I think the closest thing I could find reasonable for truely solo Mage is a Forcemaster with only an invisible stalker.  I could kind of see going on.  I think a solo Warlock is reasonable too.  I only have 7 in mine right now.

Well, I've been convinced that the helm is very much usable.  Now that I think about it also, I only use a few creatures in my Warlock build.  If I'm not using creatures it makes it even better.  I think now maybe I'll see about replacing something else with that.  It certainly isn't as important as the ring of curses, ring of fire, that awesome damage barrier armor, the sword, or that amulet.  I can see now that it is worth having at least.  Even if it doesn't actually get used.

Lately I've been more interested in playing the Warlock.  I think I have a pretty good spell book put together, but it is hard to really say since only one person locally has as much experience at Mage Wars as I do.  I haven't found any way whatsoever that Helm of Fear is even useable, let alone a good choice.  Has anyone gotten any good use out of it?  Does anyone use it at all?  It seems severely underpowered to me.  There are a lot more efficient ways to accomplish the same thing or get much better effects for the same or lower cost, and these are spells that are usable by all the mages.  only a 1 in 4 chance of the Helm working and even then the attacker can re-target the attack.  It only works on melee attacks and it is rather expensive to cast.  It doesn't even work on all melee attacks or counterstrike.  Normally when I see something that is specific to a particular mage only I expect it to be very useful.  Here I just find it to be a waste of mana.  Any countering views are do most agree with me here?

Surprised this one hasn't been asked yet because it is certainly a grey zone with legitimate arguments both for and against my current house rulling.

Does the Ring of Curses reduce the cost of curses that were placed by Sectarus when they are revealed?

Good points for no are that Sectarus is casting the spell, not the mage and therefore does not qualify.  On the other hand, the ring of curses reduces it's reveal cost, which is done by the mage.  A familiar casting a spell isn't the same as the mage casting the spell, but after the spell has been cast then the mage is in control of that spell.  It seems to imply that the mage is in control of the revealing of the curse and therefore the ring would in fact apply.

Then there is the issue of if the mana from Sectarus can only be used for casting the curse initially or also for revealing it?  This one is a bit more tricky but it seems that you could only have the benifits of one part of this question or the other when using that sword and ring combo.  If the sword still has control of the spell and is using it's own mana to reveal it then it doesn't make sense that the ring can lower the cost, but if the ring can lower the cost then that would have to mean that mana on the sword cannot be used to reveal it.

So which of these is true:
1.  The Ring of Curses may be used to reduce the cost of a curse placed by Sectarus and Sectarus's mana may only be used to pay the 2 mana casting cost of curses, not the reveal cost.
or
2.  The Ring of Curses does not reduce the cost of the revealing of curses placed by Sectarus, but Sectarus's mana may be used both to cast and reveal curses.

Until an official ruling is made I have to go with option 1 but I cannot be completely sure, that is why I ask.  This is the first thing I have found in the game not explicitly covered in the rules.  Either eway I still like using these two together on my Warlock because even if the Ring of Curses cannot be used to help the curses cast by that sword, at least it reduces the cost of the sword itself since the sword has that curse key word and the Ring of Curses works on all curses, not just the ones that are enchantments.  It just happens that this sword is the first thing I have seen that is a curse and not an enchantment.