Well, I was rather unimpressed by the skavenslaves even with their different shapes but I promise to test again with some plague monks inbetween. That definetly sounds like a good idea
Regarding the bless I had the same idea as you of testing a D bless since AoE dmg benefits a lot from it but even with N6 they crippled themselves more often than I could bear. The nice thing about the air+astral bless is that you'll still have your twist fate ready for close fighting, even after several rounds of incoming fire. I admit it costs a lot of points.
As you noticed, construction is my first deep path of research but it won't do me any good if I can't fuel it with those necessary gems imho. I must confess I didn't even try without a nice gem supply as once I start forging dwarven hammers, my forge industry becomes rather intensive.
Thanks for the comments and looking forward to see your guide updated
