Early game with LA Marignon

[Micah]

Actually the blood angels are generally a better choice for a chassis than the ones in conj, and you can summon those pretty easily with goetics (especially since empowering blood is easier than empowering gems). If you take a cyclops you also get access to a hammer-maker, as well as the earth bless for your mages. He can also forge high earth items with a hammer, the baphomet has no hands and redundant paths with your nationals. The only real argument for a baphomet is access to the rings of wizardry and sorcery, but once you factor in the lack of hammers empowering a royal navigator to S3 (assuming you can trade for a crystal coin) is 45 pearls, and you'll save over 25 for forging the 2 rings with a hammer instead of your pretender's face. 20 pearls for an awake SC is a pretty good deal =)

Edit: Try a E6 dom 9 cyclops, order 3, heat 3, misfortune 2 magic 1. Or lose a point of earth and go for another positive scale, I just figured the bless was a better choice with all the angels.