Using your pretender early: How?

[Ewierl]

Generally, to make a pretender into a good SC, you need some way of dealing with chaff. Every attack is a slim chance that your high-protection cyclops will take an unlucky wound, so you need to have some ability to deal with large numbers. Later in the game, non-indie chaff can hold off a SC just by making them take so long they rout, another reason you need crowd control.

The easiest way to do so is with Awe, since any pretender can have it if you buy a starting dominion of 9-10. A number of pretenders have Fear, which isn't quite as good (though it works delightfully well in combination). A few pretenders do other fun things, with heat/cold/poison radiation or petrification. Trample is a dangerous option, because it can drag you down with fatigue in a tough battle.

Of course, you also need a reasonably tough chassis, in terms of hp. Recuperation or immortality go a long way towards not caring about afflictions, but you don't want to go down to a lucky crossbow bolt. Bare minimum is the Virtue/Gorgon range, 40ish, though I'd stay away from lance-wielding indies with them. Don't try this with a 15-hp ***** queen, something unlucky is bound to happen.

The bottom line: for bare minimum SC functionality, you need enough HP to survive a lucky hit, and you need some sort of crowd control ability.