So after making a TON of characters I've almost settled on 3 PC's to play through as the three basic archetypes in the game. A Nord that looks like Mel Gibson in Braveheart called Wallace as a fairly standard two handed/heavy armor warrior with a little resto thrown in for tight spots, a Khajiit assassin named Nymeria and so that brings me to mages. Given the issues with pure cloth mages right now and mages in general I think I am going to go battlemage. Never made one in any TES game though so I have a few questions.

1. Race. I know there's the caveat that race matters little in the end but bear with me on this. While High Elf still makes a decent choice pure or battlemage I'm thinking that the combination of bonuses to non magic and magic skills makes some choices available. Right now I'm leaning Redguard. Anyone have a race to recommend?

2. Armor. Right now I'm slightly leaning light only because most of the PC's I've made are heavy armor and I want to try out a non stealth light armor character. However the long term benefits of going heavy seem pretty good. Steed stone takes care of some early downsides to Heavy Armor, you get good protection early, going that side on Smithing means I'll get Daedric eventually without having to go down both sides of Smithing. Is the regen issue too annoying early or are my instincts that heavy is just better in the long term fairly accurate?

3. At first I was tempted to go Shield/Spell on setup because the defensive potential is pretty great but that route shuts down bound weapon/spell option which ultimately sounds better. Shields worth it or is the protection of summonable tank+heavy armor enough? Either way I like at least I can free up some perks since dual wield destruction/impact can be ignored in this type of mage.

4.I thinking if I can spare the enchants late game that Destruction/Conjuration sounds like the best bet on the two schools to reduce costs to zero. Any other recommendations on enchants?

1. I would definitely recommend High Elf or Breton. The skill bonuses are worthless because you'll get to 100 in the desirable skills with any race you want. Look for bonuses that you can't make up for without sacrificing enchantment slots, e.g the Altmers +50 magicka or the Bretons 25% magic resistance.

2. I find that heavy is better than light. At first the magic regen might be a problem but if you level enchanting you will be able to enchant your armor with cost reduction enchantments. You will be able to reduce the cost of one (two once you get to level 100 in enchanting) school of magic to 0 and still get a massive armor rating from the heavy armor.

3. With decent heavy armor, preferably boosted with enchanting, you'll be able to soak up a lot of damage. You'll be fine without the shield but you can always give it a try and see how it goes.

4.I recommend destruction but once you get conjuration to 100 you get the thrall spells which permanently summon/reanimate creatures. Consequently, you only really need to cast the spell when the thralls die as opposed to every 30 seconds so it doesn't matter if the spell is costly. I'd try out alteration or restoration as the second school to reduce.

1. I'll probably go High Elf then since Bretons are the only race in the game right now I get irritated at when trying to make a character I like the look of.

2. Yeah I think heavy armor will be the way to go. Side question to that, can you wear a dragon priest mask and a cowl at the same time?

And I think I am going to eschew shields. I've gotten fairly adept at switching quickly using favorites but bound weapon/spell just sounds more fun in the long run,

this. Basically you could take a character, focus them heavily on enchanting, smithing, and alchemy, wearing heavy armor, and take the character anywhere you wanted. Magic regen bonuses only happen out of battle. I'd focus on reducing the cost of spells with enchanting. May try to roll more of a pure mage build at some point although I could just take the character I have and start using magic with them and simply enchant armor to reduce that magic to zero instead. Lots of flexibility available with specialization in the 3 crafting areas.

Bretons look like humans and have the best bonus, imo.. 25% magic resist.

No. Only one "head" item at a time. (Cowl, hood, circlet, helmet, mask e.t.c)