[llamabeast]

I'm playing Marignon at the moment (turn 70 odd) and took an Air-4 Earth-3 Water-3 Nature-3 dormant frost father. For magical diversity it's been amazing. He can make a Winged Helmet and Earth boots, which you can give to your mages with randoms (which you end up with loads of) to get all your territory earth and air searched. You can make a thistle mace or two and give them to some indy shamen. And eventually you can summon a Naiad or a Sea Troll for more water access (I was lucky enough to find a magic site that allowed me to recruit water mages). The only magic I didn't have was death, for thematic reasons. Although recently I've found a Necromancer site and have ditched my morals.

So I went for a low-army high-magic strategy. In the early game I concentrated on Evo, and built hordes of mages (about 3 a turn quite early on). Fireball and Falling Fires are devastating, all you need to do with your army is distract them for long enough that your mages can incinerate them.

On the other hand I think I haven't played brilliant, and making better use of the troops would probably be an excellent idea.

Later on in the game the angels are amazing. I had one angel that almost single handedly captured about ten enemy provinces and killed army after army.

Marignon probably isn't as strong as Pythium - but then almost no-one is. Pythium's very strong indeed I think (good troops, very good magic, hydras, angels). But I don't know why anyone would think Marignon's mages are no good. I reckon they're fantastic.