I had thought about skelly spamming, but I always got the idea that it was more of a blocking force while your other mages laid down the heat than a winning strategy in and of itself. As for the pretender, I totally forgot about getting a poison immune one
, and ended up having to rush to cons 4 and ench 5 so I could cast gift of health to save my mother of rivers
. I took something like order 3 sloth 1/2 heat 3 mis 2 magic 1 with 5 water and 6 astral, awakened.