Let's Chat About Conquest Strategy

Oddly enough, I found the hard level not much more difficult than normal. Sure the later squads were r8 but by then, I had lots of disks, even petty ones, to offset. My arena squad destroyed the final boss. Now I think the difference between hard and normal is in the feats.
Have to fight and win 20 fights in a sector with only 14 battles requires you to spend more time and/or crystals to earn those 15 points for a crate. Killing more enemy in the campaign than available requires repeats (I don’t recall a single NS opponent to just keep killing zombie).
Not able to count how many cries you get in a row requiring you to scrap out the fight to be sure you hit 30 times, or 15 in a row, requires repeats unless you are lucky.
If asked, what did I spend the reward “cash” on, it was only the Razorcrest shards. I bought nothing else in a store. No sims, no mods, no gear - just shards.