SC/Thug rating

[shovah]

i find anything with decent build in regen (including highish hp n9 sacreds) can make a decent thug with relatively few/cheap add ons.

heres a new thug for you to try:
white centaur commander with f9 n9 bless
gloves of the gladiator
horned helmet
ring of regen
(and if you gain access to astral a pendant of luck)

i used this along with a few others loaded out the same and their leader was the same except: he was a prophet with heroic toughness (which rounded out at about 102 health and 22 regen per turn), red dragon armour and a amulet of reinvig. every single one of these guys has the ability to go berserk (one of the most important things for a team of thugs so they dont all rout), 5 high attack flaming attacks each, good defence, good health, good regen, good speed and with any decent armour (such as dragon armour) good health.

thier stealthyness makes them excellent raiders and except vrs high health/very high defence opponents they can all be expected to kill whatever is in the square they attack. they dont have any life drain but they make up for it with regen and killing power and ive yet to lose one in the sp testing im putting them through (playing vrs myself so i can chose exactly what i test them with) they seem to do well and they are pretty cheap (25 nature gems+80 gold for 1) and the prophetised uber thug (id still say hes below SC level) seems to be able to solo most early/mid game armies without fire resistance/anti sc (which isnt hard to avoid due to stealth) as can 2-3 of the regular variety.
they are pretty easy to churn out (especially if you can get mother oak) so all in all you have a fairly cheap thug who is hard to hit, gets mad (and harder to kill) when you hit him and has great killing potential
main downside ive found atm is the vunerability to crossbows or ulmish arbalests which actually makes ulm one of the harder nations for him to raid (next to jotunheim and aby)


ps: sorry for my bad habit of using too many brackets

edit: hurry up and have fun telling me all the flaws (i know many exist and i know you love to tell me)

[Oversway]

The main problem I have with most of your thug suggestions is I never live long enough to get the reasearch/gems/etc. to try them out

However, this one seems good for early on. You just need const 4, right? What scales did you take to get f9n9?

[shovah]

const 4 until you want dragon armour (const 6) which i highly recomend (its 18 prot, -1 def, 1 enc and only 10 gems) i cant remember my scales but i took a slight dip in must with a rather big sloth dip (sloth 3 iirc)
if you can find sages with this set-up that is AMAZING because pans mages are so expensive (and it means you dont have to mass pan's just to get a lucky astral)
i suggest going for conj after const for lamia queens and tarrasques.

heres my favoured setup:
4x white centaur commander with:
gloves of the gladiator
horned helmet
green dragon scale armour (can use a lower level armour until this is reached)
lucky pendant
ring of regen
1x dyrad (prophetised if possible)

set the 4 centaurs at the flanks to attack archers with the dyrad spamming bless. the centaurs have survived everything ive tested them on (apart from aby/30+ arbalests) including lvl 20 ulm/jotun pd. they get 6 flaming attacks each (hoof, helmet and 4x gloves) 5 regen per turn when blessed, 23 or so health, 18 prot (21 when berserk) and 16-20 def (cant remember)
i considered giving them horror helms but i value killing the enemy more than gaining ground so the longer enemys stay the better (most of what they could scare they could kill so...)

the idea configuration that i posted costs 35 nature (25 without armour) 5 astral and 80 gold per centaur which sounds quite alot for a thug but i strongly suggest you try them (i am rather proud of my first practical thug)

and of course if you dont want to make a big team like i said you can always just do 1-2 centaurs roaming the enemy lands, picking off searchers/blood hunters and self buffing themselves (i prefer not to let them self buff because if some-one else buffs them they only recieve 2 turns of fire max if deployed forward)

edit: i forgot to check but pangea's units have high mr right? they seemed to be quite effective vrs the undead that tried to paralyze them

edit again: just took down a large BF ulm army that included: massed x-bows, a ton of paralyzing guys, and a 110 health, fire shielded (11 ap damage) astral shielded moloch (although that was probably due to the guy whos heroic strength left him with 4, high attack, flaming, strength 42 attacks per turn )