[licker]

Is E9 really necessary though...

I mean clearly the cap only steel warriors with strat move 1 are going to become rather niche quickly, and while the boost to your shamen seems terrific, if you are going to be casting a buff do you really gain that much?

As opposed to what you gain by taking E6 or E8 perhaps? I've been toying with a similar kind of bless for Tir na n'og, who has more commanders who definitely benefit from the E9 bless, but even so, I've found it to be seemingly easier to get around it in other ways, and free up enough design points to either go with even better scales, or a sleeping (or in some cases awake) pretender.

I guess you can try feary trod to move things around, but it's still rather map dependent.