[Mightypeon]

I am currently playing a E9 bless Man in a goon game.
I am not convinced that this is neccessarily a stronger choice than something like E4/N4 with extra paths (and without the horrible misfortune scales I felt compelled to take to pay for Prod 3), especially since Mans mages are really "Meh", even in comparison to someone like MA Ulm (Mage Smiths can blow up stuff by themselfs, while Mothers need a Crone that casts storm to get Thunderstrike, which of course means that you dont get anything out of your quite decent archers.
If they had native A4 (which they dont, the chance of that is really low on their cap only stuff), you could use a storm staff or forge boosters to get things going.
Mind you, in Forbidden friendship or Over People Mod games, Man eventually get Tarrasques which deal with the lack of magic diveristy a bit, but those happen quite late.