't find any guide anywhere to explain how you use a unit's Special Abilities.

I haven't been able to play this game yet (serious and strange technical problems) but I have played Elven legacy, the sequel. I really struggled to get golds on normal in that game. Chances are this game isn't for the the weak minded.

I picked up this game about a week ago. So far what I am finding is that it starts easy enough but scales quickly. Currently I have completed the fifth mission of the Human Campaign on Easy mode.

So my suggestion is to learn to play through the Campaign on Easy mode and learn how the maps work and where the enemies appear and formulate plans on destroying them.