Part 12: Chapter 10 and the War Room, Part 43 (Planning Supports)

So here’s the first chapter of the new route. Both routes have one fairly easy big chapter without much going on (like this one) and one town chapter with a zillion things happening.

This chapter is only marginally more challenging than the last one, and that’s mostly because the terrain is a nuisance in combat here instead of just when trying to walk around. Really there’s little else to say. It’s not even particularly important to the story in its own right, mostly just serving as setup for chapter 11.


Chapter Summary:
Roy and his group are walking toward Mt. Ebrakhm to help the miners there when an Etrurian whose estate they’re passing through launches a really half-assed attempt to kill them in order to protect the secret of the mines. And then they keep walking toward Mt. Ebrakhm, exactly as they had originally planned for exactly the same reason. This chapter affects nothing.




This is roughly the 5th time we’ve been told this. It will not be the last.




We know. We learned that last chapter. We also learned the miners there are being mistreated and killed. That’s why we’re going there.













Of course, we already have 2-3 good reasons to think Etruria is up to no good.







They’ve captured Lalum. If you take the other route, this just doesn’t happen. One weird thing about the route split is how a lot of the events are mutually exclusive even before Roy gets involved. Gonzalez is in the same job but for a different person in a different part of the island. Lalum is rescued by Roy in one route and never needs rescuing in the other. And so on. You’re not seeing how Roy’s presence changes things or getting a glimpse of what was going on in a different area; no the characters’ lives are retroactively reshaped depending on which village Roy visits on chapter 9.




There are at minimum 2 army members besides the named characters: this messenger and some random soldier seen at the end of this chapter.




So rather than ambushing us after inviting us in or attacking from the rear as we reach the mountain to catch us between him and Oro, he just sends his men out of his castle to fight us in the open where we aren’t trapped and can see them coming. This is a horrible idea because if Roy is able to get a single message out to Etruria or Lycia about what’s going on, the whole evil mining operation explodes.




He begins a lengthy explanation of what ballistae are good at, how to use them, and warns that we can capture them.




Yeah, they pretty much just run out toward us. Completely throwing away every advantage they have.




This line here is the kind of thing they REALLY should have had on chapter 4.




Luckily we don’t have to since apparently every single one of them runs out and leaves the castle abandoned.


Slufgest Preparations & the Map:



Secondary Objective: Recruit Geese with Roy
Secondary Objective: Recruit Gonzalez with Lilina
Secondary Objective: Get the Swordreaver from the middle east village
Reinforcements: Easily controlled and farmed. 1 pirate with a bad axe (steel, poison, or hammer) from the west island from turns 4 to 12. Plus fighters with mixed steel and handaxes from the bottom fortresses from 13 to 18. None are a threat. It wouldn’t even be hard to win before the bottom ones started spawning.
Turn Limit: 25. You’ve got to be kidding. I could complete this chapter 2 or maybe 3 times over in that limit if I wanted to. Even farming every single reinforcement you can still finish with 6 free turns easily.
Units Allowed: 11 + Roy. Another wouldn’t hurt since this map begs for mass cavalry-rescue dropping, but it’s still easy to complete with this many.

This map is pointlessly large, has very few enemies on it, and has very little else to do. Consequently it’s really boring.

However, the first couple of turns are somewhat cool because –unlike the even huger and emptier 8- the enemy is concentrated in a couple of areas. So there are a couple of decent fights, and then absolutely nothing but reinforcement farming.

Notice that once again the terrain is really tight and constricted. It’s full of cliffs and rivers with only a few bridges over them, so lots of chokepoints. Of course, the map is so empty and the time limit is so huge that being stalemated at a bridge for six turns means absolutely nothing ranking wise. However, it DOES make it much harder to train weak people. Training weak characters requires a lot of room to maneuver and the ability to bring most of your force to bear all at once. Only then can you ensure a safe firing space for the low-level people every turn and also be sure that you have the capability to reduce any given enemy to low HP without killing it.

Consequently, one of the challenges of this chapter is exploding across the bridge on turn 1 to fight the whole enemy group in the field in subsequent turns. Formation and slugfest preparations will make all the difference:



Units Brought:
1) Roy. Required. Other than recruiting Geese there’s nothing for him to do. He continues to be mostly useless even against axe fighters. And he’s decently high level already and won’t be promoting for something like 15 chapters, so I don’t want to keep giving him XP at the moment.
2) Lilina. The only one who can recruit Gonzalez (This is nearly the only recruitment in the whole game which isn’t totally obvious). Also she’s still very low level and easy to train, and I’m running out of other low-level people.
3) Dieck. Since he hasn’t gotten many levels recently, his power is starting to drop. He’s still fairly overleveled and is here mostly as an ace in the hole and to help weak people get kills and to build supports.
4) Rutger. Same as Dieck.
5) Lugh. Way too high level to use him much, but he’s by far my best attacker at this point and that makes him excellent for ripping up high HP people like fighters for the weaker people to finish. Plus I need at least 3 strong characters on this chapter I think; he’ll be the third.
6) Treck. This is a great map to be a cavalier on, so he’s easy to train and good for transporting others around.
7) Noah. Like Treck but sucky.
8) Thany. She’s not a good fit for this map due to the number of axe users and the ballista, but it’s still better than last chapter for her and I need to start leveling her a LOT.
9) Oujay. Almost as good as Dieck and Rutger and almost as high level. Everything on this chapter is vulnerable to a sword user, so he’s a good pick.
10) Fir. My lowest level unit, she’s fantastic here and really easy to train.
11) Clarine. Support, rescue-dropping, and healing.
12) Saul. Healing and not dying in one shot, same as always.
Notable Units Rejected:
1) Alan. Too high level. Of course, so are Rutger and Dieck but he’s even higher level and he’s done building supports.
2) Lance. Same as Alan but not as good.
3) Shin. Not even good to begin with since his class sucks, but more importantly I need to avoid leveling him + Sue more than Thany.
4) Sue. See above.
5) Dorothy. I actually thought about bringing her out to train since the nomads are benched for now, but I realized that my team is something like 60% trainees already. She can wait.

Now the formation here is important. I don’t have much to work with in terms of allowed starting spaces, and I have a difficult goal to accomplish.

I want to establish a wall of sword users 4 people long just north of the enemy fighters. That will block the whole enemy group off for me to kill easily and safely. But getting into that position is hard because of the annoying terrain in the way.

I’m going to need to use rescue-drops of course, but since I’m not bringing Lance and Alan and since Roy is standing in a spot I want a cavalier in, that’s easier said than done.

This formation isn’t the only one that could let me deploy into the line I want, but it IS the only one that will let me do that while also giving Lilina an easy kill.

Everyone has standard gear, though Rutger and Dieck have a whole bunch of different swords to make sure they always have the right mix of high weight and high Might to not quite kill enemies. I didn’t actually bother with new axes for Gonzalez or Geese since they’ll be joining after almost all the fighting is over and I’d rather give the reinforcement kills to other people anyway.


The Characters:




One of the coolest and most interesting characters in the game, Geese can’t seem to decide if he’s a pirate or a merchant. Apparently he kind of sucks at both jobs.
Besides awesome hair and the most stylish coat since Raven, he has an interesting life story (Though some of his supports contradict it and FE7 makes it nonsensical in retrospect by making him Geitz’s brother).

Anyway, according to at least some supports, Geese turned to piracy when the war ruined his trading business but he completely failed at that too. Now his crew is mostly dead and he’s trying to get revenge on the Etrurians for working some of his other crewmen to death in the mines. No idea where his ship is.

Also, he styles himself as some sort of Robin Hood figure only stealing from the rich and helping the poor. Except that, again, some of his supports contradict that.

He gets off to a cool start in his debut here but then most of his supports go nowhere or don’t fit with his established story. That kind of ruins him as a character.


Geese is pretty highly regarded as a unit, but this is largely groundless. He’s a bad unit. This is mainly because axes are bad and his base speed is bad, but also because he’s made completely obsolete exactly one turn after he first appears. Oh well. On normal mode he’s a barely usable all-rounder who can walk on water, but on hard mode he’s just too weak.




Gonzalez is one of only a handful of good characters in the whole series to not be gorgeous. Of course, like most ugly people in FE, he starts off as an enemy. And his recruitment revolves around someone seeing past his ugliness to realize that, in contrast to most ugly people in FE, he’s actually a really nice fellow.

Anyway, besides apparently looking way worse than his kind of cute portrait suggests, he’s also fairly stupid and doesn’t speak very well (Come to think of it, what language is everyone speaking anyway?). Pretty much all of his supports revolve around people commenting that he’s ugly or treating him rather disrespectfully. Poor guy just can’t catch a break. Anyway, he’s a one note character, but an unusually clever one. And he’s also treated with an unusual amount of seriousness, which I appreciate.


As the ever-handy Spanish FE site FireEmblemWoD put it, “Gonzalez proves that Spanish is high tier!” This guy is AMAZING. He’s almost indisputably the best infantryman in the game and you could make a solid argument that he’s the best character period.

Just look at his HP for starters. Level 5 unpromoted and he’s past 40. He might well hit 60 the instant he promotes. He’s going to max his Str by level 10 and then cap it again at 30 soon after promoting. And that speed! Not only is his base better than even many sword users, but his growth is a massive 50% too! That’s as good as Rutger’s! And his Con is huge, so he’ll never be slowed down by anything. Ultimate Str and Speed + axes + a massive 30 crit bonus from being a Berserker gives him probably the best offense in the game.

But he’s not just a master of offense. His amazing speed (He WILL hit his cap of 28) and very nice luck growth give him some of the best dodging around. Plus he has mammoth HP and very nice high level Def. That makes him one of the best tanks.

Oh and he can walk over mountains easily, is the ONLY person for most of the game who can use peaks, and after promotion he can run over water too. So that’s the best mobility of any infantry unit right there.

Furthermore, he has a pretty good affinity and a fairly fast-building support with Lilina, who makes a good partner for him.

His weakness is accuracy of course. It’s not that his skill is bad, it’s just mediocre, but the trouble is that axes have bad accuracy in this game. That can make him somewhat unreliable. And his support affinity doesn’t grant more accuracy, although Lilina and Treck (another decent support partner) do.
Still, if you’re not using Gonzalez, you’re playing wrong.




A generic evil Etrurian in on the little conspiracy to exploit the western isles. He tips his hand with a really ill-advised frontal assault when he had much better options available and screws up in several other ways- like leaving an important prisoner alive as his castle falls- too.

Actually SLOWER than Wagner, who we fought several chapters ago and who wasn’t even promoted. Still, he hits really hard.




Partly because he has this. Nosferatu is extremely dangerous in this game. If you don’t fight him smart, he can stonewall you pretty well.


Playing Through:




I want to get the attacks out of the way first so I know who can move where while rescue-dropping.




Lilina finishes this enemy off.




Then Noah grabs Roy.




Noah is a horrible frontliner, so he stands back and lets Treck take and drops Roy. Now the wall is ¾ complete.




Thany grabs Rutger.




And Clarine drops him into position to both build supports AND complete my wall. This defense is pretty much unbreakable. Everyone in front has swords, many have support bonuses, and the enemy’s sole good ranged attacker goes at a bad point in the turn order.




Oujay stops one short of maximum movement. If he went further, he could be hit by both mercenaries AND the ballista. If all 3 hit, he’d die.




Lugh also stops short to stay out of the danger zone. I want that ballista gunning for Oujay. Due to the terrain and the lack of flyers who wouldn’t be instant-killed, there’s really no way to take this one out effectively. Instead I just want to get started wasting its ammo as quickly as possible.




This game actually has animations for ballistae, and they’re pretty cool. It’s a shame FE7 and 8 didn’t re-use those. Oh and that’s a nifty western isles background.




The left flank doesn’t really interact with the right much. I could have had Lugh attack the right front mercenary or archer, but I’d rather free Oujay up to move in and give this kill to Fir. The right side guys have all the firepower they need anyway.




The mercenaries on this chapter are actually really hardcore.




Nice! I think this is the best level 5 myrmidon I’ve ever seen.




Saul heals Oujay up so he can take another ballista round (And thanks to not putting them in range last turn, so can everyone else).




Oujay moves into position. He’s safe there but can draw some fire from the incoming reinforcements.

Meanwhile, I need to break through this mercenary to kill the archer. The Steel Blade will weaken him just enough.




Thany deals the finishing blow (Lilina is in reserve in case this misses).




Thany hit, so Rutger charges in and scores a wonderful level as he kills the archer. The killing edge was necessary, but worth it.




There was another easy kill waiting for Lilina over here, so she takes that instead.




Wow! She’s doing great in speed and lousy in Mag, but that’s definitely a good trade. As I’ve said before, all she needs for a while is speed. If she can get enough of that to start doubling people, she’ll be one of the best characters on the team.




Clarine heals up Dieck.




And I form a new line, using trading to let people attack with one weapon and then defend with a safer one as usual.




Just as planned, this halberd fighter can’t attack anyone but a sword-wielding infantry unit. He’s by far the most troublesome enemy on the map because he’s just mixed in with the other fighters, so it’s normally hard to control who he targets.




Rutger shows the other dodge tanks how it’s done.




The ballista misses Lugh, not that it matters except for heal XP grinding. And that’s the turn.




So round 3 begins and here’s the enemy position. Their formation is great for me and very bad for them because it provides me lots of surface area to strike wherever I want. And no more are coming.




This second group is basically stationary unless you enter their range. The only threat is this berserker, and all he has is a lousy steel axe. I’d like to lure him out alone to kill more easily.




Well Oujay breaks through the line so Lugh and Fir can get in there.




Sweet! As I’ve said before, I’m getting this weird sort of full-offense team where no one gains any Def, but they’re all packing loads of Str and Speed.




Another easy kill is prepared for Lilina.




Treck runs over to the bridge (the edge of the berserker’s range) to lure him out.




Fir now has just enough Str to finish off this fighter. That leaves more than enough people to kill the other-




Nice level! But she missed. Darn. Well the level is way more important.




That does mean I can’t kill them all without just feeding the kills to overleveled people though. Instead I’ll surround one and give it to Thany next turn. She won’t have much to do for a while anyway with the ballista still loaded.




Let’s try this again.




Then Lugh easily kills the Berserker.




Well that’s a lousy level, but he’s been doing great up till now.




Treck moves in to establish a new wall and weaken this target for Fir.




Amazing! Rutger is going to be replaced at this rate.




Clarine and Noah drop Rutger in to complete the new wall. Now everyone there should be safe.




The rest just crowd in.




The first pirate spawns.




Treck gets a mediocre level defending himself.




You’re on thin ice, Rutger.




And that’s the enemy turn. I checked the numbers beforehand and knew Treck could take all the hits he needed to.




Geese has a conversation at the village before leaving it in the wrong direction. The map waaaay underestimates the speed you can move at if you know what you’re doing.




He’s out to get revenge on Nord.




Some of his crewmen stupidly went to Nord for work and Nord sent them to Ebrakhm.




My turn. That ballista is still too close for me to do much of anything with Thany, but it’s running out of ammo. One shot left. I just need to make sure no one ends this turn with low HP and the map is finished.




Well, after I figure out how to break through that is.




First, Rutger takes out the mercenary. Then Treck needs some healing.




He moves to weaken the archer so that Lilina can run in and kill the fighter. The enemy frontliners are now dead, I can smash the back easily.




Flux hurts, but getting double-attacked hurts more.




And as planned, Treck’s earlier weakening of the archer is enough for Fir to finish it.




The mercenaries can’t be killed, but they CAN be trapped. And there’s no hurry to finish this one anyway.




Thany moves just outside ballista range but close enough to kill that mercenary. Everyone else crowds in wherever it’s safe.




Dieck is my only guy with any Def, but he’s got tons of it.




The ballista is out of ammo. Mysteriously, the archer won’t leave it or defend himself.




So Thany can kill this guy in total safety.




The heals are underway.




Noah has nothing to do, so he’ll take the village.




All you need is Str. Anyway, that was the reason I healed her. She was down 1 HP and about to gain a level, so this gave me a good chance of producing an extra “wound” to heal for more XP, just like I talked about in the War Room Part 42.




Here’s the top setup. Geese will charge at the enemy and end up just past Roy. I don’t want him fighting, so I’ll talk to him and then run him out. I don’t want Roy fighting either, so Treck is ready to pick him up and haul him out.




Nord apparently employs Gonzalez. Gonzalez’s early life is kind of a mystery. He’s an orphan who never knew his parents, but everyone throws rocks at him and no one has ever let him live in town or anything. Maybe he was already an unstoppable badass as an infant and killed wild animals in his cradle like Heracles? And then ate them?




Nord has heard rumors on the internets that the village under the shadow of his castle might have a rebel base in it. Not sure why he waited till now, the worst possible time, to do anything about that.




You do know that if you made him mad, he could probably rip your head off with his bare hands, right?




So… you know he doesn’t want to attack that village and isn’t loyal to you and that the alliance army is running this way, but you’re sending him out anyway? And heaping insults on him while you do? The chance of him defecting is like 100%. And even if he gets past them and reaches the village, he’s way too dumb to find the hidden resistance base there. So the village will be destroyed and the rebels will relocate to somewhere smarter. This is not a good plan.




Roy starts talking to Geese.




Things don’t start off too well.




Roy points out that they seem to have a common enemy despite being supposedly on opposite sides.




He explains the real mission.




Geese joins up. And both of them shut up without either asking the 15 pertinent questions this conversation brings up about what’s really going on.




Well Treck hauls Roy out as planned.




Noah visits the village. Lalum of course was the rebel girl Nord had captured. No mention of a rebel base really comes up in this conversation, just Lalum being liked here and smuggling in some weapons at some point. Maybe the rumors were unfounded.




Why are you giving it to us? So many village conversations in this game do NOT explain why the villagers give us the stuff. Some of them make that make no sense at all in fact.




Noah will visit the nearby house for good measure next turn.




Saul gets yet another awful level. He’s so bad.




Clarine gets an even worse one. Meh, at least she can dodge.
Both of them are getting to somewhat high level. I’ll need to swap Ellen back in soon to make sure none of them hit 20 prematurely from all this heal grinding.




This ballistician didn’t move or try to defend himself at all when she attacked him last turn, so Thany finishes him now.




She’s doing great!







This random house actually has one of the deepest lines in the game. Most FE6 villains are just mustache twirling blackhats with no redeeming- or even humanizing- characteristics or traits whatsoever. But here, at least, it’s finally acknowledged that no one starts off evil and- as the woman goes on to say- most people could probably be reasoned with if one really tried.




Lilina recruits Gonzalez. I’m aware of no clues whatsoever that she can do that. Just has to be discovered by trial and error.




But why can only she see that? It’s not like she’s the only kind person in the party.







I think he’s trying to tell her to warn the villagers to leave so that he can smash the village without anyone getting hurt. His broken Elibean makes it a little ambiguous.




She gives the obvious solution since he doesn’t want to do it.







Poor Gonzalez.




Even in his supports, most people are jerks to him all the way through to A level; Lilina is a rare exception.




And then the rest of the conversation is cut off for some reason. There’s a pretty good bit where they talk about how really he’s more afraid of rejection than people are of his ugliness, so that’s why she tells him not to be afraid. Oh well.




To my surprise, Thany can actually beat these pirates. Their hit chances are really, really low. I guess I’ll have her do that.




I keep up the heals. There will be a lot more to do once the reinforcements start down here and I don’t want to wait around wasting time just healing up afterward.




Def is nice.




Turn 12, everyone is just crowding in. Oujay has moved to engage Nord but not attacked. It’s usually better to let people with Nosferatu strike first.




A mediocre level for Thany as she continues slaughtering the hapless pirates. If two of them ever hit her, she’d be dead, but their hit chance with true hit is maybe 8%.




Oujay slowly chips Nord down and gets a decent level.




…. Well Fir is better than Rutger now. This is the best myrmidon I’ve ever seen. This might actually be the best unit of that level I’ve ever seen period. The crazy part is she’s not even that above average except for the Str.

The crazier part is she’s still going to be mostly useless later one. Her Str cap on promotion is a horrible 22. So she’s probably not getting promoted.




There’s very little to say for the rest of the chapter. It’s just me keeping people in support formations while healing and feeding kills to Lilina and Fir.




The def is nice. Actually the Mag is too since she’d been getting pretty behind in that stat. She’ll cap it regardless eventually, but it doesn’t hurt to have some more now.




There’s a new support group in the making.




Excellent!




Mediocre, but more speed is nice since she couldn’t double this map’s great mercenaries before.




Lousy, but she’s still above average. And she’s nice and high level now. I’m back in good shape for getting the Ilia route since her much better sister is coming soon.




Noah has recently become one of the lowest level units on the field and I saw a chance to give him a kill. He got a pretty bad level, as expected. XP is XP at least.




And even more of the same thing.




Clarine dodges an attack for one of her best levels ever.




The irony!




Pretty good!




Fir gets the last kill of the chapter.




And an awful level.




A few final heals are finished, then I complete the chapter on turn 19 with all possible reinforcements harvested.




Did they try capturing or interrogating anyone at all?




Well that’s gg. If word reaches the homeland, these conspirators are done for sooner or later. And they took no precautions whatsoever to intercept these letters or in any way prevent Roy from finding out and reporting what they’re doing. Ordering him to investigate them and kill their minions is one of the dumbest plans ever conceived.




Nord also didn’t execute this prisoner who he’s sure if an important member of the resistance as his army was slaughtered. So now Roy can find out everything. Again.




Lalum pounces on Roy. She does this to people a lot. I THINK it’s her trying to be flirtatious.




Having contributed nothing to the conversation, Merlinus disappears into the ether again.




Wait, she just admitted that without having any idea of his goals or real side here didn’t she?




Luckily, he’s heard nothing but good things about them. You would think the conspirators would have spread some propaganda against their enemies, but apparently not.




That’s kind of obvious since they’re called the resistance.




Bam! All the pieces now fit together. Of course, Roy is too dumb to notice that for another chapter or two and the player had it all explained before 9 began.




She tells him (again) about terrible conditions at Ebrakhm.




And in the first piece of new information, tells him that the resistance was also planning on doing something about that mine.




But she discovered someone gave away the plan, so now the resistance forces (actually just one woman) in the area are in trouble.




So… pretty much what we were already going to do. Roy completely ignores the chance to find out more about what’s going on from Lalum and Geese and just continues to head north.




And she apparently had this special anti-dragon and anti-wyvern sword in her cell with her for some reason. It won’t be useful for another several chapters.


The War Room, Part 43

A bunch of people have recently joined the party and a bunch of others have turned out to be way more usable than I expected. Meanwhile Lance and Alan and Roy have finished their supports. So it’s time to start thinking about supports for other people and to talk about how to plan supports in general.

It’s ideal to think about this kind of thing further in advance than I did, but I’ve never max ranked this game before and I had little idea which characters would really wind up being used heavily (besides the usual suspects) when I started off. As usual, this is the chart to consult: http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/characters/supports/

The characters to think about are those who 1) don’t have almost all their supports done 2) are good and 3) aren’t already overleveled significantly

Roy, Lance, and Alan are all done or pretty much done. Marcus is overleveled and bad. Wolt is horrible. Bors is bad. Ellen is a semi-necessary evil. Dieck is pretty much done- or at least all his supports are decided. Ward is terrible. Lot has turned out to be surprisingly good. Thany is about to hit 20 and probably not be promoted. Chad is good but situational and overleveled. Lugh is great. Clarine and Rutger both have all their supports decided. Saul is a necessary evil. Dorothy is bad. Sue is temporarily benched and probably not good enough to use long term. Zealot is bad. Treck is turning out well and needs to be considered. Noah is bad. Astohl is situational and not that good. Lilina is very good. Wendy is bad. Barth is bad. Oujay is turning out very well. Fir is turning out very well but will not see long term use most likely. Shin is temporarily benched but will definitely be back, possibly for the long haul. Gonzalez is great and here to stay. Geese is mediocre. Klein is bad. Tate is great. Lalum is great. Echidna is bad.

So the list of people to think about is narrowed down to Lot, Lugh, Treck, Lilina, Oujay, Shin, Gonzalez, Tate, and Lalum. Maybe also Chad, Fir, and Thany.

Now the rest of the process is simpler. Basically just look through the support listing for those people and pick out good partners. A good partner should have some of the following attributes:
1) Is a good unit
2) Has similar movement speed
3) Has different capabilities (mage paired with physical attackers, axe user paired with lance user, healer paired with non-healer, etc.)
4) Has a support that builds up fast

Lot could perhaps snag a C with Dieck, but Dieck is mostly spoken for. That pretty much just leaves Thany as the only real option. She’s not really a good one at all due to significantly different movement and not being a very good unit. Probably nor worth sacrificing other people’s support buildup for her when she’s likely to be retired at 20 anyway.

Lugh has a number of good partners available. Ray is a standout of course. Chad is also not a bad idea. Hugh is kind of redundant. Miledy has very different movement. Ray and Chad are probably the way to go.

Treck has few good options. Noah is redundant and bad. Miledy would be a solid choice, but it builds up slowly and she’s not even available yet. That mostly leaves Gonzalez. At least he has a different weapon. And he’s hurting for options himself.

Lilina has tons of options, but most suck or are taken. Oujay and Gonzalez both look like very good matches though.

Shin can be redundant with Sue, movement mismatched with Fir, or way too late with Zeiss. Fir is really the only way to go for now.

Gonzalez has pretty much no options other than Lilina and Treck, both of whom are pretty good to pair with him.

Tate has no options other than Thany. That sucks since they’re totally redundant and Thany is pretty bad and will likely be retired soon.

Lalum has a bunch of options, mostly bad. Oujay looks like a good one though.

So it looks like (besides finishing the Rutger-Dieck-Clarine triangle), I’ll be going with Lugh-Chad-Ray, Treck with Gonzalez and maybe eventually Miledy, Lilina with Oujay and Gonzalez, Shin maybe with Fir, Tate maybe with Thany, and Lalum with Oujay.



Back to the Conclusion:

I believe 26 levels were gained, and I was supposed to gain 25. That requirement is pretty crazy. I mean, I used almost no one but my most underleveled units- even kicking Lance and Alan off the team- and I did serious heal grinding but I still juuuuuust slid by.

Total Restarts: 3
Turn Surplus: -7 (6 turns gained. I’ll soon be in the black and probably stay there).
Things I Regret Missing: A couple of uses of Marcus’s silver lance on Rude, a Chapter 5 nomad Marcus had to kill