Seriously, if you don't create your own units in Elemental, you aren't playing it right. The stock units provided do not live up to the full potential of what is capable through unit creation, and besides, making your own units is fun!

A couple of disclaimers before we start:

1) I prefer Kingdom factions, which is reflected in the generation of my units.

2) No spreadsheets were utilized in the creation of this guide. The views presented here are subjective and based on my combat experience in-game.

3) Don't be limited by this guide. My unit design philosophy focuses on hitting first and hitting hard, but that might not work for you. Try out new things, and feel free to share your favorite units and differing strategies in the comments.

I'm not going to go through and explain each Stat in detail, as each Stat's function is self-explanitory. Instead, I've ranked below the Stats I've found most important to maximize in Unit Creation, along with an explination as to why:

1. Initiative - This is how fast your units move. The sooner and more frequently you hit, the better. Late game, if you've maximized initiative, you'll be able to decimate whole armies before they even have a chance to react.

2. Attack - Since you are moving before your enemy, attack strength is paramount. Try and get this as high as possible without comprimising Initiative. I'll discuss weapon types later.

3. (Melee) Defence - For Melee types, your defence is key since most units in the game deal physical damage. Higher defence, less physical damage.

3. (Ranged) Dodge - Your ranged units should never come under melee attack, so defence is less important. Focus on a high dodge instead since enemy archers and mages will focus on your ranged units.

4. Accuracy - You need to hit your enemy to deal damage. This won't be as important if you plan on having a Commander type champion that boosts army accuracy.

Melee - There is a lot of variety here, and what you choose is largely dependant upon your unit needs. There are two weapon types you should outright ignore though: melee staves and spears. They're just garbage. Poor damage and two handed, preventing the use of a shield, which is a double decker dose of dreadful. I also do not use axes. While their damage to initiative ratio is nice, and the Cleave ability is handy, they are two handed, eliminating the use of a shield, and their late-game magical upgrade is not nearly as powerful as the ones for swords or hammers. Axes are something to consider for disposable early-game units.

That leaves swords and hammers. Swords provide a +2 to the #1 top priority of initiative, and allow the unit to counter-attack, but are not nearly as damaging as hammers. Hammers are a hard hit to the #1 top priority of initiative, but they compensate with high damage and the Crushing Blow ability, which doubles damage. Both are useful in their own way, and I tend to have both weapon types represented in my armies.

Ranged - The choices here are between bows, crossbows, fire staves, and ice staves. Fire and Ice Staves are more powerful than the bows due to Fire and Ice Resistance being used to mitigate the staves' damage versus defence for bows and crossbows. Other than elementals, few enemies are resistant to fire and ice damage, however there are multiple units with high defense. Bows are still pretty good though, and useful earlier in the game to minimize crystal use.

Melee - Armor presents a competing interest between Initiative and Defence. For this reason, I largely stick to chainmail. Note, however, that both chain and plate greaves are -1 Initiative, so there is no reason for you to not use the plate greaves. I'd encourage you to play around with armor types. I've found that by sticking to chainmail, enemies rarely have an opportunity to hit my units, and any damage is easily reversed by a quick heal spell.

Ranged - For ranged units, the key is high dodge, which is not in opposition to minimizing Initiative impact. I prefer the Monk's Robes, and later Aegis Robes, for the plus to dodge. For hands and feet I use the Soldier's Gloves and Boots for the bonus to Accuracy and Initiative. To be honest though, for archer units I alwas use leather, entirely because I think archer units look stupid in robes.

Cloaks - For both melee and ranged I use the Scaled cloak for starters and then upgrade to the Dragon Hide cloak when it comes available. Each gives %25 and %50 fire resistance respectively. The most common form of elemental damage is fire damage, therefore this makes the most sense. Combined with the Protection from Fire mage class spell, your units will be immune to fire damage, which comes in handy when facing dragons.

Equipment is resource intensive, so if you are making disposable units you don't plan on using long, consider skipping or reducing the amount of Equipment given to your unit. Otherwise:

Mounts - Always Wargs, and for every unit due to the +2 to initiative. If you don't have enough wargs to go around though, prioritize giving them to your melee units so that they can more rapidly close with the enemy.

Accessories - Items that add Initiative are the priority, followed by elemental damage items. Items which provide elemental damage will increase damage for both physical and magical attacks, so they are useful both for your melee and archer units and for mages. I give my units both the Amulet of Haste and the Belt of Speed for a total increase of +3 initiative. Play around with it though; you might find this to be excessive, and want to add an armor enhancing item instead. Make sure to give your ranged units the Belt of Precognition however when it becomes available, as it provides a large boost to dodging ranged attacks.

There are multiple useful traits available for use. Keep in mind that +Attack traits only apply to physical damage, so do not give your magical staff wielding units any trait that adds attack. It will do no good. Otherwise, my top traits are:

1) Fast - This adds +2 to initiative. Give it to every unit.
2) Finesse - +3 damage to units with lower initiative. If you've focused on boosing initiative, this is an awesome trait (but not for mages!). If any unit is still faster than you, they aren't likely to be that tough, so the lower attack against them won't really matter.
3) Lithe - For ranged units only, the +10 dodge is worth -1 hit point. Don't use for melee units.
4) Precision - +10 Accuracy. Since we've focused on developing units that kill the enemy before they get to act, you need to be able to connect. If you'll be using a champion Commander that supplies bonuses to army accuracy, you might want to pass on this.
5) Chain/Platemain Proficiency - Obviously your melee units will need this trait to use plate and chainmails.

Traits to avoid:
1) Enimity - +25% attack vs. opposite race. You'll get a Fortress upgrade that gives you this for free, and 3/4 the enemies are either your own faction type or monsters.
2) Stealthy - As far as I can tell, Stealthy only works on the overland map. I've not seen any noticable reduction in enemies targeting my units who have this trait during tactical battles.
3) Veteran - Early levels don't take that much experience to gain, so using a trait on this is wasted given the better options available.

Always build your units from a Fortress whenever possible. That's their purpose in life. Units produced from a Fortress adequately focused on unit creation get massive bonuses you will otherwise miss out on.

That fortress should also have the maximum amount of Essence possible, and two at a minimum. Having two essense will allow you to utilize my two favorite Fortress enchantments: Aura of Grace, which adds +1 Initiative per Essence, and Heart of Fire, which adds +1 Fire attack per Essence. Note that this fire damage applies both to physical and ranged magical attacks, so your mages aren't left out.

So this is a bit obvious; you click the unit, and you hit train right? Wrong! Ok, yes, that is techincally how you build units, but there are better ways to do it.

So, on the right I am in the process of building some crazy powerful, and crazy expensive, warg riding sorcerers. As you can see, to train them will cost 180 crystal, 6 wargs, and 352 production. Here's the thing though; you don't have to spend nearly that amount of resources. Instead of producing a full company of six, make a party of three and upgrade them to six after they are produced. This will reduce the cost to 90 crystal, 3 wargs, and 249 production for the added expense of 150 gold. Given how slowly crystal generates, this is an amazing deal, and if you followed my advice on founding your capital in my Getting Started guide, 150 gold will be easy to supply.

Ok. So that reduces the material cost, but the unit still takes a long time to produce. My second piece of advice is to utilize the spell Call to Arms (sorry Empire guys, your less awesome Death magic once again fails you, as this is a Life spell). Using Call to Arms will automatically train your unit for the cost of 80 mana. Using Call to Arms is exceptionally handy because it reduces your needed Fortresses to one. Since you are spending zero production time on units, you can both build your armies and improve your Fortress at the same time, eliminating the need for building units at multiple Fortresses for the sake of timeliness.

Hopefully I have been sucessful in providing useful information to inspire you to new levels of unit designing greatness. Let me know of any improvements you might have, or things I might have missed. Also, as stated at the beginning, remember to try out new things, and feel free to share your favorite units and differing strategies in the comments.