Chess is a bad analogy, though, because even in chess, a pawn can threaten or even capture a queen or king, if the queen/king is mistakenly placed into a position where that can happen. A level 1 character, or in this instance a Lemure, has no hope of even mildly irritating a level 20+ enemy, or even a level 10+ enemy. Any enemy the mooks can be anything more than a speedbump to is still something you can personally swat aside with trivial effort.