Petition to Save the Moloch!

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PvK:
They only make him rout if he enters combat alone, which he does not have to do to be considered a SC. This is a buggy weakness which detracts from his value, and prevents him from being used effectively in the one specific way of being sent in alone, but it does not make him useless as a SC.

It detracts GREATLY from his value as an SC: Since he can't actually wipe out an army solo, he no longer truly qualifies.

It doesn't even make him useless as a solo fire brigade SC, because you can have minor forces all over the map, and he just needs to coordinate his moves with theirs to have the necessary "cheerleaders" present.

It's hard to guarantee that there will be both a few archers you can use as an anchor (as any melee troops will charge in and die unless you have a cripple squad, which is more unusual), and a commander you can detach to drag them in as your cheerleading section. Even then, if you start lobbing Firestorms, they're all gonna die. Fast.

Having him lead a bunch of devils though is one obvious, simple and effective thing to do.

Sure, but at this point, his role as a commander of a horde of devils has superceded his role as an SC. Unless you bring a reasonably large number of devils, even the devils will die.

I agree the imp/rout thing is a silly bug that cripples one specific way he might be used otherwise. I just object to your over-use and abuse of the term "useless" and related expressions, as in:

Exaggeration. There are other very useful uses, and even some efficient ones, even on the battlefield, as long as someone besides the Moloch and his Imps are present.

Yes, sure, if you want to reduce his role to that of a petty commander and artillerist....there are other pretenders which can accomplish this job just fine, at lesser cost, or enhanced functionality elsewhere.

Only if you insist that the only "SC" use is by strict definition without any accompanying units. Since you responded to Truper's "not in the 'Lone Ranger' mode" point in practical rather than semantic terms, it seems you accept that this is a way the Moloch can be used - you simply find it sub-optimal, because you would prefer to be able to fly in alone without the imp/rout problem, as a PoD can.

If you can't fulfill this requirement, then you tend to fail some of the basic criteria of an SC: Somebody who can crush armies solo: The necessity of towing chaff, which can be quite encumbering, as your selection of chaff that can keep up with you and not die immediately is limited. It's true that the Moloch is a good fighter, but as it is unfeasible to operate him solo without practically guaranteeing your mission fails, perhaps very dramatically, on even mild resistance far below the class of the Moloch itself, he's not really a true SC.

Exaggeration/wrong. You could take him to get cheap higher fire, for magic or for the blessing you yourself mentioned. You could also use him as a flying army commander/combattant.

If you want a flying army commander, for, say, devils, the PoD can work just as well, at reduced cost, and improved functionality: The Moloch gets you the low-cost F9 bless.

Exaggeration/wrong. It won't happen if there are other friendly units present.

Other commanders don't count. Other units tend to slow you down.

Exaggeration/wrong. It's not "useless" to be able to cast, say, Fire Shield on yourself before flying into combat, or Heat From Hell, or some arty spells with very low fatigue cost and very high penetration, before jumping into combat.

That's just throwing on some damage and pain shields and maybe firing off a few potshots before charging into a fight....which you won't get to do if your imps have routed you before you finish. This is fine and good, but doesn't really address the issue.

In the end, the Moloch is currently "cheap fire blessing dude". His effectiveness as a warrior is greatly hampered by his craven cowardice.

[Cainehill]

Also note that you can't take advantage of one of the huge benefits of having a flying Pretender or other SC : being able to attack behind enemy lines. Dragons, PoD, Virtue, Manticore, etc can all very effectively fly into enemy territory and easily nail a province.

The Moloch can't, because the bloody imps will show up, race at the militia / PD, and almost instantly rout. At this point, the Moloch dies because a couple of puny, totally disposable units got wounded and ran away.

A Virtue on the other paw, even in the early game, can effectively "cherry pick" isolated provinces to attack and conquer. Likewise a dragon, PoD, etc. The Moloch would die to 30 LI attempting to do the same.

[Cohen]

A starting artilley pretender is almost useless.
I tried Moloch in MP games, and used it with my army.

Other player took twice the land I got by using their pretender to take 1 province, and army to take another.

I had both of them taking 1 province.

This slows you a lot since the enemy has the double of your income potentially (well if he starts in the middle of wastes and you in the middle of farms...it's a little different but I've never seen this), and could have more mages/temples/castles later to get a winning edge.

I agree with dropping Imps like PoD drops undeads here and there, instead of having imps in battle.

[PvK]

Again, I have no strong disagreement against those points. I was just complaining about overuse of "useless" to mean anything but "has NO use".

I'd add that not only should the imp routing not rout the Moloch, but they should also be guarding him, rather than charging into the wild. Or, as suggested, just dropping an imp every now and then (1/turn?) would be good.

PvK

[lonewolf]

Why can't the imp thing be implemented like the Soulstone of the Wolves? i.e. have imps appear all round the battlefield and converge on your foes. I'm not exactly sure how the Soulstone works, but I've had literally dozens of Soulstone-produced wolves rout and still not have my Soulstone-carrying commander rout. I think it's because every round new wolves appear, so technically the unit hasn't routed. If the number of imps produced was even 3-4 per round, it would help without making the Moloch too powerful (except against indies and the like, which is fine) - they'd just be a nuisance to more powerful foes.

[PvK]

The stone is probably casting Howl every turn. That's a powerful effect against mortals, even when it's mere wolves. People mock imps, but they are actually pretty good units, when they don't get wiped out due to suicide flights. Infinite imp stream would I think be overpowered, unless perhaps it were only one per combat round.

PvK

[Blitz]

I see the same dorks are here nitpicking at the use of the word "useless" again. Norfleet is completely correct that save for the use for fire-9 blessing, the moloch is not a strong choice for any pretender role. Even in the fire-9 blessing role, he is arguably superceded by the phoenix, who is a stronger artillery unit and is of course... immortal.

Having to tow around an army with your SC sucks. He's clearly worse than the POD and Virtue in the flying humanoid class, simply because of the presence of the imps. Were the imps removed or repaired, his high attack rating, heat aura, fire resistance and ambidexterity would place him in the upper tier with the POD and Virtue. His combat stats are all equal or higher than the POD, and his path cost and combat abilities are superior to the virtue.

Having said that, even with imp removal... the 70 point paths make building a killing machine extremely expensive. Air and Earth magic are standard for most SC's, and selecting both bring the Moloch's pricetag up to a hefty 247 with FFF/EE/AA. While certianly feasible, I suspect players intending to use him as a SC and not a bless chassis will find other avatars to be superior in most cases.

How come nobody talks about their Shedus anymore? Wait! That pretender is perfect too.