[Potatoman]

You can get around putting astral on your pretender if your nation has astral mages. Just put a slave mage (for instance) behind the Kraken and script him to cast luck, body ethereal, etc. You lose the astral shield, but it's worth it.

You could also use one of those new-fangled communion stones to grant buffs from all your other casters to your magically-challenged SCs (as long as they have at least 1 path).