Starting setup for LA Ulm

[Aleph]

So I've had a bug in my ear around LA Ulm since Frank Trollman mentioned them as an excellent LA bloodhunting nation in a post of mine. I've tried a couple different starting builds for them but am always frustrated by their high resource costs + the need for an awake/dormant pretender (since you need a blood/death 3 pretender to kick off your vampire count chain), + my own need to have growth for a blood hunting nation. Their bless troops don't mass well, their mages are awful... and yet I keep wanting to give them one more shot. Any advice?

I've had the best luck playing dormant crone with great scales (order 3/growth 2/production3/magic 1/misfortune 2) and b4/d4/e4. What do people who have a clue what they are doing use?