Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

Boots of quickness/staff of damned, with lifelong protection, if I remember right. Lifelongprotection is almost unfairly effective in duels, and several chassis had a lot of it.

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

I am not claiming that crushers are a great unit. I think crushers were the first 100+ HP unit I ever summoned and that put them in an elevated position in my lineup.

It does appear to be a somewhat common phenomenon among units and spells for many players.

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

The Crusher is a great unit because:

*High HP and size draws arrows and magic
*High protection
*Poison resistant
*Inanimate
*Not extremely high MR means it will draw magic attacks
*Relatively low cost
*Comes early

If a nation has all that in a recruitable unit crushers are a waste of gems. Otherwise there is no reason not to use it. MA Ulm has great use of them for example.

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

My choice:
1. Mechanical Men. Resistant to many spells, cheap, quite effective in mid-game
2. Iron Dragons. Flying, fast and brutal. Useful for "attack rear" and killing of enemy mages. Or trample enemy archers. Or (kind of fun) some of them with Gift of Reason can quickly capture provs, which left unprotected
3. Siege golems. Sometimes they are the only way to capture enemy castles (e.g. longplay vs MA Ulm "Defensive" - he will build his damn Castles everywhere, but with Siege Golems there`s no troubles)

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

So AI targets low MR units first when it does MR-checking attacks?

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

Yes, I placed the Poison Golem in the competition, maybe I didn't make it clear with this statement. The poison golem as a chasis wasn't irrelevant, it was ideal for the following reasons:

High base protection. This means it's unnecessary to buff base protection with stone boots, earth magic, etc. This means you can get boots of quickness and armor of souls - or something different if you prefer. Bottom line, with halfway decent armor he's got very good staying power - particularly if you're spamming drain life twice a round.

Banefire shield. This is something you can't otherwise get (well, other than the king of banefires), and has the huge benefit of being effective against fire immune units - imps specifically. Lifelong protections were indeed common in the SC challenge, but then again they're not exactly rare when fighting any blood nation. The banefire shield makes the standard of the damned an option for general use - how many guys can handle chaff control with no fire/frostbrand or shield?

Lifeless/mindless - makes him immune to many of the standard SC counters. If you equip him to give him elemental immunity towards whatever your opponent is likely to use it's pretty much down to running forward and whacking through the banefire shield at an extremely high protection guy who's spamming life drain (as in his HPs are shooting up every round). He's lethal towards SCs. He's lethal towards chaff. He's immune to everything the bad mages can cast (with a few exceptions, which your opponent certainly may not have access to).

No magic - doesn't seem like a benefit at first, but the point is he doesn't need to spend rounds self buffing. Critical for the SC competition, but certainly an important factor for general use as an anti-SC. A secondary consideration is you don't need to do any other reserach, you've got a solid SC with nothing but Cons-9 done.

All in all, look at what you get for the cost! He's maybe not the best unit in the game, but certainly cost effective if you use him properly...

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

I checked the manual, and clockwork horrors are listed as 0 Fatigue, so I don't see that they would actually build up fatigue...is there a separate effect?

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

Yes, they have exhaustion 15

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

Exhaustion 15.

Re: usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?
 

Oh that stinks. Hmmm I don't suppose there's a good spell, or modifiable spell effect, to cure that, is there?