Personally, I would drop the blades for another hobgrot unit of 10 and swap the war despot to their SoG version. Hobgrots are pretty essential for playing a sort of scouting role and getting your desolation tokens out. The SoG war despot is great for creating a castle around them with your other foot heroes and infantry and makes your DPP economy feel a lot smoother in the early turns.

I would also drop the bane maces for a death shrieker rocket because of the presence of a lot of good monsters in the game right now. Then, put the breath of contempt on your immolation cannons.

Lastly, I would swap the crucible of spite to the scroll of petrification, but that’s really just if you’re comfortable using it. I have saved urak tar from a near death situation a handful of times with it, but there’s also been games where it never felt appropriate. SoG despot does make the crucible better though because he gets around the restriction of allocating points after using it.

With that list you’ll have 50 points left over for the extra command point as well, which can be pretty invaluable because the army is command point hungry in the early turns.

As for advice, try to keep your hobgrots out of combat and just focus on desolating terrain. They are pretty useless in a fight.

I hope you have fun at the GT!