MA Caelum strategy questions

[DeadlyShoe]

I've been playing a 'co-op' game of sorts as MA Caelum, against RanDomized NoIndependents AIs... which makes them much tougher, since they have hax0r scales, SC pretenders and use mostly national troops. Well, long story short, Eriu is spamming infinite Fir Bolgs with domstr10 and production 3. The frost brand/storm guards/lightning evocation strategy has kinda run into a brick wall because the fir bolgs just eat the Spire Horn types and the evo spammers fatigue out before making enough of a dent. False Horrors don't work either, the fir bolgs have too much attack skill. And because the border provinces are firmly Eriu dominion I don't feel confident risking my pretender-SC.

After reviewing my options I've decided to mix things up with some archery armies. The first iteration of this will be 5 Ice Crafters with Bows of War and a couple Seraphines carrying Ice Pebble Staffs and Boots of Quickness, plus about 60 Blizzard Warriors. The idea is that a Spire Horn Seraph casts Wind Guide, Ice Crafters quickenself then everyone just spams infinite arrows. (Well, 200+ a turn, but yeah.) The Numbness spam should slow down the front runners. However, I'm not sure about my composition here, in part because I have some doubts about game mechanics. Namely, I've been operating on the vague assumption that if a commander has a rank in a magic path then item-casting that spell will fatigue him as if he tried to cast that spell magically. But is that true or not? Because if not, I can use Ice Crafters instead for the pebble staffs and have them Quicken Self. Then maybe use a High Seraph for leadership, wind guide and misc castings duty. (Arrow Fend?)

Secondly, I want to make the army tougher for minimal gem cost. I have doubts that four castings of numbness will significantly slow a horde of AI units. I guess I could just add Ice Pebble Staffs until I have enough to stop almost any conceivable army but there is the issue of cold immune units. A distraction that gives me some melee power would be nice. Bags of Air and Bottles of Living Water are ideal but... seem pretty costly. One Air elemental would probably suffice for 1-2 rounds of distraction, but I'd probably need several water/ice elementals given that they can't fly. Ideally I'd have both staffs and elementals but that's like 40-50 more gems on a force that right now only costs 53 gems.

Thirdly, is it worth it to mix in some Thunder Bows? Looking at my damage output, I have 9 billion arrows that do dmg10 and...numbness. The Thunder Bows only have 10 ammo which is **** (especially if quickened), but they would provide some anti-monster capability. The main downside is that well... any monster that fights caelum without lightning immunity is screwed anyway. So...Black Bows? or?

Finally is 60 Blizzard Warriors for ~8-10 commanders enough? Most of the army firepower is bows of war but I'd hate to lose geared commanders because I stinted on troops.

**

On a side note I'm having trouble thugging/SCing any heavier than the Storm Generals. My initial goal was to shoot for Amesh Spentas but that's pretty much boned - 20 provinces arcane probed and I have... +1 pearls a turn. Yay. I'm converting Nature and Death gems to get pearls for small numbers of Yazatas and, um, arcane probing. I'm at a loss for other thugging options... I do have a D2 mage empowered that has a skull staff, but given my lack of pearls for a Ring of Sorcery i'd probably have to empower again to be able to summon Bane Lords or Wraith Lords.

I did get the Eagle Knight hero early on, but um Bogus slapped him and there was a lot of crying and sulking in corners on my part.

I also want to diversify my damage a bit. My Daughter of the Dawn currently has a Frost Brand and a Weightless Tower Shield (and boots of quickness, and 0 enc, so she does pretty decently.) But I hate being dependent on cold/lightning. Should I just go physical? I should be able to get away without a shield, cuz she's high def/mistform/regenerating/ethereal. My current plan is 2x Swords of Swiftness, which will get her 10x attacks a turn total (counting her Owl.)