The lava golems are explicitly just a piece of Dwarven infrastructure. They use them to power their forges. It's the difference between power that relies on a single Named individual, and power that comes from your society's technical or magical developments. The narrative crutch is an explicit, specific thing. It's relying on a Name or an Aspect or an extravagant ritual to try to turn the tide of a war in one stroke. It's not just "having stuff that is way better than the other guy's stuff".
No, it doesn't. If the Dead King relied on overwhelming power, Calernia wouldn't be in the mess it's in, because the nature of Heroes is that overwhelming power doesn't work against them. The Dead King is successful not because of overwhelming power, but overwhelming caution. In the Arcadian echoes, his rise to power was not the swiftest path, or the easiest path, or the strongest path. It was the path that gave the Intercessor absolutely no foothold to intervene. In his talks with Cat, he says that he could drown the continent in corpses if he so choose. But he chooses not to do that, because doing so would only result in his eventual unmaking.Samt with the Dead King. Undead Siege towers is about as Necromancer trope as you can get. And it works because of overwhelming power.
Cordelia definitely comes the closest to Black. But by her nature, she's a bureaucrat and a diplomat, not a warrior. She ends the Proceran civil war not by fielding a structurally superior army (which is how Black conquered Callow), but by outmaneuvering the other players.What ended the civil war was Codelia being both a brilliant diplomat and strategist.
That's exactly what Black did. The core of the new legions was forged in the Praesi civil war that lead to his and Malicia's rise.Also how the heck do you want Procer to reform their military during a civil war?
Their troops are better. Proceran armies are comprised of the house troops of the Princes (I think there's a specific term, but I forget it), fantassin mercenaries, and peasant levies. They lack overall cohesion and centralized leadership. Whereas the Legions are trained in tactics as a unit, including a combined-arms approach to warfare that leverages Praesi mages, crossbowmen, and Goblin siege and explosives to support their infantry. It's emphatically not just "BS explosives". They have an overall approach to war that is more sophisticated and more modern. Plus, in the Vales they were holding a superior defensive position with siege superiority and no logistical concerns. If you take Named out of the equation, Praes wins that 10/10.The point being that one side does not as such have superior tactics. Or troops that are that much better. They just have BS explosives that happens to be impossible to replicate.