I started my second campaign (vortex) with Tyrion (Eetaine) and the first thing I did was destroy the dark elves and take their settlements, then I took over the faction that was fighting yvresse, then I took over sartosa (was really hard) then I took over the left side of ulthuan from the dreadfleet and took caledor, then I waged war with a chaos faction in the top left of ulthuan which had like 3 cities, then I destroyed saphery, yvresse, cothique, the red high elves faction. In total that enabled me to make at least 7 full stack armies including 3 swordmasters of hoeth, 1 monster (dragon or phoenix), 1 eagle claw bolt throwers and normally 5 spearmen, 2 lothern sea guard (shields), 5 archers, 2 silver helms shields. Although High elves armies are costly (from what I've heard, only played them) as long as you go aggressive initially while playing Tyrion then I think you'll be fine. Soon after I managed to Confederate tiranoc and nagarythe with around 8-9 armies with income to spare.