[Action]

Has anyone managed to create Gem efficient thugs from the young Ancestor Smiths? (Ancestor Smiths and Ancestor Guides who get a nature pick turn young)

With 15 Attack, 15 Defense, 2 Earth magic, sacred on a nation that likes an earth bless anyway and a built in sword with +3 attack / defense and fear on hit, they seem like they should not be scared of melee.

And in tests, they can indeed fight solo against huge numbers of PD, given enough gear. Even some of the old ones can fight pretty well, for example Ancestor Smiths with astral, or ancestor guides with 2 air, as long as they get only -2 penalty from age, not -3. (old ones tend to need an extra piece of gear to manage fatigue though)

But, they need a vine shield or eye shield if you want to live dangerously (can't forge gleaming gold with nation paths). Without a shield they die unless they can pack into a square with another guy.

They need a new weapon next, since they start with a two handed weapon. Probably frost brand, although almost anything will do. (They have such good stats they can repel really well with a longer weapon)

And of course, a lucky pendant.

At that point, you might be tempted to stop, but Blessing, Summon Earth Power, Invulnerability, hold, hold, attack is too much fatigue due to their encumbering armor, even for the young ones, even with the e9/n4 bless. They can either do Bless/Earthpower/Stoneskin or Bless/Earthpower/Ironskin if you want to live a bit dangerously with fatigue.

So without invulnerability, you might want a helmet for them, and a lot of their spellcasting encumbrance issues will be solved/greatly reduced by throwing a 0-1 encumbrance chest armor on them. Oddly enough, a shroud might be worth it, as lets them cast Earthpower/Invulnerability/hold/hold/hold pretty safely, unlike one enc armor.

They are certainly thuggable in the sense that they can kill/rout hundreds of human soldiers with spears with little risk, even without a brand, but it seems a little bit risky to use them as thugs in multiplayer, when they need probably 4 crafted items minimum, one being 10n, and they can still die to a heavy cavalry who gets really lucky in one hit.