There is a slider in the options to fight all tactical battles... but it's not named friendly. Set it from 3 to 1 or 0 (can't remember.)
I have not had a chance to play the final game yet, but in the beta I had this issue. My main guy had 0 attack, but plenty of sells. The tactical - auto-combat, would never use magic so I would die each time.
To get around this, there was a setup option (last tab I think?) that said something like seed battle and the slider had 3 (it looked like the other other options.. sort of hidden). You change it to 0/1 and you can fight everything you want.
