[Saulot]

Well, I just finished one complete run-through. I used the No Indep. SilentSeas map and played vs. Impossible Jotunheim with no mercs. I used a sleeping loremaster pretender with Dom4, E9S4, but didn't use sacreds at all in this test. As expected, I had a very slow and painful start, but eventually triumphed using a collection of highborns, hurlers, crossbows, and bolt throwers, with a smattering of battleragers.

It was very satisfying seeing many throwing axes, crossbow bolts, and ballistas flying across the battlefield.

I can report that Battleragers are functioning exactly as I want them to, they frequently rush ahead of the other dwarven forces, and chop away against the enemy, often getting 10-15 kills in a battle, early on hitting the hall of fame, usually accumulating an affliction or two, before dying in a blaze of glory after 1-4 battles. They're thuggable if you spend the effort in items, but they pretty much will get themselves killed no matter what.

I'm considering increasing their size (just in terms of space they occupy, not their sprite) to prevent their being coddled by players by keeping them in the back and then timing their movement so they somehow manage to stay in formation with other dwarves.
At size 3, they won't get quite that formation protection, and are more likely to be hit by ranged weapons.

The Dwarven clerics and their healing spells work wonderfully (and also as I had hoped), many dwarven lives are saved (most importantly prolonging the battleragers), though afflictions accumulate steadily, which tends to somewhat offset experience gains.

Earth gems feel the squeeze (more so than Agartha) as there are so many things to spend them on, and while I usually have gem reserves in most of my games, there were none in this one.

I'll try a bless strategy for my next game, though rushing is really out of the question, with the extremely expensive cap-only paladins.