[cleveland]

But if he can survive the through the 2nd round, he can surely survive beyond that...the swarmers get rapidly and progressively worse as time goes by.

Missiles are indeed a different story, but Vine/Gold/Charcoal/Aegis shields all have the same problem.

If you're building a thug and plan to spend 10N on a shield, I'd recommend (in general) a Vine Shield if he's high defense/low protection (who needs to avoid hits to stay alive) and an Eye Shield for a low defense/high protection thug (who can take the hits and permanently disable his foes), as this will make him much greater threat to anti-thugs.