[MaxWilson]

What to do with fire magic? Don't neglect Incinerate. It's 100 Prec and armor-negating.

I'm not big on summons either, but I can think of two advantages to a summoned army over a thug: summoned creatures generally crank out more damage-per-turn than even a thug with an area-effect weapon, and summoned creatures in a mass have more aggregate hit points than your typical thug and are thus more resistant to single-target spells like Incinerate, Frozen Heart, etc. If I were planning on cracking a mage-heavy fortress I'd probably spend the gems on summons rather than thugs.

Of course, the most efficient way to spend gems on summons is to summon them during battle. A W9 caster spamming Living Water in cold climate is downright scary.

-Max