Male and female POV writing - nicely done.
Military detail - extensive and lovingly described, esp. battle strategy, you'll need to really enjoy that stuff to get through this book.
An awareness of how fantasy realms track against real ones and the resonance of an army of 'plucky whites' fighting overwhelming numbers of 'the locals' in a desert setting - highly lacking. Making the indigenous people 'grey-skinned' didn't in any way solve the race problem, especially when we start the book very promisingly from their POV.

A good story, that could have been made great by listening to a sensitivity reader's feedback. 14/20