[Baalz]

Ethereal + lucky tramplers. I once took an awake rainbow pretender with LA Arco in order to research up to alt-3 very quickly, at which point 1 mage + 1 elephant was an effective expansion party vs most indies. You could do similar things with other nations.

Speaking of buffing others, don't forget the other small AOE buffs which can be very effective on national recruits or low level summons. A Kraken is ok, but a Kraken buffed with iron warriors & quickness is suddenly a 3 gem thug who can take out light PD by himself (well, with his buffing mage), and is even pretty good at squishing other early thugs.

Speaking of singlehandedly taking out light PD, earth and air elementals are great ways for modestly powered mages to turn raider. Air elementals will take out light PD from unprepared neighbors when you cloud trapeze in to unexpected locations, while a pair of earth elementals (any E2 mage can get two after summoning earth power) will take out fairly heavy PD from many nations.

Speaking of elementals, fire elementals are a great way to take out SCs when you're on a budget. So long as the SC doesn't have 100% fire immunity, the heat aura will quickly pass him out once he's surrounded by a few fire elementals - their multiple forms will give them the time they need to live long enough. In a cold climate you can do the same thing with ice (water) elemetnals. Living fire/water is nice, but in a pinch just use several low level mages to summon a bunch of small ones.

Speaking of cheaply killing SCs, sprites are a great budget way to deal fatigue damage. Most people know that spamming enough MR check spells will overcome almost any MR, and few SCs would be willing to drop in alone against 20 concentrated astral mages....yet that's effectively what they're doing when 20 sprites are firing at them. Just one failed MR roll and they're even better than paralyzed - they're passed out. 0 defense, and a huge chance of critical hits means even the toughest SCs will get hacked up any reasonable troops. This is great not just against SCs, but against any super tough concentrated group (super blessed sacreds, etc.)