Whew, I finally finished the last of the GBA games and got through an FE6 Hard Mode Ironman. It took, quite some time, but felt very worth it.
Compared to FE7, I think this was a much better game to Ironman because once I got past chapter 7, I immediately won, rather than suffering through the rngfest that was Battle Before Dawn. Which was responsible for two of the failures on FE7.
Of course, FE8 was the easiest of the three, on either route.
Like last time I finished one, I'll go through characters used and notable contributors, along with unfortunate deaths.
Deaths:
- Wade made it to Chapter 4 where he died because he had to save Roy after Marcus missed a 75%.
- Lance was my choice to promote of the Christmas cavs. He bit it in chapter 13 when he missed a 90%, took a 20% hit from the Halberd as a result, followed by a Steel Bow on enemy phase.
- Echidna I over extended with on chapter 15 and she ate too many hits from a cav squad.
- Deke took a 2% crit on chapter 17, right after I promoted him. That one stung.
- Lastly, Lalum died to the long ballistas on chapter 23 because I thought she'd be fine in the forest and instead she got hit by both at sub 20% hits.
Notable Contributors:
All units who saw significant deployment are in the image set, here's how they did.
- Marcus, surprising no one Marcus was vital to my run. I trained his axe rank early to let him Halberd his way through chapter 4. His final deployment was chapter 13 where he didn't manage to do that much.
- Allen, had been training up as Lance's main support partner with the idea of promoting him, but when Lance died that was it. He did alright.
- Shanna, was deployed in almost every chapter and started out strong, but refused to level well after she promoted. She was relegated to flier utility once I got to her homeland.
- Sue, I tried to use and she helped a bit, but never quite managed to get enough stats to be that useful.
- Klein, was a potential for my final team. He was deployed on most maps and always put in good work, but was never stellar.
- Igrene, worse Klein in pretty much every way. Hard mode bonuses are a bit unfair there, but a workable sniper is still useful.
- Zeiss, wound up deployed on most maps and ever so slightly too slow to really kick his growth off. He eventually became Milady-lite and that's nothing to complain about.
- Niime, did everything she normally does. Physics, warp, berserk, and silence.
- Yoder, same as above. He helped Merlinus sell stuff, healed, and didn't get berserked.
Core Units/Final Team
Most of my final team are exactly who you expect, but I did have a lot of fun with them. Each of these units was deployed to every map I could and they contributed through the entire game... except Roy and Fae who needed to be babied.
- Roy got a robe because he was just too fragile. He started leveling a lot better after promotion, which was at 20, but it was too little too late.
- Fae just never got going because of horsie/wyvern go brr killing everything too quickly.
- Clarine became incredible after her promotion, despite her low magic. Aircaliber let her take part in mass clearing wyverns and she was able to setup kills for my training projects with her other magic. She was actually my first non-Niime/Yoder unit to hit 20.
- Rutger did the normal Rutger boss killing at the beginning, using his support with Clarine to avoid being crit, and was a solid unit throughout the game. More Druids died to him + a Wo Dao than any thing else.
- Lilina spent most of the run seriously speed and skill blessed, which made her nuts. She didn't level either of them at all during her last 6 levels. She took more Wyvern kills than anyone else by the power of standing in a forest. (She got 1 robe and 1 book overall)
- Fir started off okay, then rapidly climbed up as she kept leveling strength, eventually overtaking Rutger in offensive power. Her support with Shin helped a lot.
- Shin, my main bow user, he was my third delete button after the two sword masters.
- Tate decided she never wanted to take damage and wound up HP, Def, and Res blessed. She had 3 empty levelups after promotion and still wound up with those stats.
- Milady, nuff said.
- Percival, I trained in axes so anyone could use Armads, but also he's always incredible. I did give him a dracoshield so he could more reliably solo the left side of 22.