[Torgon]

I've enjoyed playing man with a W9N4 bless.

The fatigue is actually rarely an issue. The wardens simply kill things fast enough that they never rack any significant amounts up, and there's always a nice leap frog effect where the guys behind jump in front of those who were on the lines. And once you get in really big battles you always have relief up. An N3 daughter with a mace can cast it and you should have those coming out of your ears.

True they don't have super high base defense, but they rack up stars like crazy. Once they have a couple you're talking about a defense of 17 which makes them very hard to hit, and the little bit of regen makes them very hard to kill. I went with an imprisoned lady of springs, O3C3G3Mis1M1.

Empowering a crone to A4 is really not that much of an issue. True Air gems are very valuable, but as Nightfall has pointed out, an Air booster already costs 25 gems. Just view the empowerment as a double priced booster that you cant switch to a different mage and it seems a lot more reasonable.

You basically have 3 options for guaranteed A4 as man:
1. Empowerment
2. A4 on pretender
3. S4 on pretender

As someone else has correctly pointed out, 1 and 3 are really the only viable options. Taking A4 on a pretender for a nation that otherwise has no use for it is a whole lot more expensive than 60 Air gems (really only 35 if you view it as just forging an extra booster to get another crone to A4).

This build expands FAST. A lord warden and 5 wardens can take pretty much any indi, including barbarians and knights, with minimal loses.

The biggest problem is obviously the lack of magic diversity, and you are hurting in this regard. The key however is to just expand fast, win early wars with your wardens and keep expanding. Man is not a late game powerhouse, trying to cram a little death onto your pretender is not going to make them a late game powerhouse. I say its better to leverage your strength as an early game powerhouse and roll with it. Expand fast and try to find some good indy mages to cover you for diversity. True its a gamble, but even with the buffed wardens man is not a nation you win with without gambling.

And nature is actually not that bad especially when combined with air. One obvious option is false horror and panic spam in conjunction with a few raiding bands of wardens. Or just panic spam in conjunction with kithriotic lion spam (they now have fear, and have been buffed along with the other animals) and are conveniently size four to go along with your size 2 wardens. Air also gives you confusion very early which when spammed by your A2 mothers can create some fun results.

You also have all the big buffs at the end. Fog warriors + relief + mass regeneration + blessing of gaia + a couple weapons of sharpness from the E mothers with boots you've scraped together or foul vapors + serpents blessing + everything else.