[Verjigorm]

I would love to see some viable alternative end game units to Tartarians. It sort of ruins the aesthetic flavor of some nations to have to resort to releasing twisted insane undead titans from their eternal prison...

The present (CBM) costs are 15 for Tarrasque, 12 for Tartarian, and 25 for Abomination/Iron Dragon, 15 for Juggernaut which seems quite balanced for their basic stats.

The problem, essentially, with Tartarians isn't their basic stats, but the fact that, once healed, they have a lovely undead body which means 0 encumbrance and have a full contingent of items.

Therefore, I would propose that affording alternative creatures more item slots would make them more interesting end game since if you can't hold items... You can't do anything.

Abominations and Dragons could then, therefore, be upgraded to allow them to wield weapons, have helmets, and then 3-4 misc. slots which would bring them to 7 slots. Obviously, no boots or armor since that's rather ludicrous from a thematic perspective, but dragons do have claws and abominations have tentacles with which they could grasp something. In fact, an abomination could have more than 2 weapon slots...

Providing them with some funky random magic paths and Feeblemind by default (since they were just weird animals after all) would be appropriate so you couldn't just GoR them. The fact that they could be healed without unusual magic is a bonus above a tart.

The idea here would be to add equipment slots and random paths to make all of the creatures relatively well balanced without resorting to gem cost to balance them--if, per se, all the monsters cost the same amount.. What would we have to set the item slots/paths at to make them of similar value end game even though their stats are a bit different? I would say that you wouldn't want a gem cost differential to be more than 10-15 gems difference between the cheapest and the most expensive.

The other alternative to adding equipment is to add on multiple useful abilities that one usually gets from equipment onto the creatures and factor that cost into their basic cost:

Ethereal, Lucky, Damage Shield, various immunities, more attacks, re-invigoration, etc.

Diversifying the end game summon market while respecting the above might also yield promising results... Summon Gamera anyone? (It's a flying Japanese turtle with rockets in its butt). Having both cheap, no frills rank-and-file units and expensive, multi-ability commander end game units for other magic paths would be interesting. Just go grab your Magic the Gathering Cards for ideas... Avoiding unique summons is best.