The trick is not using it in "Serious" combat ;-). It's like using tanks as bulldozers and simply burying trenches instead of actually *fighting* to get through. It's not pretty, it's definitely not "fair", but it gets the job done.
I don't think you can really blame the Bat's defeat at Boldhome on the Lunar doctrine - *no-one* (except, maybe, some Player heroes, who happened to make a bargain with it earler on?...) knew about the Dragon before it showed up. I also don't think it took all 19 years to get it back. It just wasn't seen anywhere a KoS author happened to be. Maybe it was beating up Pentans, or on an extended "Diplomatic Mission" to some place far away...
At Whitewall, the Bat's defeat is a surprise to the Lunars - who knew that rebels, armed only with single seat fighters, could take out the deathst... err, that Storm rebels armed only with the magics of a nearly-defeated God could take out the Bat?
Unfortunately, we don't have a good history of the Bat - we know it appears at the battle of the Arrows of Light, and then at Runegate. where was it in between? You can infer that it's a lousy weapon and was taken out every time ("Hah, only a storm Barbarian would be foolish enough to fear the Bat!") or that it was a useful, but not critical, part of a number of battles. Or something in-between...
RR
C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du pr�sent a
fait ce qu'il a fait.
- Richelieu
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