That's the thing. I found those sand spiders early (they are 14) when I was around 11. Clearly I couldn't win a battle so I went and did the white witch stuff and now where I am the levels are all the same. Yet it's still hard.

But the AI has almost always been strong for me. I do recall in one my play-through's that early on, the orcs were stupid with my summoned spider. But for the most part they will run past my melee fighters and go for my ranged person. I've seen others complain about the stupidity of the AI so I have NO IDEA what's going on.

Also, I stumbled upon someone saying something about leech+something else being overpowered. So I clearly avoided that talent. Maybe that's why it's easy for people? Getting health regen every turn or something with that talent?