[Graeme Dice]

I think that the only change that might be needed would be to make them a bit more expensive. Make wraith swords require D3 and 20 death gems to build. That would be too expensive for use on fragile chassis like bane lords, but still viable on your valuable units. It would also make both skull banners and skullfaces better investments, since you'd have to decide between getting the drain life spell, raise skeletons, or a lifedrain weapon.

Hell swords might be better if they required B2F1, or something similar but not B3, as they should be effectively less expensive than wraith swords.

Blood thorns are only useful weapons because they get put on high strength units, and without them, shields will be very rare on most combatants. Decrease their damage to 1 or 0, and move their attack and defense to around 0 to -1 and you'd have a much more specialized weapon.