Am I supposed to keep making E during the battle to keep overdriving up my mexes?
Not excessing metal while also being short on energy is likely to have made me able to get more units on the field.
The reclaim is nice as it gave me a fighting chance and would have been useful for a comeback if I managed to pull one off.

I think losses like this occur because I cannot, for various reasons, get a Scalpel ball or Lances on the field. If I kept my units alive and avoided losing Scalpels/Mace/Lance/Claymore then my battles would be on more even terms.

I.e, note the disparity between my and my opponent's army values.

If you want to improve your macro, just do whatever Atostic would do :P