[Micah]

Dragar - There are no crossbows in EA. You're also doing just fine if your ironskinned, phoenix pyre'd, fire shielded, armored and reinvigorated Anointed of Rhuax is using his (30+) protection value for something useful. The burning ones kicking all sorts of *** at the beginning of the game gets you to the research you need for that.

Any path at 10 is a waste of points, and twist fate doesn't work admirably well with heavily armored troops. You can admittedly do nasty things with an S9 pretender, but that tends to come later in the game, and I'd generally prefer to have a whole bunch of units (anointed) causing havoc than one crazy-strong mage. Especially since earth-based mages are going to be more of a problem than astral for Aby, for the most part (destruction early and army of gold later both ruin your day) so the magic-duel potential of your pretender might go to waste.

That being said, going for maybe a master lich and some diversity with EA aby isn't a terrible idea, but I'd prefer to play to their strengths and try to get enough of an early lead with them to find indies or empower instead of trying to get my pretender to make up for the massive amount of diversity they're lacking.

Also, lanterns are an excellent idea.