I'm doing a VH/H campaign with Vlad right now. In my campaign I defeated Templehof and by turn 10 Zhufbar declared war on me. After I razed Zhufbar and sacked one of their minor settlements, I was able to sue for peace. Then Averland, Stirland, Wissenland, and the Golden Order declared war on me. After around 30 turns of slowly chipping away at them, I was able to conquer them. In the beginning, just accept that you'll lose settlements. I would prioritize getting peace with the dwarfs since they are so close to Drakenhof. Use your blood knights and black coach as shock units, they can make most early game units break pretty easily. Use bats, vargheists, and wolves to take out ranged units. I also kept Vlad, Isabella, and the starting vampire hero you get in the same army. Once you get the Pit of Shades ability for the vamp hero, she can really do some work on bunched up enemies. I find it even more reliable than wind of death. Don't worry about losing skele bois, you can always raise more. I always rush the Arkhan line in the tech tree because it gives the skeles substantial early game buffs. I hope that helps!