[Quitti]

Indeed, you'll still want regen for jarls as skrattis have it in werewolf form, and it comes either from bless (which eases early expansion, meaning stronger late game) or items, which cost gems - 10n when not counting in a hammer. And take either misc slot (I'd rather take ama+luck instead of luck+regen+bless) or chest (pop in chainmail of displacement or if you are swimming in pearls, robe of shadows against chaff, and there are other choices too). Also, missing out an earth bless means you must get the reinvig somehow, and while blood thorns are a good choice against most things, you'd preferably want something that hits with area or at least has more damage/att than athame. AP/AN weapons are ideal as skratti and jarls have huge strength. If you're trying to get high def thugs such as vans (who are kitted for cold immunity) you really can't trust athame to do the job, as it hits one troop and if you are against three-four you can barely even hit 15% of time who can whittle away your jarls hp easily enough with flesh eaters or such. Of course again, counters to counters exist such as getting some extra troops to kick down those vans def and so on.

So, my point was that I think the bless is optimal, as shrouds are not that expensive for skratti and jarls benefit quite optimally from "free" reinvig+regen. You can get o3s3c3g3 dom6-7 quite easily with e9n4 or e9n6 which can't really be boosted incomewise for much additional benefit (sloth->prod). I think it requires some misf or drain though for the e9n6 at least.