Vanheim - help wanted.

[Borg]

I've played (started up) about four games now with Vanheim (up to turn 15 or so) and I must say their Blood Magic ability has got me confused.

I really don't see the "synergy" with their Air Magic ability.
After reading through all the Blood Spells in the manual, I noticed very little usefull Battlefield Spells.
On top of that, almost ALL Blood spells have incredible fatigue-numbers.
Lvl-1 blood spells nearly all give 100 fatigue and are very limited in what they can do (single figure or 1 area at best)
Since your mages are only B1 (B2 at best but very expensive) I don't see how Blood Magic can be very effective for them.
Should I just ignore Blood Magic at the start of the game and start using it no sooner than mid to late game.
It seems very unproductive to put research points in it in the early game.

It seems to me that giving the E3? Dwarf more spell casting options is a much better early game strategy. Simply send a priest along to help Bless the sacred troops, get some air shield and then shoot some lightning bolts at the enemy.

Really looking for some helpful suggestions here, more specifically on your research strategy (which paths, up to which level, to get which spells ... etc)