[Micah]

I'd go demonbred over apprentices for blood hunting if at all possible, as they aren't old and have a second point of blood for the same upkeep...early on this means you're protecting your cap-only units and nearly doubling your blood hunting efficiency before you can make SDRs, and later it means you save a pair of boots of youth, an SDR, and a couple mage turns in exchange for 130 gold up-front. Since so much of MA Aby's power comes from warlocks you also really want to make sure you aren't losing any blood hunters that you don't have to be via early old age deaths. Plus they fly.

My recommendation would be snagging a few warlocks early to site search for S and E and then making demonbreds til you get to boots of youth, then swapping over to Warlocks for the rest of the game, possibly filling in with demonbreds if you need to up your blood hunting, although using spare warlocks for blood hunters isn't terrible either, as it gives you more of a chance at getting good random paths.

Obviously this varies based on map size and indy mage finds, but when I played aby I had a lot of territory and had trouble getting enough hunters to cover it, plus my warlocks had to do all of the heavy magical lifting for the nation.