My understanding is that the small engines can be mounted near the nose of the rocket, and so will allow landing without kicking up as much of the lunar surface - or “digging a big hole” depending on where you land.

If I remember correctly the lunar surface is less solid but more abrasive than Earth or Mars; fortunately it also has lower gravity which makes it possible to use smaller engines.

At first glance it would take ~6 SuperDraco engines to land an empty Starship, but the number goes up pretty quickly once you include the weight of fuel. If you were landing with 1/3 of the fuel capacity I think it would take more like 30 SuperDracos.

Not sure how much fuel would be required to get a Starship from the lunar surface to lunar orbit, but the delta-v is roughly 1/6th of what it takes to go from earth surface to LEO. On the other hand the booster does some of the work going to LEO. Starship HLS is supposed to be lighter than a regular Starship so that helps… the numbers floating around various discussion forums seem to suggest it would take about 1/4 tank(s) to get Starship HLS from the lunar surface back up to lunar orbit.

For clarity the trip to lunar orbit would be powered by Raptor engines - the relevance to this discussion is that the small engines need enough thrust to handle the fuel & oxygen required for the trip, and that the fuel probably weighs a lot more than the ship itself