On higher levels (hero lvl 30+) skirmishes start to be a problem. Enemy heroes run in my camp and either armageddon me or their combat capabilities are awesome so they kill my hero and whatever remains of my army are goners anyway.

Winning this first assault is just a first step towards victory.
When I tried warrior, assassin... these were able to fend of most of such attacks, but problem started that as soon my hero moved out of the base, based was crushed anyway (selecting enemy AI usually : Warlord, Emperor).

While seeking a build + strategy that would succeed in following 3 points:
1) Early base defense (fending of crazed high-level enemy heroes) and surviving with at least one tower and some army (one builder at least that is)
2) Middle defense: replenishing fallen guardians, having nice view range (so towers can see catapults and incoming armies overall) and getting some extra mines without leaving base unattended and still surviving "out there"
3) Enemy builds like 90 units, some of them dragons, and even a Titan... usual defense (20 towers) falls down in 30 seconds ... how to produce an army fast enough, big enough and pretty cheap to fend em off and even start a counterattack.

So far I figured only the 3rd step: Dark Elf Illusionist (somehow surviving first 2 phases, recrutting 8 or more sorcerers, who can summons zombies, a lot of them... Cast Transform for 70 Mana, once or twice and in few seconds I have like 16 ~ 24 red mages or even stronger units instead of zombies, not to mention that these units have XP bonus from my INT)
Problem is that as I am gaining levels, surviving first 2 phases is much harder each time, that I am afraid that I will fall in first phase (Mutate Spell can pretty much "disable" whole army, but it are the enemy heroes, with terrifying spells that I worry about)

Any cool build I have missed so far?