[Alneyan]

My concern with making the Hill too heavily defended (for a turn 10 offensive) is that nobody would want to be the first one to go in; waiting for someone else to start clearing the defenders would be safer, and there would be a good chance of having a weaker enemy SC to take down.

Soul Contracts are nice, but again the winner of the battle could have one or two of them (if lucky), or nothing at all, which would be a fairly different situation. I suppose the Soul Contracts do not qualify as being "cursed", and do not have a higher chance of being picked up?