Monkeys cry for changes?

[Humakty]

There are many many mages that are ssssssssslowwww.
Their PD doesn't suck harder (at least not sensibly much) than machaka's one.
In fact their sacreds are almost the only troops I do recruit, with some decoys and archers, they have the upkeep of a chaff unit.(dom 6+)
You don't seem to consider the 3E and 3W mages you can easily enroll(and they often have 4), with great moral and I think 2 strategic movement. I wonder if you use the golem summons with MA Agartha.
Their starting army is utter crap ? Okay, use it to patrol on turn one, recruit sacreds, mix, attack : you'll beat anything not being heavy cavalry.
I find spiders as being costly to enroll, costly to maintain, and not effective enougth in effectively killing something. With bandar you can have many more effective combat groups, raiding behind ennemy lines.
I think a water 9 bless, plus whatever you like or can afford greatly reduces the archer vulnerability, and can easily be achieved with neutral or better scales (I'm at work, so I can't check). You don't need a combat pretender with your sacreds, so why not an dormant/imprisoned one ?
But I agree with you : Machaka truly needs some love, be it summons or whatever pleases KO.

[Kuritza]

>> There are many many mages that are ssssssssslowwww.
Yea, but many small weaknesses combined make a big weakness.
>> Their PD doesn't suck harder (at least not sensibly much) than machaka's one.
Ohkay, maybe. Still it sucks unbelievably hard.
>> You don't seem to consider the 3E and 3W mages you can easily enroll(and they often have 4), with great moral and I think 2 strategic movement.
For a price of 25 nature, its not so easy. Still its great to have them, of course.
>> I find spiders as being costly to enroll, costly to maintain, and not effective enougth in effectively killing something. With bandar you can have many more effective combat groups, raiding behind ennemy lines.
You will be the one who's raided most of the time. And spiders are quite good actually, I've used them. As machaka, I held my ground against Ermor and Pangaea, attacking me from opposite sides, machaka is quite solid.
>> I think a water 9 bless, plus whatever you like or can afford greatly reduces the archer vulnerability
You're losing credibility here. How does defense help against missile fire?

[Natpy]

Machaka has very powerful battle magic and fetish factory. I don`t think they so weak.

[Endoperez]

Water bless means the sacreds reach the enemy faster and kill them faster, and after they rout get to the archers faster. It doesn't protect from the arrows, but the archers won't get to fire as much.

[Kuritza]

Alas, white ones aren't jaguars who can indeed owerwhelm chaff quickly and with little casualties, when blessed with W9.

[Humakty]

I tested them in a quite long game, and chaff gets crushed by W9, F4, N4. True they tire quickly, but they are easily replaced.
Edit : forgot to admit morale 7 on many commanders is a pain in the but.

All in all it is not my favored faction, but I wouldn't rank them the lowest position, because of recruitable everywhere sacreds, which makes for pretty efficient early games(I've reached astonishing rates with them, as with any other sacred oriented faction)on which you can capitalize, and efficient magic, even if they are crippled by somewhat heavy flaws.
In fact it is hard to say which is the worse, but personally I hate the animal tag, for the reasons listed above and the dreaded animal awe.

[NTJedi]

Natpy said:
Machaka has very powerful battle magic and fetish factory. I don`t think they so weak.

Machaka is okay, but having the ultimate worse province defense is definitely noticeable and painful for large maps.