On the effective early use of Pretenders in combat

[Huzurdaddi]

A Vampire Queen with a black steel plate armour (an Ulmish master smith and many other earth mages recruited in round one can make one in round two

You are not kidding! Wow is she good. She whoops on basically any independent. She also crushes almost any computer army. Once in a while the computer may get you with a bunch of flying magic weilding units ... but how often does that happen?

What really makes her go (IMO) is a combination of a life sucking attack, etherial so hard to hit, and 0 encumberance. The 0 encumberance really makes a difference at the start of the game. Many other SC's have the problem of running out of endurance but she just keeps killing.

She's my favorite SC right now. Anyone else want to share their favorite SC's? Maybe something is better (in the early game) than the vampire queen, if so I want to hear about it!