Is Eltharion's expedition doomed? Yvresse strategies, Mortal Empires

[Alwyn]

The high elves of Yresse have a challenging start in Mortal Empires. Eltharion has taken a small army far from his homeland in Ulthuan to the Badlands. Meanwhile in Ulthuan, three of the four regions in your home province have been invaded.

In my Yvresse campaigns, if I keep an army on Ulthuan to re-take the lost regions while maintaining Eltharion's expeditionary army, there's a problem. I can only afford 8 or 9 units in each army. Both armies are likely to be heavily outnumbered and defeated.

It's tempting to abandon Eltharion's expedition (disbanding his army and abandoning his one settlement in the Badlands) and raise one big army to liberate Yvresse's home province. However, if I do that, Eltharion's abilities (causing fear when fighting the greenskins and immunity to barren wastelands attrition) will be wasted, at least until I can send him back to the Badlands (and it's a long, long way from Ulthuan). I could reduce the expeditionary army to a minimum and try to hold the one region in the Badlands which Eltharion's expedition captured while expanding on Ulthuan - but the greenskills will send a large army to attack that settlement. This isn't a complaint against the developers - I like a challenging start, I just haven't worked out how to deal with it.

If you play Yresse, what do you do in the early campaign?