[OmikronWarrior]

I barely used Einhere's in the one MP game I played. Basically, it seemed like skinshifters outperfomed them in SP tests, and by focusing on skinshifters I could afford to take some sloth to get points elsewhere. It is really hard to exagerate just how survivable Skinshifters are.

As for the Pretenders "role", thats up to you. I tried a SC pretender and got her killed in the first fight against knights, so I'm somewhat down on that idea now. I merely offered those path suggestions as the obvious ways to make the most out of your mages. D-4 would probably be very useful, but its not needed to site search, and D-2 might be handy to KNOW you can build skull staffs (or maybe just trade for them), but unless you are using a Rainbow Chasis chances are you're giving up something to add a a death path to your Air, Nature, and Earth core. Could probably be done, but you might have to give up a SC chasis or Awake Pretender to do so.

As for paths, its probably situational. Thau-2 for Auspex, Gnome Lore, and Haruspux(sp?) obviously, but you're probably going to need to do a touch of manual site searching before hand to set up Gnome Lore and Haruspex. Beyond that, Evocation is very handy, obviously. Unfortunately, Thunder Strike is A3, while you're mages are only guarented A2. They can cast Stormpower to bumb it up, but only if there is a storm. Which means you need the proper evocation spell, or Construction-6. Beyond that, the really good spells are pretty spread out, Gale Gate is Thau-8, Air Queens Conjuration-8 (or is it 7?), Fog Warrior in Alteration, Wrathful Skies in Evocation, etc.

I don't remember the mages types off hand, but you have 2S and 2A2?. I focus on the latter, as to maximize the odds of getting a desirable combination, like A2E2, then add earth boots and you can summon a troll king, whose E3. Give him Earth boots and cast Summon Earthpower and you have an E5 mage. Lots of fun magic at that level. Or E2B2, which lets you summon Storm demons. I'd imagine with postive Magic scales it'd be much more efficient in research to get the Astral mages for research, but you'd still want to buy the Air Mages for diversification and battle magic.