[Mightypeon]

Some random ramblings from me here:
-Currently still playing E9 MA Man (with some fairly positive scales and an imprisoned lord of the forest). I did rush Alteration 5/const 4 for a very early mother oak, as the number of heavy N nations was limited in this game. This plan worked out well
-Largely using Sleepers with Vine Shields and Frost Brands as Thugs so far. And 18N5W those arent overly expensive, but significnatly improve your damage output.
-Man can do the "position in the back on guard commander and attack in turn 5" things perhaps better than imho any other nation. This is due to Song of Quickness, and the ability to summon targetting friendly chaff. Your longbows can also hit people from really far away.
-Wrath of Avalon gives you a slightly more cost efficient way to get High HP chaff, and the Moose help a ton too.
-I had Magic one scales, and otherwise money scales. At the moment I am leading in research, although MA Ulm just put up the Forge.
-If you ever get access to the Wizard Mercs, get them! In the absence of true A4, Crystal Shields improve everything by a loving ton.

While MA Man is a competitive nation, the following issues are significant:
-I have around 8ish castles, only about 2 of them can actually recruit 9 wardens a turn, at Prod 3 Scales. Mictlan can fairly easily outproduce me in Sacreds, and I dont have a lot of ways to get fire resistance against them.
-I was fighting Shinu and Machaka early, while there may have been some value in handing out some frost brands to warden commanders in general, this clearly seemed like a poor choice against Skellie Spam.
-E9 Wardens have counters, but Skelli Spam is not among that. Heavy evocations are something else, but wardens are usually tough enough to survive one direct hit.
-Blessing stuff is a major problem. I could partly mitigate it by buying lots and lots of indie priests (and finally getting Zon Priests who are H2 and can get H3 via a Crystal Shield).

My Wardens are a nice asset, as is High E on my pretender (which helps a ton into getting E, and the pretender can forge boot+Ring which allows certain crones to get Gargoyles), I also liked having a highish dominion.
I would believe however that a rainbow may be better longterm, as the f.e. total lack of Death hurts.