I lost about 113K last night, and a load of elves to boot. I've adopted a strategy of staying low in the ranks (35,000) by not touching my weapons or covert areas whilst steaming my defence, but I'm considering rethinking that. Would you advise staying low, or getting as high in the ranks as possible? Bearing in mind that this is only the Beta, that is.
Edit: it's academic now - I've bumped myself up to about 5,000.