Trying to improve my MA Abyssia Pretender Design

[earwicker7]

I'm starting to get my butt kicked in my first MP game; while I will still fight to the death (I'm not one of those people who say, "Well, I've lost, no point in putting any more effort into it!"), I am starting to consider how I can improve my pretender design for my next game, and I was hoping to get some tips from people with more experience than I have (pretty much everyone else on the forum lol).

So, as the title suggests, I'm looking for some hints on better pretender design for MA Abyssia (I think it's better to stick with one nation for a while, just to learn the basics of the game). I've certainly learned some stuff from the first game... my design was pretty awful.

The first thing I'd like to know is what people typically do to deal with the fact that all of Abyssia's recruits (with the exception of the Humanbred) have heat that radiates from them and eventually catches your indy troops (and summons) on fire. Do people generally have separate armies, where, for example, some armies are Abyssian mixed with a few heat-resistant units, and then there are separate armies made of non-heat resistant units? Or do people tend to go towards mixing them up, but using some method of protection? Is there a spell that I could eventually get which will provide fire protection for the entire army?