[parone]

astral thugs can be awesome(body ethereal etc) but you have to be carful of that nasty duel spell. that can be countered if they(your thugs) are fairly high S(that is hard) really mobile(to keep your enemy guessing) or you can escort them with a ton of low end astral mages(shamans come to mind).

all those counters are situational of course. but then, some nations have little access to astal themselves, so S thugs can be AWESOME. but you are right, it is defineately a double edged Sword