MA Ermor advice please

[Aezeal]

So for a bless you'd advice water9/astral4 or something?

that would be kinda hard I think and is it wise to have a pretender without death magic?

I would like to keep astral since it's nice for end game (or so I'm told)

I could put in death 1 and drain 2 for 120 extra points which would enable that option if I take a pretender which start with some water magic.

on how to play.. I started with building high thaumateurgs for 5 turn and let them reanimate horsemen then I'm building those guys again only now for research. (once I have my 2nd fortress I intend to start buying the cheaper theurgs there for research though.) I dont'see myself having much problems with resources either since I'm not really buying much of the other troops atm. so I could drop the production scales a bit for more order scales (money is more a problem for me atm)

any advice on my thoughts as typed above?

From endo's remark the most important and straight forward advice seems to be to not take death 9 bless and spend points elsewhere (water to combine with the high def of the vestals and option of extra attack?) his reasoning seems sound.. what do others say about that?