[Omnirizon]

I think for early game, death magic wins out; with raise dead. It is actually feasible to have 20+ mages who can spam raise dead (not really possible for any nation to have that many mages who can spam thunderstrike or enslave, maybe confusion, but not enslave, which brings up another point: confusion > enslave.)

With, say, just five mages spamming raise dead, a heavily outmatched army can beat back another.