Re: T\'ien Chi S&A play my next turn exercise
 

I was looking for a 2e to forge hammer of the dwarf lord -.-. Plus I heard people say Mo5E's are better than CM's.

Re: T\'ien Chi S&A play my next turn exercise
 

M5E vs CM in battle
As I said - if you need a special CM in battle because his random magic allows him to cast a spell you want - go and use him. But better deck him out and maybe even empower him in Astral: It's not only that cheap S-1 mages could duel him to death easily (AI won't do that, though), in my experience there are few arrow magnets like 250gold mages. And CMs aren't really as durable as Jotuns ... . When I played S&A, the mean time of survival of my CMs was 3,5 battles unless I gave them shield, armor or items.
And more magic pathes isn't necessarily what you need in battle. Only gives the spell AI more chances to screw up. And both will be able to get Fire, Air, Earth - 2. You may get lucky with a Water-3 CM - I would suggest using that commander to go underwater, casting Geyser.

Masters of the Way
Are lousy combat mages. Yeah, sure they can cast quickeness. But the Fire/Air/Nature-1 from a random will only let them cast low-level spells with high fatigue cost. Most of the time they will be sitting around buffing themselves... . Better forge some Sceptres of Authority and let some indie commanders or Black Servant use those: Casting spells from an item is only 5 fat/spell.

bless
With all mages and the national summons blessable, I would at least go for an earth-4 bless to give everyone 2 reinvigoration. Means the mages might get off one more spell, and the Demons never tire from combat as they only have enc-1 - they might even recover from fatigue-inducing spells. Air shield from low-level Air blessing isn't worth it, but the shock resistance from Air-9 might something to be considered (if it where 100%, even more so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif )
Nature-9 might be tempting, but stay away from it: berserking mages aren't really a good thing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Death-4 isn't really worth it: most times you'll have too few Demons in the front line for it to have any effect.


.. will add more later, have to leave now ...

Re: T\'ien Chi S&A play my next turn exercise
 

People say Mo5Es are better than CMs because of the magic duel issue - something that occurs far less often than it gets talked about. And if you're going to use neither the flying, nice paths +*2* random CMs, nor the Demons, there isn't any reason at all to play S&A...

Re: T\'ien Chi S&A play my next turn exercise
 

That's actually the way I see it as well. SA's MAIN advantage just seems to be it's CM's and you're foregoing the ability to take Order if you take that. Is it really worth the trade off? If so, what's the best way to max out the use for CM's?