[Maerlande]

The horror marking on the soul contracts is pretty mild. In MA I prefer to put them on the warlock blood hunters with 2 pearls each. Put 5 devils as bodyguards and script returning. You lose very few if any warlocks.

Looking at EA warlocks again, you need to survive 2 rounds. Go 3 pearls and Power of Spheres, Returning. There's a good chance the warlock will survive.

Another great trick is vampires as bodyguards. As they take horror marks they become the bait for the horrors. This whole setup becomes standard as you put up Astral Corruption or the blood dome. Use only warlocks in the city with the dome and use the same setup.

I've got some games in the 100 turns where I have lost extremely few warlocks holding contracts to horrors. It's SP of course, but that doesn't invalidate the horror management tricks.

I realize in EA you have competition between warlocks and Annointeds for recruitment, but until you have some blood commanders you will need those warlocks recruited to blood hunt.

Lightless lanterns have the horror mark issue as well and it's very mild. You lose very few researchers. Vampires are great for this.

If you really want to plan the whole thing, get some vampires early and use them in some Dom positive fights with call horrors. You should get quite a few horror marked and resurrecting back at the cap.

And it's pretty fine to have wads of devils in your blood hunting provinces. Discourages attacks and raids.