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[Culise]

Hmmm.  I kinda think that Air on its own is not all that wonderful for Marignon.  You get additional precision, potential Air boosters, and that's about it unless you send your pretender into battles regularly.  Since you don't have any ranged sacreds short of the Conj-9 Seraph, it may be a bit unnecessary unless you want to pull Flaming Bow of War shenanigans.  At least two points in Astral will let you forge both Crystal Coins (with Earth) and the Tome of High Power (with Air).  Alternately, if you don't want to change your chassis or expend points on unlocking a new path on a chassis unsuited for it, Earth 9 is always nice for a major bless (Protection +5). 

[Mindmaker]

Water 2 + booster would let me Sea Kings Goblet and let me enter water provinces, if that's important in any game.
Which would render half of my army useless I guess.

Air major bless would be nice for the extra accuracy and I would want to play them evocations heavy, but it's too much of an investment just to get an air shield. And I think Marignon isn't in danger of being dominated by ranged units, since they have great ranged units themselves.

Astral 2 may be worth it, since apparently Astral is very good lategame and would let your commanders dish out soe high level spells (though the same could be achieved by communions I guess). Don't have enough experience with magic schools to know if it's worth it.

Death 2 would let me craft Horror Helmets which work nice with Awe on your angel commanders if I decide to thug with them a bit.

Nature 2 would give my thugs some much needed rings of regeneration.

Earth major bless would be pretty good on my knights and my angels, as well as for every caster to last longer.

Drat! Can't decide.

Edit:
I could got for a 4E4A2S2D2N Enchantress, but that's probably not worth missing out on a major bless. Although hey, astral gems are nice.

[Frumple]

Since you don't have any ranged sacreds short of the Conj-9 Seraph

And the conj 6 harbingers! Who come with a3 and an AoE ranged attack to boot. Kinda' iffy attack though... may be AoE and armor piercing, but it's only a base 5 damage vs anything not undead or demonic. Still...

[Delta Foxtrot]

Marignon has a big bunch of sacred fire evokers who can really use any extra precision you give them.

But then we hit bless optimization issue again. Are you getting a bless for your mages, low res cannon fodder flags, high res durable knights, angel summon troops or angel thug chassis mages? You need to figure out which of those you want to bless, and then get the best possible bless for that. Getting a halfassed bless "a little for everyone" will, I think, end up being the suboptimal choice here.

If you're going for a huge bless, there's a reason N9E9 is a staple for most everything. N9Ex is a good compromise, but it cuts down survivability (but again your angels have pretty good invulnerability so that's possibly not an issue). It's pretty much the go-to thug bless if you're eyeing for those angel commanders.

fakeedit:

To help you decide on the magics, ask yourself this: what (if anything) you want to bless.
Flags will probably want something offensive, since any defensive buff will only make them ok-ish. Something offensive will instead capitalize on their numerous attacks (so F or W probably).
Knights can take pretty much anything, fairly good attack and defence so everything's open.
Angel thugs probably want the usual thuggy things, which is N9 and/or Ex up to E9.
Mages want the usual E for invigoration and A for precision (only if they shoot stuff, which Mari mages definitely do).

[USEC_OFFICER]

Flags will probably want something offensive, since any defensive buff will only make them ok-ish. Something offensive will instead capitalize on their numerous attacks (so F or W probably).

Blood Vengeance is also pretty damn fun on flagellants, but you're going to lose a lot of them if you go that route. Still it is pretty damn fun seeing the enemy army get hammered no matter what they do. Definitely not something you'd use competitively though.

[Delta Foxtrot]

N9B9 is a seemingly popular combo, though I've seen it used mostly for beefier units (astral and blood sacreds of monkey people, jaguar warriors). The difference between those and flagellants is that flagellants die and take a few enemies with them. Beefy N9B9 sacreds stay up while taking their enemies down. Still, I've never fought with or against N9B9 flagellants. It probably won't work but hey, it might.
What people often seem to overlook is the minor blood bless part of B9m which is +4 strength, which is essentially +4dmg per attack. It won't help you hit anything, but when you do hit it's a nice extra punch to have.
Another thing people tend to overlook until they get bit by it is that the B9 works against everyone. Including yourself. If you have a bunch of flagellants and your inquisitors rain down fireballs on and over them, you might soon find yourself mageless. Exercise caution when using B9 with archer or evocation spam.

[Mindmaker]

Well the problem is, you are going to use mages no matter what you do, so 4A4E is a pretty good investment.
I've never played MA Marignon to lategame, so I don't know if you'll have enough angels to build a thug strategy around them, although I heard you can summon good amounts of the cheaper ones.
Your sacred knights would benefit from a major nature bless as much, havin only low HP and less regeneration because of that.

I see if I can get a 4A4EN9 pretender.

Edit:
Would work with a Statue of Fertility, with decent dom and decent scales.

[USEC_OFFICER]

N9B9 is a seemingly popular combo, though I've seen it used mostly for beefier units (astral and blood sacreds of monkey people, jaguar warriors). The difference between those and flagellants is that flagellants die and take a few enemies with them. Beefy N9B9 sacreds stay up while taking their enemies down. Still, I've never fought with or against N9B9 flagellants. It probably won't work but hey, it might.

The other difference is that flagellants are also recruit anywhere with a temple, so it's much easier to spam them. Essentially they're walking bombs with Blood Vengeance, disposable yet surprisingly strong. The only problem is getting enough gold to gather up large armies and worrying about large evocations. Like I said, not a very competitive build.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Well the problem is, you are going to use mages no matter what you do, so 4A4E is a pretty good investment.
I've never played MA Marignon to lategame, so I don't know if you'll have enough angels to build a thug strategy around them, although I heard you can summon good amounts of the cheaper ones.
Your sacred knights would benefit from a major nature bless as much, havin only low HP and less regeneration because of that.

I see if I can get a 4A4EN9 pretender.

That's the thing. A4E4 works. So does N9. A4E4N9 also works for all those units. But can you afford all that? Maybe you can, or maybe you'll end up gutting your scales too much and struggle with less gold/bad events/bad research for the rest of the game.

I'm not saying you can't do a bless like that, but it will be expensive and that price may be too high to pay for its benefits. A good thing in pretender design in general is to focus. What do you want and how can you achieve that. Try too much and you succeed at nothing. That said, 1xMajor2xMinor bless is certainly doable without ruining a nation too much.

@USEC_OFFICER
Remember that those temples still cost 400g and can be wrecked by a cheap raiding party (nation depending). But yeah, I guess flagellants are THE most spammable sacred, since most others at least require either a fort or some gems. Doesn't make them any less crappy

I don't think B9 flagellants have much synergy with their nation, since Mari seems to revolve around fire flinging mages and massive crossbow armies. Could be fun to fight it some time though.

[Mindmaker]

Well it's not matter what you'll take, somebody somewhere will think you're doing it wrong.
When I wanted to play them more scales heavy, somebody in a different place told me I would be ruining my lategame.

Guess there's no use arguing over it. I'll just have to start up a game and see if it works.

[USEC_OFFICER]

@USEC_OFFICER
Remember that those temples still cost 400g and can be wrecked by a cheap raiding party (nation depending). But yeah, I guess flagellants are THE most spammable sacred, since most others at least require either a fort or some gems. Doesn't make them any less crappy

I don't think B9 flagellants have much synergy with their nation, since Mari seems to revolve around fire flinging mages and massive crossbow armies. Could be fun to fight it some time though.

Like I said, not a competitive build. But Doms is still a videogame, and some of us love to mash giant armies of pixelmens together, just for shits and giggles.

Guess there's no use arguing over it. I'll just have to start up a game and see if it works.

Pretty much. That's how Doms works. Honestly I think that your pretender definitely needs some Astral for summoning and site searching, but that's just me.

[Delta Foxtrot]

You know that saying about opinions and buttholes

I'm not claiming some divine authority, but for the sake of conversation I'm offering my two cents. What you (the general thread reading You) do with it is up to you.

[USEC_OFFICER]

You know that saying about opinions and buttholes

...

Oooooh. I get it now. Clever...

[Culise]

Pretty much. That's how Doms works. Honestly I think that your pretender definitely needs some Astral for summoning and site searching, but that's just me.

To be fair, I think that's actually one of the things Marignon is actually safe on.  When it comes to site-searching, 1 point in a path is enough to find most sites; 2 for safety; 3 for the most powerful.  Anything beyond that is usually overkill.  A single Grand Master at F3S3 should be enough to cover anything they need as far as Fire or Astral is concerned. 

You know that saying about opinions and buttholes

Stories told about them tend to end with awkward lies told to ER staff?

[E. Albright]

Interesting. So seasonal mages are tied to the seasonal thrones. E.g., claiming Autumn lets you recruit a E2D1 StR mage with Autumn Power (+HP in autumn) for 140g.

Oh, and the Celestial Carp is an awfully handsome pretender...

Edit:
Spring: A2N1->135g
Summer: F2N1->135g
Autumn: E2D1->140g
Winter: W2D1->135g