[Psycho]

A common Eriu/Van thug with a fire brand does around 30 AP damage. Rarely will you see a SC with the protection over 30, so that is 15 hp of damage, which gives your thug a decent chance of killing a SC. Set your thug to attack rear and he'll get a few free hits while the SC kills your chaff. You will either manage to kill the SC if he doesn't regenerate much or retreat once enough chaff is killed.

That's a situation when you don't specifically plan for fighting a SC. If you plan for him, you can equip 3 thugs with scourges for 9 fire gems and script them to flight, attack large. If you can add in a water mage for quickening (it doesn't even require gems now, another thing that should be nerfed back), let me see what SC is going to stand up to 12 hits dealing so much damage per turn. How cheap a counter is that to a SC that costs dozens of gems. I am assuming an undead/demon SC as those are most common, use moon blade for magic beings, etc.

It's really a simple task outfitting a couple thugs to kill a SC. The harder part will be actually engaging him in combat (returning, stealthy SCs). I think people are used to gem-gen games and don't realize how sparse gems can be without them. A recruitable-everywhere teleportable stealthy thug is a huge thing.

Fire brand + vine shield is a no-brainer for any type of opposition. Is that a good thing?