[Mightypeon]

Some further arguments concerning the choice of awake or asleep rainbow:
-The Awake rainbow basically costs you 3 scales and some dominion.
Asleep, one can have O3P3L1G1D3 with a neutral Temp Scale, awake one gets closer to O3P3D1H1D3, likely with less Dominion thrown in.
I also believe that the benefit of getting one Bane thug per turn actually is not that great, as early on your research will suffer horribly, and getting the D gems relies on site searching luck.
In my opinion, the actual forging fun starts more at research levels 6 and 8, research 6 gets you very cheap lanterns and other gear (fire ball staffs etc.), and 8 should give your Pretender monopoly on most artificats.