Best ways to poach mages...

[fungalreason]

One minor caveat to Mind Hunt... a single cast won't kill units that transform to a second shape when hurt badly. (Like Machaka Black Sorcerors and Lamia Queens). The message will say theat they are injured, but survived the attack. Two casts can do the job, but it becomes much less efficient for the hunter. (Especially considering that the unit has to fail two magic resist checks rather than one)

A counter to many of the assassination spells is simply to have cheap indy commanders tag along with your expensive, important mages.