[Calahan]

Last time I checked CBM 1.5, the barb chief only had 15HP and regular Att/Def skills IIRC. I certainly missed many of the early versions of CBM, so maybe the barb chief was turbo-charged in one of them.

But if a barb chief ever had 25HP, then I can certainly see him having a great use as a thug. Especially because, as you say, he wouldn't compete in the build queue, or even take up mage time to summon. In fact a 25HP barb chief might be pretty much Mr.Go-To in the early-mid game. With just 5-10 gem worth of items he'd be pretty tasty.