Warcraft TFT campaign on hard: the first undead mission

[May90]

Looks like I am completely stuck on this. It seems absolutely impossible to beat, though I read some guides how to do it. I noticed that with the latest patches campaign got much harder than before, though I have never tried this mission on hard before. (I have beaten the whole RoC campaign and night elf + blood elf TFT campaigns on hard without any problems.)

The problem is the Kel Thuzad's base. Once I destroy 2 villages out of 9 (one of them being the one closest to the Kel Thuzad's base), he starts receiving 2 commanders (with aura) from the north-west lane simultaneously. They are not very hard to kill, but they have really much HP. While I am trying to finish just one of them, 2 more come from one lane and 1 more from another, so I end up fighting against 5 commanders and incredibly big squad of militias and spearmen. Eventually Kel Thuzad gets beaten, and this is the end.
This is just insane. Arthas'es base (abominations only) and Sylvanas'es (possessed militia commanders) are pieces of cake to hold and to attack the neighboring villages. But Kel Thuzad's one is just incredibly hard.

Is there any trick on how to hold here? My Kel Thuzad's army consists of necromancers only. I cripple commanders a lot and use frost nova on them, but they are still damn tough. I tried to train some ghouls instead of necromancers, but this idea did not make any difference. Finally, I tried to bring parts of Sylvanas'es or Arthas'es armies to help Kel Thuzad, but they just could not make it through the central paladins' base.

 

[May90]

Did this finally! Actually now it looks not so hard as it looked before, you only need a good plan.

So, once the mission started, on the Kel Thuzad's side I produced ghouls and necromants simultaneously to the maximum and then immediately moved out to the north-west town and obliterated it (had to kill a paladin with knights; that was not so easy, took 2 or 3 save/loads). After that by skeleton rush I destroyed the south-west village. That was last time I used Kel Thuzad'es forces for attack; after that he stayed defending his base to the end of the level.
After that I concentrated only on Sylvana's forces. Right after destruction of the second village, militia commanders (knights with aura and heal) started coming to her, so I possessed 5 guys and had, as a result, a squad of Sylvana, 5 militia commanders and 6 commanders-spearmen. With this army I quickly destroyed all 3 villages around (commander's heals really make them almost invincible), before Kel Thuzad started getting troubles with commanders. So Sylvana's lane was safe.
Then I moved through the central town with altars, without killing anyone, to the Kel Thuzad's side, lost 2 or 3 men on the way, but made it through. From there, I simultaneously killed some caravans to simplify Kel's life and every 2-3 minutes made assaults on altars, coming back to fountain of health to heal. Finally altars were destroyed and paladins killed. Then I just moved out to the last village giving problems to Kel Thuzad and easily obliterated it.
After that, the game was a cakewalk.