[Baalz]

Well, here's the thing - nobody is arguing that MA Oceana is not crippled on land and that you've got a major uphill fight. The question is, do you 1) not use your national mages at all in combat 2) use them in their magically crippled form with ridiculous upkeep and very limited spells they can cast 3) transform them. To me, clearly #3 is the way to go despite its drawbacks, *particularly* because this also means you'll be fielding *many* more mages.

Look at it this way, when you transform 15 mages you've conceptually just forged a special soul contract which instead of generating demons spits out a capricorn every turn (with the upkeep cost you saved). Looking at it that way you can see why even if you do have a high attrition rate it's better to do it than not just for the upkeep benefit, not even considering the fact that your mages are vastly more powerful on land now. I also think that if you're clever the danger from having a very small MR is more a limitation to where and how you deploy your mages rather than that your mages die left and right. Instead of sneaking around and single handedly clearing PD you've got to keep your mages with a group of otherwise mostly useless animals and crossbreeds, but still a bunch of mages who move at the speed of the slowest dark vine is *much* better than no combat mages at all.