Yeah it'll take me at least two days I think to save up enough resources to build my cavalry building, though I am close.
On my planned next attack, I'm using some of my cavalry, expect one loss, and then the rest I'm using my cheap archers (familiars) to kill.
I definitely wasted a good number of cavalry early on before I started optimizing fights, which is a shame. But I should have three new ones coming in as a quest reward.
I plan to fool around with Jactari to figure out if there are any other outer squares that I can kill with just Imps and Familiars, maybe a few horned demons, while taking reasonable losses.
Ideally I won't be recruiting very much for the next 2-3 days so that I'll have the resources to build the Howling Kennels.
edit: Also, has anybody put any thought or research into what to build for regional buildings? (Fields, towers, etc?) I have some open spaces now but don't have a good grasp on what is important/efficient.