When you are at the beginning, you beat up the doctor with your fists and take his gun. If you stand right next to him he can't shoot you and you can punch him.
Yeah, I tried the 5 knights in the front and 3 mages in the back technique and it works really well. So far I'm on level 5 with no deaths in the previous levels.
I actually got Legendary first, because I took the spear and couldn't do the reckless ending, so I kept clicking around and retrying it without knowing you could go there without the spear.