Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations

[Sokar]

Hi everyone, I've beening playing this great game for about a week now, and browsed the boards a bit and saw a lot of bless strats and tried them out with a couple of nations. They are so good that they really turned me off. I'm wondering if there are any good nations that are non-bless based, as it seems that most nations work much better with a bless strat, even with horrible scales. I already tried MA Ulm, which sucked due to its lack of magic. Is there any other good non-bless nations? I usually play random large maps, with 4 AI or less, everything default, if that makes any difference. Also, is F9W9 the holy grail of bless combos? Thanks for your help.