[Squirrelloid]

If you want to see battle vestals used, they have to not be cap only. They're too weak as a unit to make blessing them worthwhile when you can only hire from one fort each turn. Like flagellants, this is a sacred that would need to be used in truly massive numbers to make a blessing sensible. I, for one, will gladly use whatever the principes equivalent is instead of BVs to save the pretender design points with the way things are now.

Basically, its not that hydrae kept BVs from being used, its that they're a cheap disposable sacred which isn't capable of being hired in numbers suitable for 'cheap and disposable' to be an advantage.