[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Festin

In practice, I think TNN suffers heavily without hammers. When hammers were in, you could take E on pretender (not a bad idea anyway for sacred thug nation, so no wasted points), and you had little use for E gems except for hammers. Without them, things like Vine Shields (which are key items for TNN) are suddenly very costly.

I think game experience with newest CBM so far supports my words: thugs have become rare.

Concerning the anti-SC options for TNN - how about airdropping a couple of Sidhe Lords dual-wielding Axes of Hate?

Well I can't speak to general perception which does seem to lean towards what you describe, but from just looking at the numbers they don't seem to me to support that conclusion. As a rough estimate assume you forge enough hammers to outfit one thug per turn with equipment not more than 10 gems apiece. You're not breaking even on the hammers until you've got 6-7 thugs fielded, and not at a very noticeable detriment until you're close to double that number. I just don't see how modest amounts of thugs mid game are suddenly not cost efficient (in plenty of situations at least).