[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by void:
Bless Effects
(From Dominionsx)

Air 4 - Air Shield (20%)
Air 5 - Air Shield (25%)
Air 6 - Air Shield (30%)
Air 7 - Air Shield (35%)
Air 8 - Air Shield (40%)
Air 9 - Shock resistance (75%)
Air 10 - Air Shield (45%)

This bit is wrong. Not sure the exact details but its significantly better at high levels than shown here.

A couple of example of Bless stratagies are, first and foremost, Jotuns Niefelheim theme Niefel Giants with Nature9/earth/9 and also the Machaka with fire9/nature9 using the sacred spiders. Both approaches basically forgo the mass of the normal troops and build armies centered on blessed uber units. The most successful of the sacrd can be turned into commanders as the game goes on.

There is a whole range of bless races (such as C'ts "Dancers of Death" with water9, Vanheim, Tuatha) which adjust their play significantly to make the best advantage of bless effects and their sacred troops. These races are not made drastically different by the bless approach adopted in the way the Niefelheim and Machaka get defined by their bless effects on their sacred troops.

One interesting bless effects strategy that has so far only been discussed in theory is death9 and turning all your mages into undead. This comb's very nicely with some of the big nasty black enchantments.

For more on bless and its uses do searches on "Dancers of Death" "Niefel Giants" "Bless effects" and so on as there are a number of previous threads on the topic.

cheers

Keir