The real dwarven dilemma

Played my Malakai campaign today, as I am an avid fan of the Gotrek and Felix books this was the easy choice. Love empire too but first I have heard of Elspeth so she can be my next campaign. I am pleasantly surprised that both RoC and IE have interesting campaign mechanics, so I decide to play IE. I get Gotrek and Felix as permanent heroes. Awesome! Looking over their skills it seems I will get quite the OP army after level 12 hits.

I proceed with the campaign and I get Ulrika as well. I remember her being very strong from my recent Katarin SoC game to unlock Boris Ursun. Then there is apparently the new LH slayer as well. Sure, join the team. This turns my strategy into what is always my strategy since I picked up this game: play as aggressive as possible and level all lords and heroes.

I took out clan Moulder quickly, which is probably the obvious thing to do. Then I moved east because it's full of quests there. Many Karaks to conquer. I started to take down the chaos dwarves in my way but then the REAL dilemma of this game hits.

Let me explain. I assume that the more I level my lord and heroes the more unbeatable my army will get. Adding upgraded and higher level units will play into this no doubt. So the main deciding factor for this campaign will be: where do I go with my main army?

While I was conquering new domains, Throgg and another chaos faction invaded my domain and started taking some of my starter province. So that is the real dilemma, do I circle back and secure my perimeter or press onward and conquer new territory?

I decided to back up to take back my starter province. Disappointingly, throgg took to the seas to escape from Malakai. Potential invaders like Throgg are across the ocean, do I need to go there to stop them forever? I could but I don't really want to. On the other hand I have several quest battles that I can do from anywhere, maybe I fight fight fight and focus on those.

Just curious, did anyone do a similar start and decided to ignore the invade of your starter province and just press on and fight? Seems the only way to keep the momentum going but it's going to hurt the income badly. Would love to hear!