[Baalz]

Not to sound contentious, but I'm curious as to what you would consider a quite simply better sacred? Yes, obviously there are plenty of examples of different units being better in certain niches, and perhaps you can lay out an opinion that another unit is a straight up more cost effective combat unit (though I can't think of any). The thing about the vans though is they are extremely effective at *everything*. Sure, they'll beat the snot out of you through just brute force, but even if you do manage an effective counter, their glamored stealth plus high movement allows them to control the combat both strategically and tactically. Stopping their raiders is well nigh impossible for many nations, raiding them back is pretty much suicidal as you can't tell where any of their map-move 3 defenders are, and very few tactical rituals short of late game are effective given their MR and general hardiness. This is an aspect that often gets overlooked when people are complaining about their brute strength, their brute strength is multiplied by their insane versatility. That's why they're so hard to counter, stern resistance is not met with a headlong charge, but being greeted with that other aspect of the Vanir - the fact that they're better guerrilla warriors than Pangea.

High defense, high speed, high protection, high MR, high damage output (with a good bless), high stealth, high maxage.... given that, what sacred is quite simply better?