[Jondifool]

My take on it is that the core of the problem is not that SC can butcher whole armys , but that they are invulnerble as they do it!
(but I second that summons and no upkeep are part of the problem to - magical upkeep would be nice payed in gems!)

But the core comes down to 2 things.
The open ended dice system, and truly invulnerbilitys in form of 100% resistance. This makes SC limmmitless supirior to normal troops

as a exsample
Lets say that a game had a cap on restances ,say 90% meaning that no matter what 1/10 of damage went trough , and lets say that nomatter what the attack/defense and protecktion/strength differentse that alwas at least 1/10 hits would do damage. And 1/19 that would miss

There would absolut still be a reason to make SC, but they would not be invulnerble, and if balanced right there could be a reason to make the SC that could do the job of hitting thesse numbers and still be affordble to loose!