[NTJedi]

Using a pretender for battle during the beginning of a game can have several advantages. By mid-game it's better to have him in a safe area with preferably a dome. By late-game your pretender should be almost hidden/secret from your human opponents to avoid horror marks, diseases, battle afflictions and curses.... mages can cast spells which will do these. At the start of the game there is not much threat of this.

If you are doing singleplayer there's not as great of a threat for this happening.