Are there any interesting uses for broken clockworks (allied chess pieces)?

Are there any ways to make broken clockworks useful beyond:

• Spicing up the scenery, since ruins are pretty barren otherwise.
• Hammering for loot.
• Ally as many clockworks as you need/can afford, and storm some boss. 

I was experimenting with the allied monsters, and now consider them nigh useless:

• You die? No longer allied.
• You leave and re-join the server? No longer allied.
• You leave caves? No longer allied. And they don't follow you to the surface.
• You roll back? No longer allied.

So I thought "OK, what can I do with hostile clockworks"? After all, a bishop is basically a cheaper, mobile Houndius Shootius, and a set of them would make a decent bunny puff farm. Turns out that NOPE, when they turn hostile, they prioritise returning to spawn location (ie. where you repaired them), and won't attack unless attacked first (ie. they're neutral).

The best I can see, given the above constraints:

1. Build a bunny farm in an area with lots of clockworks around.
2. Plant trees/marble bushes around a rook, then use it as an in-cave bearger.

But these are hardly different from just using regular, worldgen-spawned clockworks.

Any better ideas?