I am not really experienced enough to give advice so this is more to draw out some of the experts to critique it.
But here is my take on EA Vanheim's strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths -
Excellent battle magic - Smiths are good earth mages with decent other variety paths for some cross path spell casting and awesome air magic through the Vanadrotts, who can be put in Sabbath Communions if you are feeling fancy.
Very good basic troops - The Mounted Hirdlings and the glamour infantry should cut through indies and once you have access to some magic can be buffed by your battle mages. You probably don't NEED an awake SC Pretender to have good early expansion.
Stealthy Troops & Commander
Decent sacred troop - The Vanhere is good and can be made excellent with a good bless. But you already have decent troops for early expansion and spending all your points early on a decent double bless means your Pretender will usually be imprisoned. It's capital only too so you will never be able to really mass it compared to those nations that have none capital only sacreds. And you don't have sacred summons or recruitable sacred Thugs (really) that can use it. Nor will the blesses that really help the vanhere (Water, Fire, Astral) really boost your spell casting sacreds who would most benefit from earth.
Weaknesses
Poor research - Your only really good mages are capital only. You are reduced to spending a small fortune on Vanjarls (280 for 5rp+magic bonus) or Vanherse (180 for 3rp+magic bonus) at all secondary Castles.
No recruitable Thugs - While the Vanadrott may work in MA I just don't think it has the staying power in the EA when many of your opponents can recruit Thug/SC chassis like Fomorian Kings, Basalt kings, Neifel Jarls, Dai Oni from Turn 2 onwards. Although you have blood you don't have a cheap enough blood hunter to make competing with the likes of Mictlan and Lanka for a dash to early blood summons viable.
Lack of Paths - Little death and no nature, water or astral. This reduces forging, summons and global casting options later.
The easiest way to address - at least partially - all these weaknesses is to abandon the idea of an Imprisoned double blessed Pretender and go for an awake Rainbow instead. You can pick up 5 or 6 minor blesses on a Crone easily and still have tolerable scales. That should get you in to nature, astral, death plus extras for flavour. Astrals crucial for forging and death gets you in to decent Thugs and synergises with Seeking arrow. And crucially gives you reserach in the mid 20s on your Pretender. Plus it gives you sight searching and stacks of forging, summoning and overland spell options later. And minor blesses still boost the vanhere and your sacred commanders.
Of course your main concern might be that you simply don't have a decent Thug/SC counter and many of your EA opponents have these as recruitable commanders or national summons. So you will be meeting them
Unfortunately I think this is simply a weakness of EA Vanheim. You could perhaps make the Vanhere - with say a heavy bless in to an anti Thug/SC unit. Or go with an awake SC Pretender. But I think you are probably better off boosting your battle magic with early research so when they come for you your smiths and air magic have something decent to cast.