Ironman Experiences

[Hello72207]

I am making this thread so that people can share any ironman experiences that they have done recently. For example, about a month and a half ago I ironmanned FE8 +10% growths and got slaughtered. I won, but the only survivors were

-Eirika

-Ephraim

-Seth

-L'arachel

-Syrene

-Tethys

As you can see, I did not do well. The most embarrassing death was when I placed Tana in range of a pirate on the first turn of the map you get her on to lure the pirate in. I forgot to de-equip her heavy spear (WHY DOES SHE COME WITH THAT) and she got doubled and killed.

[whase]

Wow that looks painful.

I only did one iron man run, it was Radiant Dawn, and I only lost Mia. She got herself critkilled on 3-1 by the boss, I remember hit chance being low enough to worry. Almost quit because Mia is my favorite character of Tellius. Not sure if I was playing normal or easy mode.

Technically I could call all my finished Three Houses runs iron mans too, rewinding time is not resetting right? =P

[DragonFlames]

Some time ago, I did an Ironman run of Radiant Dawn and only lost Aran and Leanne in the first map of Part 4, because I underestimated the ranges of the Halberdier reinforcements that come in from the right side.
Granted, I did not play on the highest difficulty (I played on Normal instead), so I don't know if this counts for much.

[Alastor15243]

My very first ironman run was about four years ago, with Fire Emblem Fates. I ironmanned all three routes and had a ton of fun doing it. Actually, I documented it while doing a sort of improv roleplay of the main character called "Dakota's War Journal", which you can find in my signature, though keep in mind Revelation's documentation is barely started and probably will never be finished. Honestly, Fates is the game I'd recommend the most to anyone who wants to try ironmanning. Especially Birthright and Conquest. They're very good about giving you all the information you need to make the right decisions, and making sure it's entirely your fault when you lose.

Honestly, I love ironmanning. It completely changes the way you think about the game, makes you (or at least me) play a lot better when the consequences of failure become higher, and eliminates that "I might need it later" fear that keeps you from using the coolest weapons (because you will need it for multiple right nows).

[eclipse]

I'm doing a shared Ironman run right now.  It means that I can't undo my item screw-ups, which is the sad story of how Astohl wound up with the Boots.  So, far, no one of consequence has died (technically, Merlinus and Roy died once).  This particular run's off to Sacae, so I must be very careful about this!

[Alastor15243]

16 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'm doing a shared Ironman run right now.  It means that I can't undo my item screw-ups, which is the sad story of how Astohl wound up with the Boots.  So, far, no one of consequence has died (technically, Merlinus and Roy died once).  This particular run's off to Sacae, so I must be very careful about this!

Dear god. Hopefully you know one of the tricks to dealing with the randomized ambush spawns.

[eclipse]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Dear god. Hopefully you know one of the tricks to dealing with the randomized ambush spawns.

Get out as soon as possible.  While making sure Roy doesn't eat it.  That's my plan.

(not using exploits and the like if I can help it)

[Eltosian Kadath]

Lets see here, I completed a Thracia 776 Ironman back when Alastor was playing through FE5 for his series marathon review, which was interesting, the gritty details are below in a spoiler tag due to length

Spoiler

I had no deaths with only mild cheesing until I tried to make the chapter 8 boss capture less tedious and accidentally killed him, so RIP Dagdar and Tanya, but it also gave me an opportunity to see a cool easter egg in the endgame. Next death was Halvan, who got slept immediately after grabbing the Heim scroll in chapter 12, and I could have easily captured Salem (the Sleep user) the turn before if I were either less stingy with my warp uses or willing to risk a rather small death chance on Fergus. Halvan was doing alright, and he died with both Heim and another scroll on him, which hurts more after missing the Neir scroll of 8x. Then I had my tipsy New Years Eve Massacre. On chapter 12x I misclicked into releasing a captured Trude, but otherwise got all the good loot. Next death of New Years was Karin in 13, due to a bolting crit when I got greedy and went for the house in the corner. Should have had a scroll on her when approaching a bolting sage, but I was running low enough on scrolls that they needed to be traded around which was more planning than tipsy me was doing at the time, plus with Dean and Eda joining next chapter it wasn't a big loss at all. Continuing the New Years Massacre I spent a while planning out this brilliant startegy to use Olwen to secure the Dragon Spear, and while it worked out fine, I was so gung ho in my tipsiness that I sent her before dealing with the other Boss Baldack, who just obliterated poor Fred. Tipsy me did have the good sense to ignore the annoyance of 14x, which did mean I was low enough Stamina Drinks that I actually had to think about stamina, which was a lot of fun actually. Smooth sailing in chapter 15, but I went B route due to the dead Karin locking me out of Misha (plus I like the early Berserk staff, as those are really fun to use). Then on 16B Dean died when the Sword Master with the Luna tome proced both adept and Luna on the same combat. All that work to get the Dragon Lance down the drain, but I was training Eda for funsies (really due to how bad I felt seeing her be the only female Wyvern Rider with no one willing to vote for her as one of their favorites on one of the polls on this board until I changed my vote), and she turned out to be a workable replacement. 17B was slow but fine, and I was frustratingly close to recruiting Xavier (if only the one with the highest con was in a slightly different place I could have fixed my one mess up on the recruitment) so RIP Xavier. Next death was chapter 20, I was sending Conomore into the Arena due to how little he could possibly do where he was positioned, he did well up until an unexpected crit ended him (and it was expected enough that I dropped anything of value from him off at the supply). Had a terrifyingly close call on 21 when Asvel got slept by a Blizzard hit from the boss (only possible due to how magic screwed he was not to have capped at this point), and was only saved by the bonus to magic from pure water not disappearing when his stats dropped to 0 in his sleep. Ended up capturing some blizzard uses that I wasn't originally going for thanks to that terrifying setback. Had an easy time looting and cheesing my way to chapter 24, where I intentionally killed some people off, as well as missing the 24x, as with me accidentally missing Dagdar's gaiden earlier I was in an excellent position to see all of the true Dead Lords in endgame. For those not in the know that means I killed off Sara for the alternate Canis, killed off Lifis for the alternate Porcus, killed Galzus before recruiting him for the alternate Bovis, missed 24x for the alternate Draco, and missing 8x already got me the alternate Tigris. This was the first time I saw any of them, which was really interesting. That being said I rushed into endgame when I knew I should have prepared more because I wanted to end it that weekend, and Endgame became a massacre. Glade and  Delmudd died turn due to poor planing for how to deal with the Fenrir Tomes in that area, and Olwen fell to Draco after dealing with the one on her side. Then I made the two fold mistake of having Ced warp Mareeta to kill one of the tougher bosses, and after Olwens death having Ced try to finish off the injured Draco. With Ced dead there was no one in Draco's corner to deal with that room, which means I was late enough breaking the seal that reinforcements started showing up and killed Selphina instantly, and with no one around to stop the reinforcements from that corner they would eventually walk their way over to Linoan and kill her too. Ended up making the fateful decision to break my last rescue use (as a majority of them died with Ced) to then warp my best combatant Mareeta over to kill Draco, but then I was having some serious issues dealing with Veld. The only combatants that were close enough to be warped in to deal with him were Lief and Asvel, and they just couldn't get all the hits they needed, so I ended up running through his entire supply of vulneraries and broke the last saved uses of the Grafcalibur trying. Osian died due to a Ensorcel boosted Fenrir hit while trying to walk him over to a warper, Mareeta was trapped in a locked room, and before I even got through his last Vulnerary use they managed to ensorcel and silence Asvel... I tried some sneaky maneuvers with the Berserk staff to try and get some help dealing with Veld, but anyone I Berserked quickly got overwhelmed, but eventually one of their Yotsumungs actually hit Asvel which replaced his silence with poison and finally let him get back to wailing on Veld, which eventually took him down. It was grueling and brutal but victory was had in my FE5 Ironman. I did have fun training quite a few units I have never used like Miranda, Eda, and Selphina, it let me see an easter egg I had never seen, and it was in the end a successful run.

 

I started an Echoes Ironman to play alongside Mangs while watching his own attempt in the background, but I started losing interest after how quickly he lost twice. I still have the save and might come back to it at some point. Lukas died to a 1% crit on the 6th field battle of part 1 (the map with the two cavalry forces seperated by a river with a bridge choke point), Leon died as a green unit on his join map before I could reach him, Clive died on that brutal second map of Alm's part 3 with the mages in the woods, and after going back for some promotions a cavalry encounter spawned by Dusaix managed to ambush us in that same woods and killed the rest of my archers of Python and Gray. looking at the save I am still in part 3 with two field encounters left for Alm, and one left for Celica if/when I get back to it.

 

I have actually had quite a few failed HHM with no Lyn mode ironman runs of FE7, that is brutally unforgiving game and mode to ironman.

 

As for my part of the shared FE6 Ironman, I had command for the brutal chapter 7, and I lost Lance, Dorthy, and Lugh. Lance was hard to avoid given the tactics I was using and RNG on the table, but its hard not to look back and feel Dorthy and Lugh were avoidable with better play. Had a couple of close calls in other places, but its been a lot of fun using the units that have happened to survive and rise to the top of usage. Really hoping we make it to the good ending.

[Boomhauer007]

I generally play 7 and 8 ironman, they're more fun that way. 7 is probably the easiest in the series since you get good prepromos all the way through the end, 8 is just easy in general. Did 8 a couple months back, lost Joshua and Gerik in the same turn on 16 due to staff/siege/crit shenanigins snowballing into a horrible turn. 

 

21 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I started an Echoes Ironman to play alongside Mangs while watching his own attempt in the background, but I started losing interest after how quickly he lost twice

Man that game seems like it'd be awful to iron man. Between witches, the hit rates, and front loaded unit recruitment that game feels like it was explicitly designed to not be ironmanned. 3 houses probably falls into the same boat, I have no interest in ever attempting that. 

[Alastor15243]

20 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Man that game seems like it'd be awful to iron man. Between witches, the hit rates, and front loaded unit recruitment that game feels like it was explicitly designed to not be ironmanned. 3 houses probably falls into the same boat, I have no interest in ever attempting that. 

Good call. I tried it with Crimson Flower. It not only turned me into a paranoid wreck, it may very well be as much as 50% of the reason why I hate 3H.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Man that game seems like it'd be awful to iron man. Between witches, the hit rates, and front loaded unit recruitment that game feels like it was explicitly designed to not be ironmanned. 3 houses probably falls into the same boat, I have no interest in ever attempting that. 

I would say Radiant Dawn is also an awful game to ironman, knowing you have pretty much no room for error in part 1, and part 2 isn't much better. Not to mention the game over conditions - various points in the game make it such that certain non-Lord characters cannot die, particularly the first few chapters, where no one can die or you lose.

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would say Radiant Dawn is also an awful game to ironman, knowing you have pretty much no room for error in part 1, and part 2 isn't much better. Not to mention the game over conditions - various points in the game make it such that certain non-Lord characters cannot die, particularly the first few chapters, where no one can die or you lose.

Don't forget the Part 1 map where you have to protect Micaiah from dozens of enemies who can one-shot her using only one unit. In fog of war.

[Shadow Mir]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Don't forget the Part 1 map where you have to protect Micaiah from dozens of enemies who can one-shot her using only one unit. In fog of war.

That too. That map always puts me on edge in a normal run...

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/13/2020 at 6:00 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Don't forget the Part 1 map where you have to protect Micaiah from dozens of enemies who can one-shot her using only one unit. In fog of war.

Also, that one unit can't Rescue her. I recognize that doing so would trvivialize the difficulty (I actually really like that map), but still.

On 3/13/2020 at 5:48 PM, Shadow Mir said:

I would say Radiant Dawn is also an awful game to ironman, knowing you have pretty much no room for error in part 1, and part 2 isn't much better. Not to mention the game over conditions - various points in the game make it such that certain non-Lord characters cannot die, particularly the first few chapters, where no one can die or you lose.

I was thinking recently, a pseudo-Ironman of Tellius could be a fun challenge when replaying them. Have a few critical "checkpoints" that you can go back to once you get Game Over (like PoR chapter 17, or between each Part in RD). People who die in PoR stay dead (with temporary exceptions, like... all of Part II). Although even then, a bad Part I could screw you on III-6.

Bottom-line, agreed that a traditional Ironman of Radiant Dawn would be torture - even on Normal, but especially on Hatd.

[Alastor15243]

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Also, that one unit can't Rescue her. I recognize that doing so would trvivialize the difficulty (I actually really like that map), but still.

Oh make no mistake, thematically it's one of the coolest FE maps of all time. Getting to use that unit was a power trip and a half. But holy shit is most of the remaining difficulty just annoying trial and error.

[shanni20]

ttempted to ironman FE6, shanna got 5 str levelups in a row, and then she died

 

so i decided to never ironman fe6 ever again

[Koops]

I actually haven't ironmanned anything yet, but I am increasingly finding myself wanting to dive into the experience.

Guess I will be starting with FE9 tho. I'm taking it easy when it begins.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Finally completed a FE7 HHM with no Lyn mode Ironman, and it was an absolute bloodbath. The thirteen survivors were Matthew, Oswin, Lowen, Priscilla, Nils/Ninian, Hawkeye, Nino, Jaffar, Renault, Athos, Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector. That being said it was cool to trigger all of Nergal's unique battle quotes legitimately on a single run. As for the deaths well

Spoiler

Birds of a Feather (Chapter 12)

Bartre

I was playing far too quickly, and was far too frustrated to be playing well when I started this run, as I started it immediately after a fail run that was looking so promising.

False Friends (Chapter 14)

Rebecca

Dorcas

Erk

Erk basically died in the prep screen, as I forgot to switch up my formation, and didn't reach him before he suicides as a green unit. As for the rest, this was the earliest I had ever lost Bartre, and I usually use him to help hold off the pegasi that attack Merlinus in the Rain. I thought Guy would be able to take his place, but without his killer sword (as that went to units that were likely to see more combat) he just couldn't cut it. Rebecca died while I was trying to get units back through the pouring rain to salvage this mess, but Dorcas died rescuing Guy long enough for help to arrive

Noble Lady of Caelin (Chapter 16)

Guy

Florina

Kent

Sain

Wil

I had a little bad luck with Lyn's terrible squad, and had two misses. Kent, Sain, and Wil all died ensuring Lyn lived long enough for Marcus to get over there and save her, and even then she made it out with only 5 health. With Florina it was a combination of Oswin missing what should have been a kill, and not realizing that Florina equipping the Javelin to get a kill on her turn let the cavalier Oswin miss double her due to weight. As for Guy, I had him camping out on a mountain to hold off the cavaliers reinforcements that attack Merlinus. The odd of his survival were fairly good, as the higher accuracy lances had hits in the low 30, and he had plenty of Vulnerary uses, but one turn they managed to get two javelins, and another lance to all hit on the same enemy phase regardless getting the kill.

The Dread Isle (Chapter 18)

Raven

Lucius

I probably shouldn't have bothered deploying Lucius, but he got a little chip in before he died. Raven was far more tragic, as it was in my desperate attempt to finish off a 5 health Uhai with one chance in the 70s, and two in the 50s, but alas he dodged it all and killed Raven for my troubles. Fiora technically lived as a green unit, as I couldn't recruit her with Florina dead.

Dragon's Gate (Chapter 20)

Canas

I made the mistake of checking the battle forecast with Nosferatu, and forgot to switch his weapon back to Flux before ending turn. That let Darin double and kill him.

Living Legend (Chapter 23)

Dart

Legault

This map was torture, with only Heath able to move easily, and him still fairly under-leveled. Now my biggest mistake was fielding Lyn, which I did to try and get the 2 levels I needed to unlock the Linus version of next chapter. The actions I had to take to keep her alive made it impossible to protect Legault, and just to add insult to injury, Dart finally falls to a mage from the darkness after I have already secured the alternate chapter 24.

Four Fanged Offensive (Chapter 24 B)

Serra

Rath

Heath

Geitz

I shouldn't have bothered with Geitz, but being unable to recruit him I wanted to give him a proper send off. That was a terrible mistake as I had to send better combat units to deal with him than I initially sent. Both Rath and Serra were fairly under leveled at this point, both of them did a lot of good, Rath could safely takeout Wyverns with the brave bow, and an extra healer helped, but one round where I didn't have enough people to deal with the wyverns because units had to keep the aggroed Geitz from doing real damage spelled their end. Then again a bad couple of misses would have done the same. As for Heath, he was getting fairly good, but I forgot there was a mobile bolter on this map, and that spelled his death.

Crazed Beast (Chapter 25)

Farina

Fun fact, if you can't afford Farina when she tries to recruit herself, she will stick around and let Hector talk to her after collecting more money. Unfortunately the shops on this map are hard to get to without a flyer, and getting some safely sell-able items on Hawkeye, and trudging his way over there took long enough (and he ended up triggering the extra monk spawn while crossing the water) took long enough that all the monks joined the pileup in north I created with an unequipped Oswin. When I finally got her I was overeager to train her and finally have a good flier to use, now all the ballista are depleted, so as I got her over to where all the monks were milling about I had to pass by eiter numerous cavaliers, or three archers. I went after the archer, and if she could hit all of her mids 90s accuracy hits she would have been fine.

Cog of Destiny (Chapter 29)

Marcus

I shouldn't have gone to Night of Farewells. I was low on equipment when I went there, and by the time I started Cog of Destiny, I had less than 10 tome uses left total, and less than 15 combined uses of handaxes, and javelins, and even my supply of regular 1 range weapons were getting dangerously low. With no flier to quickly reach the shop, or even avoid reinforcements while doing so, we had to fight our way to the shops. It was a Valkyrie that finally took him down, and if I had a second range attack (or a second unit capable of using the silver bow, which was the last weapon with two range remaining) I could have taken them both down before Marcus died.

Sands of Time (Chapter 31)

Isadora

Pent (+Louise leaves)

Harken

I should have low manned it by four that way I didn't have to deploy in the death chamber. I sent many of my best into that death pit, Lowen, Hawkeye, and Pent, plus Isadora in the hopes she could finish the Berserk staff with her movement, but alas I couldn't pull it off first turn, and then all three status staves hit units in the death chamber. Pent silenced (and thus unable to restore anyone), Hawkeye Berserked, and Isadora slept. I found a way to save Pent for a turn (although Isadora died), but when Lowen got bereserked there was nothing I could do to save Pent, and Louise left with him. Fortunately Hawkeye and Lowen got far enough apart that they started going after enemies instead of each other. Lowen did waste all but one use of the brave Lance while Berserked, but he was tanky enough to live his charge towards Denning, Hawkeye fortunately stayed close enough that I could Physic him through some walls, and it kept him alive until Berserk ran out. Then the Berserk staff got close enough to hit Jaffar while he was looting the treasure room. Everyone even slightly close ran, I even dropped some light ruins to make sure he didn't charge into the side of the throne room he effectively kept clear, and thus he charged into the back of the mass of enemies trying to break into the throne room. When he dropped to 1 health after I ran out of Physics I thought he was a goner, but he managed to dodge for a whole enemy phase of bows and magic before he recovered, and there he was surrounded by enemies holding a dragon shield with 1 health. I felt compelled to save him after such a feat, but we would have to break out of our choke point to do it. Doing so ut a lot of my units out of position, and even with the Merlinus Wagon charging out as bait, Harken who made the final kill, and was the furthest out, got taken down.

Victory or Death (Chapter 32)

Vaida

I forgot how the reinforcement zones worked on this map, thought they worked like in Cog of Destiny, but instead they spawn immediately and can act enemy phase, so the bolting sage she triggered finished her off, and with her death my plans in the south went up in smoke. Ended up extremely bogged down in the north instead.

 

[PPPPPPP270]

I did an ironman of Path of Radiance and would use that save to carry over to Radiant Dawn hard mode which won't be an ironman.

I will admit I reset the entire game until I completed chapter 9 with 0 deaths, because that's when you start getting new characters and losing character super early is extremely crippling gameplay wise. Also to get used to playing an ironman as my normal strategy of super aggressive turn 1s that doesn't result in a death isn't going to cut it. 

So far my deaths include:
Kieran (chapter 11 tried to save the house with elwind but died to mages)

Zihark (chapter 11 apparently Zihark and Lethe isn't good enough to do the top part of the map)

Mist (chapter 19 was in range of a wyvern lord and got one shot)

Marcia (chapter 21 there was a brave lance general boss with wrath. I also lost the full guard which is really bad which really sucks)

Rhys (chapter 23 got into range of a short axe and didn't notice the short axe warrior)

Boyd (chapter 26 he got crit by a brave sword swordmaster and had provoke equipped so took a bunch of attacks)

In the end I had a few character reach level 20/20.

Ike transfers his capped speed

Jill transfers her capped skill strength and speed

Astrid transfers her skill strength and speed

Oscar transfers nothing as he capped nothing

 

It was a fun experience but I realize how stacked mounted units are in this game and how annoyingly tanky enemies are later on in the game. You need max might forged weapons to one round a lot of enemies if your strength isn't the greatest while needing good enough speed. I see why Ike isn't that great in this game because of how shitty swords are. I had to do the final level with wrath/resolve Ike and it was riskier than I thought but was able to kill Ashnard for 2 no problems.

 

 

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

Ended up completing an FE8 Hard mode Ephraim ironman while I was away from the internet. Much to my embarrassment I had a few failed runs I did shortly after completing the FE7 one, but ended up getting bored enough to stop for a while. The first attempt I rushed through after completing my FE7 HHM, but it ended on chapter 8 when I misread enemy ranges and accidentally put Ephraim at the edge of a mage's range, after checking his range to specifically avoid that mage's range. Next two both got stopped at chapter 14, first time I entered the chapter with only Bishop Moulder able to use restore, and when I hit berserk range, after he recovered the first berserked ally, the very next turn Moulder got Berserked, and he used his  extra point of movement from promotion to chase down and kill Ephraim, and the cavalry were in the wrong place to rescue drop him to safety (and one died chasing after Ephraim to try and save him). Next time I made it to chapter 14, I had both Bishop Moulder and unpromoted L'archel able to use a restore staff, and this time I forgot those berserk druids moved, so after Moulder spent a turn restoring the first berserked ally, I  moved someone beyond the other's range if it were stationary, which made it move into range and then Moulder got berserked so L'Archel had to get closer to restore him. That put the far one close enough to let them berserk both of my restorer. I wasn't expecting the berserk staff to target someone incapable of attacking when they have other options, but it did. My cavaliers were in position to save Ephraim this time, but by the time the berserks were exhausted the only troops I had that could deal more damage than Vigard heals and survive his counter was capped level Ephraim, and after I got tired enough that I stopped trying to find a way to safely feed the kill to someone else, he then managed to either dodge, or big shield block for enough turns (I want to say it was 5-6) that in my already tired state I ended up forgetting to heal Ephraim (and rescue drop the healer back) and he died. I have very bad luck with the Berserk Staves, but lesson learned, the winning run I took the effort to get Bishop Moulder, unpromoted L'archel, and Mage Knight Lute to reach the staff rank to use restore.

Only deaths were Franz in Chapter 9, and Natasha in chapter 10. This Franz was the most defense screwed of the four runs, and this was the chapter where I pushed him too far and he died. As for Natasha I was trying to get her to reach restore rank as a backup healer, but I reached a point where I had to chose between whether a ballista ship would kill her, or the reinforcement cavalry would. That being said this was one of the only runs where chapter 6 didn't claim a kill. While Phantom Ship is notorious, I have found it rather easy to ironman if you rescue drop Ross into the sea early and have him sit on the spot to spawn block the boss, and send your flier around the sides of the ships with pure waters and javelins to trivialize the eye balls, never lost a unit on any of the runs with this strat. For style I killed the demon king with a Vidafnir triangle attack.

 

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

On 3/11/2020 at 4:37 PM, Hello72207 said:

I am making this thread so that people can share any ironman experiences that they have done recently.

i did some ironman runs before with different FE titles from the SNES/GBA eras, but that was a long time ago and i can't really remember the details.

however, from my previous experiences i learned few things that can eventually make this kind of runs a bit more enjoyable and less risky:

» play it safe, play it defensive. always check enemy units range of attack.

when you're not really sure about the survival of a unit after a battle in your player phase, either leave it in standby(possibly on a tile with good terrain bonuses) for the next enemy phase counter-damage if you believe it's tanky enough, or just pull it away from enemy range.

» be smart, don't take risks when it's not needed. it's always wise to send in your ranged units first to deal with the enemy, then use your melee units to finish the battle. that way your melee units will have better chances to defeat an enemy without taking damage, and will have more HP available for tanking in the next enemy phase.

when all the fighting is over, you should always heal the wounded when it's possible(if it doesn't seem necessary, you should do it regardless for good measure). even a single HP can eventually make the difference at times, so always try to have everyone at full HP(besides, it's always extra EXP for the healers as well).

» choose your units wisely. ironman runs can be very strict at times in terms of battle development due to loosing a unit for bad rng or player mistakes, with the consequence of having less "manpower" available in the long run. that's a common thing that usually happens in 90% of ironman runs, so you're bound to loose a couple of units soon or later. to reduce or even avoid the risk of loosing a unit, try to pick them depending on their overall utility, rather than other criterias such as personal preferences.

you should always consider every factor before deploying any unit. the three main factors to consider will always be: map terrain, enemy units type&weakness, and your available units type&role. after checking wich units can perform better on the current map based on their role, stats and items, pick the most reliable ones and you'll be set.

[The Roger The Paladin]

NEVER TRUST THE A.I. to be consistent. NEVER. If you've seen it do something on prior runs, don't trust it not to do something else. Also make sure you do preparation properly. I screwed up on the prep screen in a Shadow Dragon run. I forgot to give someone a key to open the door to the area Xane was in resulting in a bunch of wasted turns as Arran ferried the key over to the team going that way. Which meant Xane went over and recruited on a different turn than I was used to from prior runs at the start of enemy phase and got butchered. It's the butterfly effect of adjusting a plan after a small mistake that leads to a death. Also one time I totally forgot to bring Wendell to recruit Ellerean. So then I had to kill the guy. Point is bring everything you need for the maps or lose out.

[Koops]

So it's been since like... last week since I started a FE9 IronMan. I know, easy game, blah blah, but this is my first IronMan and I feel like I need to go easy for this one... although... I am now past chapter 17 and no deaths so far. There were a few close calls and difficult situations that had me on the edge of my seat or trying to pull Mekkah-Dondon big brain strats, but I'd say so far the experience is a blast. There's also some sort of burden that's been taken off by the fact that I won't be resetting if someone dies, meaning that I don't have to sacrifice any other good progress just for that.

So far my army is pretty good, now I wish Astrid had more than 15 strength as a level 2 Paladin, or that Oscar could stop looking mediocre compared to everyone else, but I've also gotten juggernauts like Marcia and Kieran. Soren has also... impressively been good. I never used him before because he always turned out eh to me but this time he decided to get good. And I'm not complaining.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Recently finished my Revelation Hard Ironman. Lost Rinkah to a 3% crit (even though her Luck was higher than enemy crit, but what do I know). Lost Sakura and Azura to general stupidity. Lost Shura (Corrin's S-rank) on the second-to-last chapter by not understanding how the "Replicate" command works (you can't move the Replica on the turn it's created, and Replica death means the original unit dies too). Overall, though, it was definitely doable. I could probably Ironman Lunatic Rev at some point.

[Koops]

Ok so I'm now onto Chapter 26 in my current FE9 ironman. Been a pretty smooth run so far except for a few bumps. Some people died, Namely, in that order, Shinon (Not recruited, he was deliberately killed because I didn't bother bringing an untrained rolf in a map where I would risk losing him), Kieran (Chapter 20, he was super unlucky in that ALL the lances in the area hit him, and then the archer who got the finisher), and Soren (Chapter 23, not because of any of the bridge's pitfalls, but because after he one-shot one of the ballistas with Bolting, the stone catapult sniper moved onto it and crit him). Aside from that, Marcia, Astrid, Oscar and Zihark have been carrying this run really hard, and Boyd, Ike and Tanith are being beasts in their own right. I'm also using Muarim because I gave him Smite and Ranulf to fill up my deployments. Mist is also being good, now if I can just get her to B rank swords, she can start using the sonic sword and actually be good at fighting.