[Arryn]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
This assumes:
-That you do not die nor get afflicted

A risk in any battle, regardless. If one dies, one is screwed. End of story. There is little point in dwelling overmuch on it. The Wyrm regens, and the chances of a Wyrm taking the feeblemind injury in melee are remote.

(quite of an assumption for someone that plans on hiding his whole army behind his Pretender)

I never said this was my sole strategy, nor one I use injudiciously. Please don't twist my words. What I said was that I do this fairly often, against small-to-moderate sized enemy forces. Forces I feel reasonably safe in using it against, based on prior experience.

That you make it to const6 before a possible hostile Pythium/R'lyeh/Arco makes it to Evo3 (for your skullcap).

And you assume that those same possible hostiles also have an astral caster of L5+. Your assumption is no better than mine, I think. Is it common to find players of Pythium, R'lyeh, or Arco taking Astral-5+ pretenders? After all, don't many of the same arguments about diversifying paths apply to them as well?

That you forge a 2E-2O item when you have no mages with earth proficiency.

For the coin. I never said I'd be sure to be able to do so, or to do it quickly, only that it's possible. Again, you are twisting my words.

In the early game it will protect you vs missiles & fliers

Versus fliers how? If you mean Storm, that's Evoc-5, which is past the early game (by my reckoning), and would hurt me more than help, unless I give up the idea of flying myself. However, if I do, then Storm is certainly a wonderful defensive spell -- that any air-4 mage can cast.

in the mid & end game vs lightning & air elementals. It gives you an additional magic field also.

I've never been struck by lightning or air elementals. Just fire spells, and fire/water/earth elementals. Perhaps I've just been lucky so far and no opponents have been strong in air. The biggest advantage I see is the extra path early on. I'm just not so sure, still, that it's worth it. But I'll very likely try it in another game. I play lots of SP games, and have 6 ones active at the moment, that I switch between to avoid boredom.

Astral however, gives you nothing that you already do not have.

This is not true, but there's little point in rehashing it, if it's not clear enough by now.

BTW, thanks for the discussion. It's helpful.