What's a reliable strategy to play Transmuters in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup?

How do you play Transmuters? Which skills do you train and when? Which god should I choose?

I started to play Transmuters recently, and I normally start raising Unarmed Combat to 5 and then push Spellcasting and Transmutation to get Blade Hands reliable. I like to go with Nemelex Xobeh, since it's fun, it's strong, offers a lot of options and since I don't wear heavy armour or weapons I can sacrifice a lot of stuff which helps to raise piety quickly.

But I often get hit by the 'midgame-barrier', when my character just seems too weak to survive.

I'm currently playing DCSS v0.10.

I like 2 different builds of transmuter:

• Draconian transmuter: train unarmed combat and transmutation and wait for Sif Muna or a shop to give you Dragon form in a spellbook. I don't memorize Ice form just in case I become a red draconian. If you don't like Sif Muna, Ashenzari is a nice alternative. You can curse yourself with a nice magical staff and transform to fight in melee. Great skill bonuses.

• Naga transmuter: nagas are awesome! And there is no other god for them than Cheibriados. With his stat bonuses you'll have great Int for spellcasting, and a huuuge damage bonus (Str + Dex) for Blade hands.

Remember that you can use shields if you notice lack of defense/poor survivability and transmute them to fight. Also, don't stop training Unarmed combat! You need the attacking speed, and once you have Blade hands, you'll be relying in it more and more.