Tried various strategies against Lord Bottington with this board.
1. Gear-BM with Relic on $5 got me 4 Provinces in 13 turns before stalling. Had Bottington on points lockdown T20, before finally ending it T23, winning 60-19.
2. Spy/Mystic/Relic with one BoM and Militia, ignoring the other cards (your strategy if I understood correctly), got me 4 Provinces in 19 turns. One turn later, I won 36-25.
3. A full engine with Native Village, Gear, Messenger, Mint for trashing, the Spy/Mystic 'combo', Militia and Relic as attacks gets absolutely nowhere. All the components are laughably weak. Resigned on T23 because neither me nor Bottington got anywhere near emptying the Provinces.
4. Messenger/PStone-BM with Relic on $5 got me the win in 23 turns, after some Duchy dancing: 39-36. Not very good, but still better than the full engine. Wow.
Of course, Bottington is not exactly the best player ever, so maybe playing against a real opponent would be more accurate, but I'm fairly sure the strategy on this board is Gear-BM. Maybe adding a Militia is doable, not sure.
One thing I'll give you: Relic is awesome on this board. Whatever your strategy, you can't ignore it.