I'll have to give scout hunting a try. It seems very odd/not right but if its the way to go then I guess. I certainly can't make sense out of blood hunting with Pandemoniacs in a competitive environment and with the heightened research cost of Sanguine Dousing Rods an approach that
doesn't use them, has to be worth a go.
If Blood is balenced because you can get a decent economy with scouts then thats not the way its was intended and it doesn't seem at all right to me.
I do get your point about Alex the HfH is good but considering the scale of investment and how long it takes to get a return I would like some return early in the process. I want some stepping stones along the way to help build a demonic army as HfH doth not a cake make. Would two spine devils for twice the price or so really be a problem? Spells like this could give the impatient yet bloodthirsty, such as myself
, something to enjoy and make it worth the while building up to higher blood magic in short games.
Re Abysia.
Abysia's main strength IMO is its infantry - especially true for the alternate theme. Its fire magic is mediocre with the exception of the high level whammies. I found that when using blood mages for blood hunting I had to delay the hunt a significant while or risk strangling early speed. I find the early speed of development with Abysia to be reasonably good but only if I focus everything on developing - ie cash in fire gems, buy a Anathement Dragon for your main army, get another castle in a resource rich spot (this is really important if you don't get a nice starting spot) and churn out HI which fry the enemy and are virtually immune ot bows. Great stuff as the games go on.
I didn't think the old Abysia with the Moloch and Devils from early was overpowered early and if they had just restricted who gets the Molochs and kept the devil producing it would have been so much more fun. The early Devils were fun - heaps of fun. It was the old high level blood summons and army of scouts with SDRS searching that were obscene.
Paralyse certainly hurts SC based approaches but blood isn't really SC based for Abysia IMO. So far HfH seems to be the main canidate for what blood is about for Abysia and once I have finished slaughtering my way to acension with Pangaea (who rock!) I'll crank up an Abysia race using scouts for blood hunting and focusing on HfH.
Cheers
Keir