[llamabeast]

An alternative is to put a cool bless on your pretender. Or rather, you pick strong magic for your pretender so that your troops get a strong bless when they are blessed by a priest.

For Marignon, try F9S9 (fire-9 astral-9). The Baphomet is an ideal pretender for this. This will make your flagellants vicious, and your knights even more powerful. You can bless an entire army at once (well, all the sacred troops in it - non-sacred troops can't be blessed) using your holy-3 recruitable priests.