Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?

[thejeff]

Have you actually tried these tactics? Against an actual heavy bless strategy, not the AI?
Those sacred troops tend to be high morale and get a boost to morale from blessing, so they mostly ignore the repels.
And you tend to be fighting on a front, so you don't get that many more attacks on each enemy (10xtroops doesn't mean 10x attacks per round, just that you have more reserves for the front line.) So you don't hit(if high defense sacred) or hurt (if high prot sacred). (And of course if they're berserkers forget it.)

Try 10 W9F9 Van against 60-70 pikemen (roughly the same gold cost, but a lot more resources). I bet the pikes get slaughtered without a kill.

And mages used in the front line die. If your mage doesn't attack with his dagger (50% chance), he might kill a Van or 2 if he casts first. If he uses the larger close area effect spells (Shockwave, flame blast, etc) he'll kill as many of his own troops.
Even with stoneskin/luck, one good (AP?) hit, and he dies. Human mages just don't have the hp to survive.

Of course, some of the non-human mages can do this. They've got the stats to function as mini thugs. Sometimes those close combat spells work better than regular attacks.