1. Why no battle reports
Because it was futile and useless. Aurvandil is fairly predictable; we realized that Mendicant ws pompous and isolated enough that he wouldn't respond much as long as we didn't poke him, provided that we kept our distance.
2. Why go through SA instead of realms
Because SA is available for foreigners. Hireshmont can't (or can't very easily) become Vasilif of Astrum. He can become Light of Sanguis Astroism. And Hireshmont tried to incite other key conversions too, with little success. SA was the tool we had on hand; and it's a useful investment long-run too, and is lots of fun gameplay (main reason for conversion was that actually). But going through the realms is harder than you might think.
3. D'hara's uninvolvement
Again, diplomatic maneuver. Mendicant said he would honor the truce. He's arrogant enough to do so, even at significant personal disadvantage. We were trying to play a long-game to wipe out Falkirk, then move the front to Aurvandil.
Honestly, this war was winnable if there were just two things different:
1. If we had wiped out Falkirk in the Feb. 26 campaign
2. If Asylon hadn't entered
Taking out Falkirk might have been possible if we hadn't had so many diplomatic mixups and if we hadn't been fighting the western campaign. Now it looks like a very distant possibility, if ever (though I'm still cheering for D'Hara/Fissoa/LN on that front!).
Asylon's entrance simply makes war impossible for the Moot. We can't be fighting on both fronts.
With Falkirk still in the game, and thus no military aid coming west against Aurvandil, we can't keep up the fight.
And thus, in hindsight, the failure here is one of over-reach: Terran/Barca should have sat out the Feb. 26 campaign to avoid ticking off Mendicant and provoking a series of counter-measures, like Asylon's invasion. We should have contributed to an attack on Falkirk if anything, or just sat in Barca yelling across the border.
I still think, even with the distance, if Falkirk had been knocked out at the Lurias could have been kept on track, Aurvandil would have been beatable; maybe even with Asylonian attacks. But now? Nope. Not gonna win this one.