[Taqwus]

Playing Ermor, Ashen Empire, single-player, comes pretty darn close to a cheat -- AE Ermor can be countered, but it takes some steps the AI doesn't necessary do, like heavily push fire, astral, priests, communion (to pump up holy/fire/astral to insane levels) plus heavy use of defensive preaching etc.
It might be especially brutal if you use Alex Poger's rebalanced-scales mods, which increases their goodness/badness, since AE Ermor normally takes an awful dominion from Hades and that mod will make it an even deadlier weapon.