Alright, here's a list of suggestions of what you can you in descending order in no particular order, save the last is the most important. Some of it is pretty scattershot, other parts are based on how my Blood Spirits campaign went and some of it specific. It's more than just "build a bigger fleet".
6) Colonization/Expanding The Clan's Resource Base
Before the Absorption War the Blood Spirits are uniquely concentrated and their Touman is at it's largest. It's also the time when the eyes of the other Clans are elsewhere. The Ice Hellions are waging the Hellion's Fury, the Invading Clans are busy carving through the Inner Sphere, and aside from the Burrocks are pretty much ignoring the Blood Spirits. Given the Blood Spirits launched their successful canon colonization while under extreme pressure and duress of constant conflict with the Star Adders they could do even better while fully healthy. You could colonize the Colleen system earlier and maybe even push a second system. Collen interjected a much needed shot in the arm of the Blood Spirits in canon and imagine the boost it could give if it had come a decade and a half earlier.
While building an infrastructure/tech base is as important (discussed next), pure resources are an advantage - instead of relying on your traditional resource base - your new stuff can feed your Touman while you trade away your existing resources for things you need. And I'll bet you'll ask "why trade what we already bring in, when we can trade the new instead?" - well, that's so your enemies (everyone is your enemy even your friends!) don't know you've setup a colony by analyzing your material resources. It's easier to explain away that you tapped new existing resources and you've suddenly got a small surplus to trade than exposing your new colony/colonies. Never show your hand (even a losing one) if you can help it.
5)Improve Your Touman/Expanding Your Touman & Technology Base
The Blood Spirits aren't known for their expansive arsenal circa 3050. The Blood Kite is about the one "alright" unit the Clan has at the time and even it has it's limitations. The Stooping Hawk and other few units they can make for themselves are nothing special. The stuff they get later isn't bad, but they and Protos are something else since show up late or after your timeframe.
Let's say you colonize Colleen early, you can trade resources to two Clans easily for stuff you need. The Diamond Sharks for industrial equipment so you can better use of your resources (internalizing new construction) and military equipment - either new frontline material or actual design/manufacturing equipment, the Snow Ravens for aerospace equipment - if the Wolves and Hell's Horses can contract for mobile repair/ship yards so can the Blood Spirits. It wouldn't give you the means to construct something like a Leviathan Prime, but it'd give you a chance to build something
Then you can add your own designs to the mix, and say this is the stuff they're building. I wouldn't get too carried away - think like a experimental TRO's allotment - a couple of mechs, a couple of vees, an aerospace fighter, a battle armor and a dropship or two - maybe a warship but you'll have your work cut out for you getting that grand. Protomech tech gives you a window into what could have been - Proto ACs for instance were pretty much undeveloped yet and there's room for other new systems that got cut off with the death of the Blood Spirits / Proto shunning the rest of the Homeworlds appear to have done.
4) Expand Your Touman/Trials For Success & Profit
WoR has several examples of the Blood Spirits working with other Clans - primarily the Fire Mandrills and the Snow Ravens to work something out so both parties benefited. The Fire Mandrills got stuff that gave them the impetus to join in with the Blood Spirits agenda (which saved their bacon) and the Snow Ravens worked out a deal with the Blood Spirits to give them an entire Galaxy worth of troops and territory in exchange for transports for their impending bug out. Sadly the Blood Spirits were still not capable enough to hold it all but they were contenders at least.
Forget working with the Smoke Jaguars. That route only holds bitterness and failure. They're purely a target to be. To them and the other Invaders you're a resource to mine for Crusader oriented warriors who want to go the Inner Sphere. Better to be the predator, than the Prey. I'll add just coz the Crusaders shared a philosophy, they're all pretty far apart on the details - don't mistake them allying to invade the Inner Sphere to be some sort of commonality beyond the glory of battle and desire to be the top dog(s). On everything else... they disagree as much as the Fire Mandrills do between Kindraas.
If getting to the Inner Sphere is your goal, the Blood Spirits would probably be a more stalwart ally to the Ice Hellions than the Hell's Horses turned out to be but I suspect that Blood Spirits would probably get as torn apart as the Ice Hellions did. Going with the Snow Ravens might be another option but it's unlikey that'd work out much better either - I get the distinct impression the Snow Ravens wanted to be as far from the rest of the Clans as they could get. The Blood Spirits are probably best off going it alone, pulling out much the same way the Goliath Scorpion and departing to parts unknown. But I could see possible scenarios for both - have the Blood Spirits come along somehow with the Hell's Horses and Ice Hellions might have kept the Hell's Horses a tad bit more "honest". The Jade Falcon and Wolves might not actually be able to deal with three Clans plowing into their backside.
3a) The Absorption War
Allot of what came later came from this event.
First let's say it never happened. Nobody finds out the Burrocks having ties to the Dark Caste. That leaves you with the Star Adders in much less of a position to dominate the Homeworld Clans later. For all their strength, it's the Burrock Absorption that gave the means to actually use it. It'll mean the WoR or it's equivalent will be an entirely different conflict but it also means that the Blood Spirits are far more intact - at least if they don't have a serious conflict with the Burrocks on their own, something entirely possible.
Second, the war still happens but the Blood Spirits for whatever reason don't get involved. The possibility exists for either the Burrocks put off either the Absorpton or the Star Adders or the Absorption is successful with less or greater damage than canon. If the Burrocks put off the Absorption, the Burrocks may have a fresh hatred for the Star Adders and a new round of inter-Clan conflict kicks off as Clans sense the weakness of either/both the Burrocks and Star Adders - heck, that gives you a pretty good starting point for a conflict just as devastating as the WoR. The other side of it is the Star Adders either end up weaker or stronger than canon, but without the underlining enmity with the Blood Spirits. If they're weaker that means the Burrocks put up a stronger fight than canon, and if they're stronger, it's the result of the tendency for less bloody trials that were occurring before the Blood Spirits intervened. It's not all good news for the Blood Spirits, but a more powerful Star Adders means there's more of an intact Burrocks that could potentially split like the WoR but bigger. Still not being on the Star Adders radar, means a more nuanced relationship could happen. The Blood Spirits may well still be pretty upset with the Star Adders but it could turn out differently.
Third, against all canon - the Blood Spirits or another Clan gets the nod to Absorb the Burrocks. For the Blood Spirits, this is a bloodletting that could break the Clan just about as much as it could save it. It'd be end up as a massacre, for the Burrocks wouldn't be expecting quite the assault force that'd come for it and while the in the end the Blood Spirits may win it might just weaken it fatally. Out of the other Homeworld Clans the Hell's Horses or Ice Hellions may have had a shot, but with it comes enmity with the Blood Spirits.
I've always wondered why the Burrocks didn't sell out the Cloud Cobras when the charges against the Burrocks were levied. Surely they could have at least dragged in the Cloud Cobras in with what they knew was going on, in the Tanite system. Unless of course the Dark Caste they were being connected to weren't those on the Tanite worlds or the Star Adders kept that tidbit as leverage on the Cloud Cobras to vote their way, but the Burrocks didn't have to keep mum they already were screwed.
Fourth, the war happens as in canon. Well, you done goofed and I honestly see very little way out of the Blood Spirits pulling out of the death spiral they lock in with the Star Adders as is. It isn't just the Star Adders mind you - the Steel Vipers, Cloud Cobras and other Clans all play their part in grinding down the Blood Spirits at various points. Potentially if you keep losses lighter, particularly at the end of the Steel Viper Annihilation the Blood Spirits wouldn't be so easily whapped on but things are pretty bleak for Blood Spirits.
3b) The OTHER Absorption War
Alternatively, you could have the Blood Spirits launch attacks on other targets before/after the Absorption War(that they don't get involved in). The Fire Mandrills Kindraa are low hanging fruit - picking the right one means you could in theory nab a warship or two without a full Fire Mandrill response before it's too late. You could have a Crusader oriented Kindraa want to be a bigger fish in a Clan where if it gets absorbed the chance of it getting into the Invasion is allot better that arranges it's bidding with the Blood Spirits. Done right you could fatally weaken the Fire Mandrills and make the case to Absorb the rest. That's what we did with my home campaign. Absorbing them gives you not only the possibility of a warship gain but also grabbing the Fire Mandrills shipyard.
A harder target but still feasible is the Ice Hellions - they're all over the place in the 3050-3060 era and they can't be strong everywhere - the Blood Spirits could land a force capable of steamrolling the Ice Hellions and make off with whatever they want, at least once - doubtful they could manage it too often but it could work. Goliath Scorpions and Cloud Cobras are also tempting targets but it's basically going to be like a feeding frenzy - you might get a bite in, but you might get bit too.
Now references in the early Clan books such as Invading Clans had it that the Clans had a moratorium on inter-Clan conflict during the Invasion but the Ice Hellions managed to have /their/ war in that time period so there's something workable there. If the Ice Hellion could pop the Invaders (and they did) for territory and resources, so could the Blood Spirits with their larger and more concentrated forces. Imagine a raid on the Smoke Jaguars -BEFORE- Operation Bulldog that nets the Blood Spirits Protomech technology and they keep mum on having it, while the Smoke Jaguars Scientists have to explain to their Khan what they just lost!
2) Improve Flexibility
Probably the thing going most against the grain for Blood Spirit players is tossing aside the strict Cluster arrangement that the Clan has stuck to thick or thin. Protomechs give you an opportunity to break it, but if you go with canon they simply switch out Mechs and Protomechs on a point per point basis which is a milquetoast change and it doesn't start to happen until 3060.
The Blood Spirits have potentially a large pool of trained warriors if it relaxes standards in the same vein other Clans that have reserves like the Diamond Sharks or Cloud Cobras and Nova Cats maintain - the difference is, that the other Clans use retired, older warriors to fill up their reserves and the Blood Spirits would be tapping their lower but marginally trained lower Castes - a pretty big break in normal Clan tradition but workable as any of the other "Reserve" methods. They'd also have a larger pool of recruits if they cut back on the brutality of their training but that tradition would be enormously difficult to undertake. I'd suggest both methods. You could create something akin to the Ice Hellions Flurries with Warrior-izing your lower caste "militia". As possible creating another training facility on your colonies with "Relaxed" standards compared to your regular training grounds. That still means you have to get more equipment to equip both, and those "Relaxed" method warriors aren't going to show up for a decade and a half at the very least but it's possible.
Protomechs figured heavily in my home campaign's development with the Clan swinging from the ultra conservative to being too loose to somewhere inbetween towards the end when I reigned in my players. But in any campaign, especially after the Great Refusal Protomechs are a bread and butter unit for the Blood Spirits. It's too bad that they didn't get to really run with the tech and field Protos that didn't suck (see most Protos) before they got killed. But thems the breaks but it gives you an opportunity to do some interesting stuff if you want to. Allot of people are doubtful of Protos but my experience is they can work very well so long as you recognize their limitations and play to their strengths. You've definitely got to be flexible with them - I notice quite a few people treat them like elementals and slap the same units together in the same point/star but I prefer a 3/2 or a 2/2/1 spread where you treat a point as a mini-mech star built together to accomplish a specific mission or two.
Equipment wise, one of the speculations I see and share with other peeps here is the desire for a cheap BA suit that you could equip "non-Elementals" with. It'd be an ideal way of making use of those "militia" but conventional infantry could be made to be useful too.
Now, assuming one could build Warships (either through the Snow Raven Mobile Repair/Construction Yard or Fire Mandrill yard I presented prior to this or some other option) - the Blood Spirits aren't going to be able to throw out allot of new construction Snow Raven style so they have to focus on a practical, heavily protected design. I'd say a Heavy Destroyer based on the Lola III but this where you have to figure out what you want on your own. As to restoring ships from the caches - IIRC, there was a pretty big cache that either the Fire Mandrills or society opened up, that was a Fire Mandrill cache that had a few ships in it but most weren't salvageable. Mostly those "caches" were introduced so ships that were introduced in other products after 3057 TRO/Clan FMs could be parceled out to the Clans.
1) Karianna Schmitt
Fridge her (meaning kill her and use her death to inspire her successor/Clan)and the earlier the better. While Ghostbear redeemed her a little bit in WoR, her portrayal in the Great Refusal paints her as fanatic oblivious/stupid in the same light that Stackpole did with both Romano Liao and Myndo Waterly during the Clan Invasion and Operation Scorpion respectively. While possibly a greatly skilled warrior, the second coming of Colleen Schmitt was a narrow minded, peevish twit that got the Blood Spirits smashed in the Absorption War, created the perpetual enmity with the Star Adders and got the Blood Spirits heaviest warship stupidly killed. That doesn't even get into the Bloodhouse corruption stuff or other idiocies you can dig up in CC FM or WoR. Replace her with someone else, ANYONE else and you immediately can change the tenor of the Blood Spirits - the Clan will follow where the Khan leads. There might be a few challenges off the bat, but the should the new Khan win those, the Clan nature as a "follow the leader" will be cemented.
