Lower level summons?

[Oversway]

does anyone know some cheap meatshields that are both miasma & poison proof?

Constructs? Claymen or clockwork horrors perhaps? Not that either are all that cheap.

[Endoperez]

Claymen cast by W9E4 Daughter of the Land are surprisingly cheap... And you also get Reanimation, Raise Dead/Skeletons and (although these aren't low-level anymore) Undead Horsemen, Banefire Archers, Enlivened statues and Demiliches.

I would love to get W9EX and Golem Cult, but there aren't many nations that I play so that they benefit from Magic 1+ and Prod 1+... And I don't think there is any that benefits of Enchantment in those, or any which would benefit from W9EX or WXE9, or even W9E9 enough for it to pay off. Golem Cult-boosted Claymen and Enlivened Statued would be interesting, but the need for both production and magic is a killer that puts off all Earth nations... Ulm takes drain and has no blessable units, Vanheim and Pangaea benefit of both blessings but need sloth to pay for extreme pretender.

[atul]

Endoperez, what about Machaka? It's an earth nation (okay, earth/fire/nature(/death) nation), which has blessable troops, has resource-intensive troops, mages that benefit from magic scale and hot temperature scale for extra points. And benefits from Enchantment, IIRC Flaming Arrows is from that research tree.

...I'm not sure, though, how even they would affort such an expensive blessings...

[Oversway]

Machaka seems to be the one that everyone who has talked about clay/golem cult has thought of. It is probably the best, but its blessable hunter spiders are pretty expensive. Like you said, its tough to get both scales and high bless.