[konming]

Originally Posted by AreaOfEffect

There are plenty of cheap yet effective spells. My favorite tree for the first forty research points is always Thaumaturgy.

-As already mentioned (thanks Nikelaos), death one mages can immediately spam frighten against normal foes and dust to dust against the undead. That covers ~90% of most early game battles quite effectively.

-Communions can be had at this level as well. That doesn't sound useful, but a lot of astral factions have astral priests. Priests spells are free and effective in the early game. Don't have 3H priests? Now you do. If you're MA Ermor this becomes ridiculously effective, especially since you want your mages out in battles to reanimate afterwords anyhow.

-Horror mark, curse, and seven year fever won't immediately kill an awake SC pretender, but it will surely make them sorry.

-If you are one of the rare nations able to cast the spell, far strike is actually a really good non-evocation evocation spell. Compare it to any early game elemental damage spell and you'll see that it wins every time. It does more damage, with greater accuracy, with greater base range, can't be blocked by shields or air shield, and can't be ignored with any form of resistance. Also, you can cast it all day long as it costs only 5 fatigue.

I am not sure about the not blocked by shield part. In CBM, far strike is range 50 and 100 accuracy. Yet casted on Abysia light infantry, who has only 9 armor, it more often than not does no damage. It destroys most unshielded units just fine.