And I largely think it doesn't matter a ton because when you die, your minions die.
Right, which is why most peeps completely ignore enemy minions and just go kill the General.
To solve I'd make minions too dangerous to ignore, fast enough or resistant enough not to get hit with every AoE effect, and easy enough to kill individually that good Assassins stand a chance. I was kinda hoping we'd see a beta build that had minions like this, or at least something from the devs explaining why not.. Sigh...