Casting first in defence + endgame spells

[Micah]

Huh, I love me some rain of stones, and it's one of the few ways to keep astral magic on the battlefield from being even more absurd in the late game (Astral mages tend to be fairly squishy...astrologers and the like). Having 30 mages spamming soul slay and enslave mind with a light of the northern star up is pretty absurd to have to deal with if they're all lucky, misted and army of whatever'd, especially if you don't have any national astral (magic duel anyone?). I really really really like that the attacker has to be careful with their squishies.

As has been previously pointed out in this thread, if you're assaulting someone at their strongest point you're DOING SOMETHING WRONG. Force them to come out of their hole. If you're playing a VP game recognize that sometimes the game is effectively over before the last VP is capped. If you're running a race and someone's 5 feet from the goal and you're a mile back you don't get to complain that it's nearly impossible to catch him, even though the race isn't technically over yet.

I love elegant solutions to problems though, and I'm not really one for the "stack my army til it's bigger than his army and let them pound each other" school of thought. I'd much prefer to lure in an enemy, decimate their mages and then have my way with their ground forces. That's strategy, not just having a bigger stick. This might be why I hate games once they get past the phase of having all the research done...armies get too big and the solution devolves into having one that's even bigger. Not my style.