[13lackGu4rd]

which indy mages do you so desperately need yourself that you're willing to go through so much trouble to get? I can understand going after Bogus and company, maybe the vampire count(especially with no blood access) but other than that everything is achievable much more easily by other means... enslaving regular troops especially, I don't see which indies are giving you so much trouble or are so great that they're worth enslaving in the first place.

but, regardless of your answer above, I'll still answer your question. without any native assassins/seducers your best bet will be communions. if you've got enough research you can make a large enough communion to allow a lowly Lizard Shaman to pull off a master enslave on his own. if not than use that Lizard Shaman to summon a Couatl first and let him be the communion master. with a Couatl your communion will require less slaves to pull off the master enslave.

you can also spam enslave mind via the same communion, just with more masters and less slaves, Lizard Shamans will be perfect here all the way. enslave mind has a higher penetration chance than master enslave, so against targets with higher MR this will be the preferred method.

Charm is a bit trickier. first of all, it requires N3 to cast and your Sauromancers have N2 max(getting the 25% N1 and 2.5% N1 together happens very very rarely, so don't count on natural N3 Sauromancers). second of all it has a relatively short range, so you need to close the distance to your opponents' mages before starting to charm. therefore I don't recommend Sauromancers, even though you can bring a booster on them for N3. instead I recommend the Ivy King, he starts with N3 and he's much tougher than a Sauromancer with solid hp and protection as well as built in regeneration. though this requires conj7(which is a good idea anyway as C'tis comes alive at conj8 for Well of Misery and conj9 for Tartarian Gate). you can use a Couatl instead of the Ivy King but the Couatl is lacking in slots, see the next section for more detail about that.

no matter what your method is(enslave mind, master enslave, charm) you will want some penetration boosters on your casters to increase the chances of your success. an exception can be made for enslave mind spam if your communion is large enough, otherwise I'd still recommend the boosters. penetration boosters come in 3 main forms: rune smasher(1 handed weapon, requires F2W2 to forge), Spell Focus(misc, requires S1 to forge) and eye of the void(misc, requires S1 to forge, causes eye loss). increasing your casters' magic level in the appropriate path(N for charm, S for enslave mind/master enslave) also boosts your penetration power(relevant to communions, not as much for single casters like the Ivy Kings). this is the reason I don't recommend the Couatl for charming, the rune smasher makes quite a large difference. however, if you don't have enough F gems to empower a Sauromancer, or diversified your magic in other ways, than Rune Smashers will be hard for you to forge. in which case you can still make do with a Couatl with just Spell Focus and Eye of the Void.

now, as to how to actually pull it off. if using a communion than you need some blockers to keep the indies at bay while you try to convert them over to your side. set your communion at the back(enslave mind has a large enough range, master enslave is battlefield wide) and your blockers just in front of the communion with the orders "hold and attack closest".

charming is a different beast. you need to be closer to your target, which already puts you in harm's way. an Ivy King can be equipped well to be able to withstand a lot of punishment, example equipment: Rune Smasher, shield of choice, armor of choice, helmet of choice(if at all), Boots of the Messenger(so you can spam charm for longer), Spell Focus, Eye of the Void. with Couatls it's harder as they're lacking the hands, feed and body slots, so you need to put blockers in front of them that are also big enough to act as lightning rods for your Couatls. also, because the Couatls are flying, you can't close the gap to your targets without being right on top of them and negating your blockers, another reason to use the Ivy Kings instead, if you want to charm mages that is, if you want troops than enslave mind is the better choice). you're generally looking at big tough size 4-6 monsters for this roll. put your blockers in front, the Couatl just a few spaces behind them and to the sides(up and down). order the blockers to "hold and attack closest" with the Ivy Kings a couple of spaces behind the blockers and a bit to the sides(a few spaces up and down from the center) with orders to "attack, charm, charm, charm, charm, cast spells". the first order to attack should put them in range of the enemy's mages so you can charm them, than charm as much as you can pretty much. if you find that you're coming short add another attack order before starting to charm spam.

in any case, remember that if you want to convert the mages as opposed to just the troops, you need to make sure that the mages are either larger than the troops or you get rid of most of the troops before hands so your spells will have a higher chance of targeting the mages instead of the troops. still, as I started this long post, I really don't recommend these methods for general use, especially against the AI. sure, enslave mind communion is great for many things, master enslave is a very useful spell on its own right, but for your needs they're really not the best of tools(though the only ones you have without assassins/seducers nor blood magic).