ok as promised my first attempt to provide a cheap sc kill idea :
my initial idea was a cheap fire 10 bless with vanheim . but because strength is not added to the 8 ap fire attack a protection of 20+ will be enough to decrease damage suffered by fire bless attack hits to mere 1.29 avg damage at protection 20 and ridiculous 0.321 avg damage for a protection of 30 .
so next attempt
:
take pangenea or vanheim or ulm . rush to con 7 .
i describe the tactic for pangenea in the following . it is really simple :
when you reach con 7 you should have gotten 1 lucky pan with an earth random pick meanwhile + found at least 1 site with earth gem income .
hopefully you can forge him earth boots .
so he has earth 4 then .
you should have dozens - hundreds of maenads then . mix a few minotaurs or centaurs in them .
a mintaur has strenght 16 + battle axe damage 9 = 25 .
now you simply cast weapons of sharpness on them .
maenads are size 2 so they swarm the sc and the minotaurs get hopefully as late attackers later attacks . if the minotaur is e.g. the 11th attacker the defense of the sc will be lowered 10 points , if he is the 21th 20 points .
so he will quite likely land a few hits .
because of weapons of sharpness even against protection 40 ( that is the cap right ? ) the minotaur will do 5.57 avg damage .
against protection 30 which is more common he does 10.13 avg damage .
btw the maenads do 0.570 avg damage against protection 30 .
so with a bit luck you should inflict at least 50 more likely 100 damage in one combat round .
the costs are extremely cheap only some hundred gold for the pan + minotaurs and 10 earth gems for boots of earth + 1 earth gem per weapons of sharpness cast .
only reliable counter which comes to my mind so far is casting blood venegance on your sc .