Do the various minions have different special rules?
The game is fairly light on special rules, so mostly just the stats are different. But a few things do have special rules, like ice toads having powerful jaws that cause more damage.
Here's my warband getting ready for a game last night:
I had five spells that are cast before the game, which would allow me some of the following:
Small construct, large construct (giant robot!), illusionary knight, zombie. The large construct is much harder to construct than the small one, but as I said above you can dodge the casting roll requirement if you use a scroll. However, I failed to write a scroll, so built the small construct instead (there's also a medium construct, but since enchantment is a neutral school for an illusionist it would have been too difficult to make). Bigger constructs are tougher and fightier, but move more slowly.
An illusionary soldier can do anything a normal one can, apart from cause damage or pick up treasure. They vanish as soon as they take damage. So a knight, with his high fight and armour values, should last longest. He can tie people up in combat, add combat support bonuses, and do various other things all without actually existing. Unfortunately, I failed to cast the spell.
The zombie is slow and bad at fighting, but is fairly tough. I failed to raise one. You can also cast this spell in game, but I failed there too.
My last out-of-game spell was reveal secret, which lets you place a bonus treasure marker near your deployment zone. I successfully cast this!
So I had only three spells that could be cast during the game (oh, and raise zombie). Glow makes the target much more vulnerable to shooting attacks for the rest of the game. Shield gives a model a bonus to armour. Transpose allows me to swap the position of any two models within 10" of each other (even if they're in combat - and even if they're enemy models, though in that case they get to try to resist the spell).
I played my necromancer opponent from last week again. This time he had a summoned bear, which is quite a powerful fighter.
On the left side of the board, my illusionist, backed by a thug, tracker and the walking book construct, faced off against the bear, a treasure hunter, a thief, and the necromancer's apprentice. While the enemy thief ran off with some treasure, my wizard and tracker took on the bear and my book and thug faced the treasure hunter. Both combats went extremely well for me, and after two rounds bear and treasure hunter were out of action. The necropprentice decided to flee to a rooftop with a leap spell, putting him beyond my reach... so my wizard made him glow, and the tracker took him out with a bowshot.
In the center, my apprentice told the thief to run forward and pick up some treasure, before transposing him with herself (so putting him and the treasure near my board edge, ready to escape with it). The apprentice and a thug then took on an enemy thug. This combat went badly at first, but eventually the enemy thug was defeated. The apprentice picked up the treasure, then transposed with the thug after he'd run towards the board edge (carrying treasure makes you move at half rate).
On the right, my two archers and the crossbowman faced the necromancer, two archers, a crossbowman, and a thief (plus a zombie, once he'd raised one). I deployed my crossbowman on top of a high, ruined building, thinking this would give him a good vantage point. Which it did, but it also made him a really obvious target. He spent a couple of turns being shot at by every missile weapon on the other side before finally dying. With an archer, I got a lucky hit on the necromancer that took him out of action. His thief took some treasure and left, while the archery duel continued. My archers took out his crossbowman and wounded one of his archers.
By this time, my illusionist was moving across the board after triumphing on her side. She used glow on an archer that was trying to make off with some treasure, allowing the tracker to shoot him down. After another turn, the remaining models on the necromancer's side had been defeated.
Next week = campaign!