Lords of Magic SE - Best Builds For Hard Difficulty

This is gameplay footage from the GOG version of "Lords of Magic: Special Edition". It showcases what I believe are the best and easiest ways to win the game on Hard difficulty with each class.

By far the easiest way to win on Hard difficulty is using a Fire Warrior with "Dragonscale Armor". Just parry and wait for enemies to die from retaliatory Flame Darts.

Air Thief with "Greater Artifact - Bow of Quaal" is the easiest way to win with a Thief lord on Hard. While Air Thief can just fly over unpassable terrain and shoot melee enemies safely, ranged & flying enemies and mages can be troublesome. With Bow of Quaal, the Thief would outrange most ranged enemies in the game, making it possible to abuse either enemy pathfinding or stealth to kill them before they could shoot back. Melee flying enemies can be dealt with by shooting, using stealth and retreating, then repeating the process. The best way to deal with mages is to activate stealth and subdue them before they can cast any spells.

From my experience, Chaos Mage with Goblins and Reincarnation spell is the easiest way to beat the game on Hard difficulty with a Mage. However, I'd strongly suggest saving before every fight, as game's latest official patch has a bug that spawns Pegasus in low-level caves in Chaos territory and Reincarnation results are completely random, so there's a chance you could enter a Lv.1 Cave and face a Pegasus, then only get a random useless scout from Reincarnation.