Idea thread: special provinces, unique defenders

[alexti]

Here's my half-baked idea:
The Citadel of High Metals:
magic sites:
- The tower of Golden Order
- The tower of Silver Order
- The tower of Iron Order
buildings:
- mountain citadel,
- lab,
Outside:
- 3 adepts of each of orders (9 total)
- 4 human commanders (like regular heavy infantry)
- 12 watchers
- 40 heavy infantry
- 40 crossbowmen
Equipment:
mages - amulet of missile protecton, weightless scale mail, pendant of luck.
infantry and crossbowmen - high quality armor and weapons of regular kind (nothing magical or extreme).

Inside:
- 20 adepts of each of orders (60 total)
- 16 Telestic animates
- 4 human commanders (like regular heavy infantry)
- 32 gargoyles
- 16 iron dragons
- 240 mechanical milita,
- 180 clockwork horrors
- 200 crossbowmen

Equipment:
Mages - lucky coin, robe of invulnerability, brimstone boots, starshne skullcap, ring of tamed lightning, amulet of antimagic
Human commanders - brimstone boots, cauldron of broth, lucky pendant

The problem is obvious - mages are vulnerable to murdering winter (and to poison too) and I don't see how to solve it thematically. It doesn't seem right for the adepts of metal orders to have (or use) water magic - same for nature magic.

It is also tempting to give mages rune smasher - it certainly sounds like the item they would use, but how can they forge it? Lucky coin seems to be the only shield item self-respecting mage may carry into the combat, other than rune smasher, no other single-handed weapon seems appropriate (and/or useful).

Concerning the troops, I think that adepts of metal orders would be inclined to build their army primarily from the engineered constructs. Did I miss some suitable summons?

I would also expect them to cast Dome (or 5) of Arcane Warding, but are there commands to do that?