We need to have a long discussion about changed needed to make the Sion worthwhile. If you don't know, a Sion is an Empire trainable unit that gains champion abilities as it levels up, but can't learn magic. Now, that sounds fantastic, like henchmen. It's not, why?
Problems with Sions:
Cost to build, each Sion takes 100 influence, twice what a Henchman cost. Unless you are Altar, or have heroics, you will never have enough influence to build more than a few of these though the course of a normal game and influence is far too cost prohibitive to trade for.
Standard unit weapons and items. They don't get a champions inventory like a Henchman, they use the same rules as a standard trained unit. Now, they default to only having a single weapon, but you can "edit" the design in game to give them any standard troop weapon or gear.
They start with the same stats as a single troop, making them incredibly weak. They have a base of 6 hp. This exacerbates the next weakness.
They can die like any other trained unit. Unlike henchmen whom gain injuries when defeated the Sions are dead and gone.
I have had some success with using Sions, but I created them late game in a fortress that started them out at level 5, and now that they gain all their level up bonuses, they started fairly useful.
But the 100 influence cost really needs to come down. Or make them have injuries and not die. There has to be some give here, as they are far to expensive to build and use. I say 30 influence is appropriate.