Falling frost vs. AI hordes

[Baalz]

An often overlooked spell is curse of stones. Available quite early and one of the easiest battlefield wide spells to cast, cast it a couple times at the beginning of a fight and it'll decimate chaff/indie hoards with 10 MR with the added bonus of keeping them from fleeing when they break.

Curse of the desert is another very undervalued spell. Spammable by W2 mages (w1 if you pass out gems or boosters), with a huge AOE, have 10 or so cheap mages cast it at the beginning of fight and prepare to be amazed.

Also, don't overlook the effectiveness of a few mages spamming precision 100, AOE-1 spells. Numbness in particular has become one of my goto early spells. Because each casting is guaranteed to affect 3 of the best enemy units (assuming size 2 troops), half a dozen cheap mages can pretty effectively cripple nearly 60 enemy troops in the time it usually takes for melee to really be joined. This may not sound that impressive against hoards of hundreds of guys, but remember that they will unerringly target the higher hitpoint guys...you know, the ones that tend to have higher MR and are otherwise harder to take out? Combine this spell with the above suggestions for more resistant enemies.

Another angle to consider in the non-direct damage category are things like prison of fire and confusion. Basically any spell with a large AOE is probably worth considering when you're looking at facing a lot of troops with lowish MR and morale...