[llamabeast]

In my opinion E9 is invaluable. With prot 20, the riders are only rarely hurt by typical troops. With prot 24, they are almost never hurt. Also, the reinvig stops them getting tired and vulnerable. So with E9 they can hold a solid line for a very long time.

W9 is also useful because of the defense bonus, but because the spiders are size 6 they will still get ganged on and get hit. And the +50% damage output is also handy, but not overwhelmingly so.

I've just tried a test with an E9W9 bless. It's pretty good. No injuries in the first couple of battles. But it is quite expensive.