[Illuminated One]

Nice guide.

I too have found bottles of living water a great investment.
Here's a trick how you can use them on the defensive.
Get two flying commanders, one of them a cheap mage (or an expensive mage depending on what you're expecting/wanting to do).
Give two Bottles of Living Water to the one commander, and fly/cloud trapeze him and the mage into a province that is going to be attacked.
Put the guy with the Bottles at the very front and script him to retreat.
The mage should stay and cast whatever spells he can.
The commander with the bottles gets to retreat before the enemy can do anything about it - so he is virtually immortal in battle. But the elementals or going to stay as long as the mage is in.