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incognito said:
Awhile back in a MP thread, someone complained to Stormbinder (?) about a very tough SC that they were unable to counter. The only stat mentioned for this SC was that it was an airqueen and had Prt of 35. As I have looked through the equipment lists including the artifacts, I began to conclude that even without wishes, you could make some god-awful, one-of-a-kind SC's that would be hard to combat.
Consider a helio with crown of Amon Hotep, Bone Armor, Fire Shield, Sunslayer, boots of anteaus, etc. Not invulnerable, but very high MR and very effective in combat.
While could debate the merits of a single unit with that equipment (too many eggs in one basket perhaps), I am still curious what combinations of scripted spells and specialty equipment people have come up with that go beyond some of the run-of-the-mill SC designs. The design does not have to be repeatable, although ideally, if you mention it, you should have actually tried it once 
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Hi Incognito.
Yes, it was my AQ prophet that was cause of frustration for my opponent.
It had 35 Defense though, not Protection. She didn't use any artifacts, her good stats were combiantion of W9 blessing, 4 stars of experience, Heroic Quickness and good battle gear(but no unique items).
The main mistake of my oponent was trying to counter her with conventional armies and Ghost riders, which she could eat for breakfast.
Ironically at the end I lost her to Dom2 bug few turns ago and had to resummon her Last turn. My scout somehow attacked the enemy province _before_ my Ghost Riders.
As the result the retreat route for AQ that I was counting on was not created and she was lost after the PD and regular soldiers routed.
Regarding your questions - you are correct, you can design some very tough SCs, especially with unique artifacts. Although they would still be vulnerable, since you can't cover all your vulnerabilities, even on SCs that have more than standart number of slots.
Although you can make the life more difficult for your opponent by often shifting the equipment on your SC between the battles.
You can also suppliment your tough-as-nail SCs with high level battle mages, casting spells that cover the "missing" slots in your SC design. However most of these spells require gems, and your opponent can try to counter this tactic with 2 waves of attacks - strong magical one magical and even stronger regular one, forcing your mages to spend gems before the main battle. Than again you can also try to anticipate it and counter it carefull scripting and generious gem suplly to your critical mages. And so on...
As for particular SC designs - the game that you mentioned with my uber SC (my Throne of Heavens game) just entered the end-game phase, and I am currently in war with all major nations there. I am planing to use some nasty surprises on my opponents in the next few turns, so I can't comment on SC designs I will be using unfortunately at this moment. If this thread will still be around some time later I'll be glad to post some of my favorite designs, if it'll not be mentioned by other people by that time.
Regards,
Stormbinder