[Agema]

Man should be able to fight back. They could retake provinces with armies to keep their castles and a few other provinces active for upkeep and recruitment. They may be limited for anti-thug thugging. They may be able to kit out mothers as just about adequate stealthy thugs against weak-moderate PD. They should have a ton of N3-capable mages and - with good research - access to Charm pretty quickly: pin the thugs down with troops or summoned chaff like swarm, and they'd fail an MR check eventually.