EA Abysian slayers are nasty assasins, i gave one a robe of shaodws, girdle of might, boots of giant strength (he will do fine with just girdle and boots vrs most recruitables) and a bearclaw talisman forged by pretender. Iirc he had a total of around 28 strength, flying, ethereal and 2 strongly poisoned attacks (each hitting at around strength 30).
Some other assasins i like (expensize but still..):
Void Spectre (national summon for dreamland) with black heart, starshine skullcap, spell focus and amulet of anti magic. He was expensive but deadly, he had S4 or 5, amazing mr and good penetration, i wished for the slaves though.
Heliophagi/harvester of sorrows with a black heart, lucky pendant and some high damage weapon with decent attack.
Any assasin with eye of aiming, boots of quickness and the instantdeath crossbow.
Some nice thugs/SC's:
Dai Oni with any sword you want, shield of gleaming gold, horror helm, robe of shadows, boots of quickness/messenger, luck pendant and some other misc (ring of regen?). Script him to cast: stoneskin/iron skin/invunerability, soul vortex(or whatever the lifedrain aura is), fireshield and then let him attack. Damage shield, damage aura, great prot, way to heal fatigue (soul thing), regen, ethereal, luck and great fear.
Niefel Jarl:
This ones pretty simple:
Sword of swiftness, shield of gleaming gold, horror helm, fire plate, boots of messenger, lucky pendant, ring of regen (if no/low nature bless) or reinvig item if low/no earth bless.
Script him to Soul Vortex thing, Quickness, BoW and send him in, high high prot, nice defence and damage and fatigue auras means he can just stand there freezing and draining his enemies while his buffs, regen and reinvig keep him at full strength
Golem:
High defence weapon, charcoal shield, starshine skullcap, heavy armour(i like marble personally), boots of quickness, bracers of protection, some other misc.
Send him in, cast ethereal, luck and possibly resist magic and astral shield depending on opposition. With nice defence, damage shield (see a pattern with my thugs/SC's?), high prot, great MR and a load of astral buffs behind him hes nearly unkillable. If you can then swap the high defence weapon for a bloodthorn, partial lifedrains better than nothing.
Some Annoying Things:
Get anyone who has astral and fire magic, a load of cheap s1 mages and a few units of chaff up front. Give the s1 mages items such as doom glaives and accursed shields and place them just behind the chaff. Send them in and have the strongest mage cast communion master, ethereal, luck, phoenix pyre, fire shield. The little guys are almost mini thugs for the ammount of damage they do, their weapons being extremely nasty vrs large expensive units (Other SCs/thugs, pretenders, expensive summons ect), they are very hard to kill (works even better with multiple masters due to speed buffing) with all their buffs, they have a fireshield (and with alot of them, the masters fire magic will be higher so their shield will be stronger) and when they die, they each cause a huge explosion and re-apper somewhere else.
Take the cheapest commander you can buy, fill his slots up with rubbish/annoying cursed items and send them against a non fully equipped SC/thug (or leave him there to catch assasins
) and watch their owner cry as all his valuable slots are filled with rubbish items (lycan amulets are worst as they can permanently destroy the unit)