LA Utgard guide

[Dragar]

everything has a weakness, i always play utgard with a good N bless but have enjoyed them with both W9 and E9. E9 is probably mor esolid, but W9 can be specatacular, and gievn that woodsmen have average prot even with E9, getting to the enemy quickly and killing them faster can reduce casualties. It is all about avoiding damage focus with woodsmen, they will never be great at avoiding damage.

Also, while E9 is normally better on a pretender for ritual/forging/combat purposes, you don't have any natural earth income or mages. A W9 pretender will have gems on hand by the time you get him free, letting you cast powerful spells requiring gems

If going for W9 I recommend the Son of Nifel. I played him in a MP game, and the W9 makes his defence and chill factor astounding. He was undefeated that game, singlehandedly resisting the onslaughts of the game leader at the time (midgard), who had decimated my main armies. I ended up having to leave that gaem as i went away for a month, but he was my most enjoyable pretender SC ever

I find E9N8 much more boring, though probably more reliable, especially as utgard doesn't need an SC

[Revolution]

In my opinion because woodsmen are kind of meh as far as sacred units go...if you're gonna go for a bless, tailor your bless for shrouds of the battle saint and put your skratti to work as wherewolf thugs. A side effect of this is that you can have a bless that makes your werewolves kick *** and still make early expansion a breeze by being good for your woodsmen.

Take an imprisoned great mother with E9 N6 S4
Dom 7
Order 3
sloth 2 (could shift to sloth 3)
cold 3
growth 0 (could shift to death 1)
misfortune 2
magic 1 (magic 1 is ideal because with it your seithkonas become really really efficient researchers and with enough castles you will be quite competitive in research)

With this bless your woodsmen will be quite solid and your shrouds of the battle saint will kick ***.
Your werewolves can/will be casting quicken self so there is not much point in having a W9 bless. N6 gives 10% regeneration which is quite solid and while berzerking can be nice it can also be a bit of a handicap. S4 gives a nice point of MR for your werewolves whos base MR is a little low, it also gives you easier access to forging a ring of wizardry.