Ok, so I'll hit you with another idea. Something a lot more complicated (impossible ?) and maybe a bad idea that you should forget about. You tell me. Here comes.
When watching battles, to help connect the orders and the visuals maybe you could add above hero cards the order they are executing right now. That would help understand what's happening instantly, and what to change or to keep for a successful strategy. See poorly executed screenshot. The notifications that happen on the map "Grundak sees an opening and goes for the kill 43!" in a banner are short-lived, not really informative and take space on the map. Maybe a critical hit could be visualized on the character token directly instead ? A fat "43!" in red on the token ?  
That's it. Thanks if you read this far.