[kianduatha]

See, I'd be fine with transforming ~60% of my casters. Remember, each transformation of a sorcerer saves you what, 13 gold/turn? That adds up. This is nice, because it's a backwards way of ensuring that machaka has top-tier research mid/late game--because you'll have castles with 30 spiders in them. Since your troops still suck ***(except for upkeepless spiders, of course!), most of your upkeep is taken up by casters. Take out half your caster upkeep...you start to blossom.

At least for me, the Place Fevers spell idea is a way to try and keep the Machaka of old. It doesn't seem...right, when all the other gem generators are gone. I'd rather go in a new direction.

Maybe something like "Spider Climb"--maybe AOE 5, magic resists easily Flight, meant to be cast on those fun little spiders for some flanking action. N3, probably.

Other than that(which would be pretty awesome and scary) I'm pretty content with Machaka--except that the PD really needs a Voice of the Lord instead of a Machaka Commander at 20.

I'd also be okay with the needles from the totems being stun damage--as is, the needles *do* incur some friendly fire onto your militia, and that just makes them route all the faster. With stun damage, it just racks up the fatigue--and in a serious fight, you were putting down Relief anyways.