[Blitz]

Good points from both of you. I knew that taking sloth was an option, as I had tried various ideas, but I was trying to avoid it, as I do like to recruit a LOT of infantry fast in the early game. Tilting one towards order and taking a sloth scale is something I tried. Money is generally superior to resources in this game, so it's actually a tendancy of mine. I'll try another game with Order 2 and Sloth 1 and see how it goes.

Taking an extra level of death would either let me take Order 3 or Astral 5. I know where you stand on this Graeme, what do you think Norfleet? Death 1, Order 3, or Astral 5? I admit I don't play with the death scale much, so this isn't really my area of expertise.

As for dropping to nature 3, it seems like a good idea. Unfortunately my design is exactly 500 points, and it's only a savings of 32 points. I could upgrade to a castle, take earth 4, or riase to dominion 7. Obviously the castle would help offset the effects of my sloth choice, but wasting 12 points is annoying and I don't really see any other places to cut costs. Earth 4 does open up some interesting possibilities like forge of the ancients and king of elemental earth. The former would solve a lot of my forging headaches, while the latter is just a real nice addition to any army. The blessing would be a nice bonus as well.

I really like the idea that my GK can also turn rainbow mage, not just for site searching, but for lategame battles. When you have 3-4 uber SC's in your army already, your pretender can often be of more use casting some of those really nasty high level combat rituals. Of course I'll have Demiliches for the death stuff, but if I can find some decent communion slaves, he might be a lot of fun to use that way.