Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Well, like I said, they're only bad in the sense that they're not *absolutely* awesome :). They're still good for their price.

They're also unexceptional MR, mindless, low move prot 0 size 3 undead. Which means they have quite a few weaknesses that are readily exploitable even with minimal research. At the same research level Spine Devils might be magnitudes more expensive, but I feel they also give you more bang for your buck in most situations.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Actually, I would say that bone fiends are the best blood summoning spell early on, and not bad even later.
It's not very difficult to overrun someone with bone fiends given the amount that can be summoned at a time.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Yeah, bone fiends at the price of 7 for 3 kick serious butt, the weaknesses are offset by the high quantity per summoning and the low price, you can have lots whenever you want them. Very useful in MP I've found, much more valuable than the early individual demon summonings mostly (until hard counters are deployed).

They also have nice HP, Str, and Att/Def scores for what you're paying, plus two attacks and the advantages of undead, like cold/poison immune and unbreakable morale.

In fact, I don't consider map move 3/combat move 10 and MR 13 to be weaknesses at all for such massable units, and how is mindless a weakness early game exactly?

It's true a few Protections or Wooden Warriors amplify their effectiveness quite a bit by covering that 0 Protection, but then you're good to go for a long time.