Mages

Soothsayer

"He's so handome" - u

As we can see, Soothsayers are not strictly mages! They don't have a full magic path.
This means that they can be recruited like commanders, without the need of a lab.
They do however come with astral 90% of the time, which is all but a guaranteed mage.
Imagine that, being able to recruit mages without a lab. Soothsayers are amazing.

So we don't need to waste as much money building labs as most nations do.
We can use the gold to build more forts! So Sauromatia will have a lot of forts.
Practically one on every province they own.

This also means Sauromatia will have loads of low-level researchers; so make sure to take Magic scales.

• No Astral

These Soothsayers are nearly useless.
If we are running L3, suicide them to reduce upkeep.
If we are running Misf2, they can be used to lower risk of bad events as fortune tellers.

• Astral

While not the bread and butter of our army, they should be the bulk of our mages.
The Soothsayers main evocation is Stellar Cascades.
Have a master Soothsayer casting Light of the North Star with a clam to save on pearls.
Placing Soothsayers with Enari and Witch Kings casting Body Ethereal will lower attrition.
Cast Body Ethereal on Cataphracts to help repel a rush.

Spirit Guide

Enari

n. Enari pl. Enari.

Step 1: Place in a communion.
Step 2: Spam Hordes of Skeletons.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Victory.

Warrior Sorceress

• Death Random

The weakest of all possible paths.
Use these as temple-builders or expendable thugs.
Soothsayers should be able to foresee this random.
And kill the sorceress in the womb.

• Blood Random

Stick a SDR on them and bloodhunt. Expensive, but worth it.

• Water Random

This WS path makes the strongest thug, due to quicken self.
Giving them a frost brand and casting quicken self will bump their
Defence up to 27. With BE and Luck this makes for a rather strong light thug.
They can also craft clams.

• Nature Random

This path gives you access to nature battlefield enchantments.
Once owning a thistle mace an N2 WS will be able to cast
Mass protection and mass regeneration and Howl.

Before researching Wrath of the Ancestors, they can also cast swarm.
Sauromatia is in dire need of chaff, so this spell finds uses in the midgame.
Later on they can cast Storm of Thorns.

The Warrior Sorceress Thug (Under Construction)

Witch King

• Death Random

Big D. Used to cast the high-tier death spells.
A death random Witch King with twiceborn can cast Tartarian Gate if
they reanimated with an extra death path, given a Skull Staff and a Skull Helmet.

• Blood Random

Expensive blood hunting.
Which you will do a lot of.

• Water Random

Something more important than clams.
But also clams.

• Nature Random

Ratcheting up to those nature globals

In particular:
N2 WK + Thistle Mace + Armor of Twisting Thorns
       = N4 WK + Ivy King
N1S1 Enari + Armor of Twisting Thorns + Thistle Mace
       = N3S1 Enari + Moonvine Bracelet
N3 Ivy King + Moonvine Bracelet + Thistle Mace + Armor of Twisting Thorns
       = N6 Ivy King + GoH

However this can all be circumvented by rolling Sauromatias N4 hero Kirke, or an awake N4 pretender.

In all cases the Witch Kings will be the leaders of our troops.

On the Witch King thug.

I try telling people about the Witch King thug.
They keep going on about how it's a meme, that it will never work.
Telling me that a Witch King is better served on the back lines spamming skeletons.
But I’ll show them. I’ll show them all the power of the Witch King thug.

The idea is to use D4 WKs as thugs, so when they die the 25% of them that become D5 will be able to cast Tartarian Gate.