Battle of the Battalions, Endgame: Which Battalion was Best?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Ahoy, mateys! Today, I make my long-awaited return. I come bearing precious booty from the pirate convention, and all of you are welcome to join in. And it comes in the form of... more battalions!

Round 11: Picking Out Our Paralogues

Today, we'll be looking at battalions that can be acquired from paralogues - particularly, pre-skip paralogues. Of course, there are a lot of paralogues in this game - especially in the pre-skip. So we won't be getting through them all in one round. Instead, this first round will cover pre-skip paralogues that each feature at least one of the Blue Lions. If you choose to lead the Blue Lions, they will all become available - otherwise, four of them can be played by recruiting the relevant student from out-of-house. These battalions are as follows:

Duscur Heavy Soldiers

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Armored

Availability: From chapter 6 (AM only), complete “War for the Weak” paralogue

Gambit: Line of Lances

Endurance: 120

Phys: +4 / +8

Mag: -2

Hit: 0 / +5

Crit: 0

Avo: -15

Prt: +5 / +10

Rsl: 0

Cha: +7

Galatea Pegasus Co.

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Flying

Availability: From chapter 7 (all routes), with Ingrid recruited, complete “Rumored Nuptials” paralogue

Gambit: Lure

Endurance: 105

Phys: +3 / +7

Mag: 0

Hit: 0 / +5

Crit: 0

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: +1 / +5

Rsl: +2 / +6

Cha: +8

Gautier Knights

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Cavalry

Avialability: From chapter 7 (all routes), with Sylvain recruited, complete “The Forgotten” paralogue

Gambit: Stride

Endurance: 105

Phys: +3 / +7

Mag: -2

Hit: 0

Crit: 0

Avo: +15 / +20

Prt: 0 / +2

Rsl: 0 / +2

Cha: +7

Fraldarius Soldiers

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 8 (all routes), with Felix recruited, complete “True Chivalry” paralogue

Gambit: Onslaught

Endurance: 105

Phys: +3 / +7

Mag: 0

Hit: 0

Crit: +10 / +20

Avo: 0

Prt: +2 / +6

Rsl: 0

Cha: +7

Gaspard Knights

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Armored

Availability: From chapter 9 (all routes), with Ashe recruited, completed “Falling Short of Heaven” paralogue

Gambit: Assault Troop

Endurance: 105

Phys: +1 / +5

Mag: 0

Hit: 0 / +5

Crit: 0

Avo: -5

Prt: +1 / +5

Rsl: 0

Cha: +7

Now, how do I feel about these battalions? You can find out in the spoiler box below:

Spoiler

Availability:

Duscur Heavy Soldiers can be gotten as soon as chapter 6, while Galatea Pegasus Co. and Gautier Knights show up in chapter 7. They each get a 4. Meanwhile, Fraldarius Soldiers are first available in chapter 8, while Gaspard Knights' paralogue pops up in chapter 9. These two get a 3.

Accessibility:

These are all B-rank battalions, meaning you might not be able to equip them right away. Four of them are grounded, each earning a 2. The exception is Galatea Pegasus Co. - as a flying battalion, they get a 3.

Gambit:

Duscur Heavy Soldiers provide the Line of Lances gambit, which is a pretty good offensive gambit in my book. That's worth 6.

Galatea Pegasus Co. bring us back to the trend of "flying battalions with underwhelming gambits", with the two-tile Lure. They get a 3.

Conversely, Gautier Knights offer an additional source of Stride - perhaps the best support gambit in the game. This earns them a 9.

Fraldarius Soldiers have another two-tile gambit, in the form of Onslaught. This is worth just 3 points for them.

At last, Gaspard Knights have the Assault Troop gambit. It's a pretty common one, but its four-tile AoE can come in handy. So they deserve 5 here.

Stats:

When it comes to stats, Duscur Heavy Soldiers are essentially the embodiment of Armor Knights. At maximum level, they offer an excellent +8 physical attack, and an unmatched +10 protection. +5 Hit is a nice little boost too. Still, they come at a malus of -2 magical attack and -15 avoid. A great pick for defensive sponges, but not so much for dodgetanks. They get an 8.

The Galatea Pegasus Co. provide some hard-hitting boosts, too: +7 physical attack and +5 Hit on the offensive side, alongside +10 Avoid, +5 Protection, and +6 Resilience. Not to mention, an outsized +8 Charm. This is honestly quite excellent, even among flying battalions. I don't think anything less than 9 is deserved.

Gautier Knights bring another +7 physical attack, but the -2 magic malus returns with a vengeance. +2 each to Protection and Resilience are there, too. But the biggest benefit is an amazing +20 Avoid. As such, this battalion will sit near the top of the list for any physically-offensive dodgetank. They deserve an 8.

Fraldarius Soldiers show up next, coupling another +7 physical attack with a respectable +6 protection. The truly critical area, though? +20 Crit, the highest afforded by any battalion. This renders them one of the premier choices for Vantage/Wrath builds, or high-crit builds in general. They get another 8.

Last but also least, we look at Gaspard Knights. They offer +5 each in physical attack, protection, and Hit rate... but at a cost of -5 Avoid. These stats would've held up fine for a C-rank squad you could hire at the guild. But compared to other paralogue battalions, they don't hold a candle. I'll give 'em a 5.

Uniqueness:

As mentioned, Duscur Heavy Soldiers are the only battalion to offer a double-digit boost to protection. If you're trying to build a defensive tank, they will usually be the single-best battalion at your disposal, full stop. They get 3 for this.

Galatea Pegasus Co. don't offer an original gambit, and they're hardly the first flying battalion at your disposal. But as you progress through the game and send more units into the skies, every flying battalion will come in handy. They get a 1.

Gautier Knights offer the Stride gambit - it's not unique, but it is a rare one, especially if you didn't choose to lead the Blue Lions. Moreover, they're the first battalion in the game to offer up to +20 avoid (all others that do so are post-skip). They're deserving of a 2 here.

As mentioned above, Fraldarius Soldiers provide +20 Crit. That's the largest in the game - not just at the time they join, but beyond as well. This may make them the best choice on builds that rely on one-shotting. They earn a 3.

As for Gaspard Knights... honestly, I don't see anything that makes them unique. Assault Troop is a relatively common gambit, and +5 Attack and Protection, while no means bad, are outstripped by three of the other four we just mentioned. 0 for them.

Convenience:

All of these battalions require the player to complete a paralogue, putting them each on the "low end" of convenience. Not only do paralogues require spending a weekend on battles, but they also tend to take more turns (and time) than quest battles. Now, on Azure Moon, they can all be played without recruiting any students out-of-house, so I won't ding any of them on that front. Difficulty is much more subjective, but of them, I would only penalize "Falling Short of Heaven" (fog-of-war maps where you have to defend an NPC can go to Ailell). As such, I'll give each of these battalions 1 point, excepting Gaspard Knights, who get 0.

Endurance:

These are some of the beefiest battalions we've looked at thus far. They each possess a minimum of 105 durability. As such, seeing them depleted over a single chapter will be a non-issue. They each earn 2 on this front.

Experience:

I make no secret that I'm a fan of defensive tanks in this game, particularly on Maddening Mode. Duscur Heavy Soldiers on Dedue, Gilbert, or Balthus? Inject that right into my army. They get a solid 2.

Galatea Pegasus Co. are one of the best flying battalions in the game. I tend to use 3 or 4 fliers in any given playthrough, and these are probably a top 3 flying battalion (definitely so on non-VW runs). So they get a 2.

At first, Gautier Knights may be seen as a strict upgrade to Seiros Holy Monks - more Avoid, more Protection, more Charm? Yes, please! But my Stridebot usually takes a while to B-rank Authority, and if I've assigned the role to a Mage, they'll actually take a power hit. So while I will use this battalion for Stridebotting, I tend to moreso find it useful for dodgetanking. I like to give it to my Dancer, for instance, so they get some EP utility (Gautier Knights + Sword Avoid+20 + Sword Prowess Lv. 5 is 60 Avoid out the gate). I use 'em more often than not, even into the lategame, so they get a 2.

Fraldarius Soldiers... to be honest, I haven't used them a ton. Part of this may be because I've only really used Felix one time, but beyond this, I don't do high-crit builds especially often. That said, I can see them as great on someone like Battalion Vantage/Wrath Dimitri, or simply Felix with the Killer Knuckles. They get a 1.

Have I ever used the Gaspard Knights? Has anyone? Is there anything motivating me, or anyone else, to actually use them? What's a "Gaspard", even? If they worked for Lonato, why are they still alive? Outside of a thematic stunt on Ashe, I see 0 use for them.

Summary:

Duscur Heavy Soldiers: 4 + 2 + 6 + 8 * 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 36 -> 7.2

Galatea Pegasus Co.: 4 + 3 + 3 + 9 * 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 34 -> 6.8

Gautier Knights: 4 + 2 + 9 * 2 + 8 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 39 -> 7.8

Fraldarius Soldiers: 3 + 2 + 3 + 8 * 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 31 -> 6.2

Gaspard Knights: 3 + 2 + 5 * 2 + 5 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 = 22 -> 4.4

Whew... I'd forgotten how intensive these can be to write up! Feels like I've just swabbed the decks up and down... twice! In any case, let me know what you think about these battalions. I'm always delighted to read your comments.

[SnowFire]

Duscur Heavy Soldiers: 7/10.  The good news is that if you want to do concrete tanking, Duscur Heavy Soldiers has the best Prot bonus in the entire game, and pack a great +8 Str. On the downside, that -15 Avo is kinda yikes for many characters that can sport some reasonable dodge rate, and the heavy soldiers lack wings to take to the air (a more reasonable complaint than on some battalions because if you're not running a Fortress Knight or Great Knight, the best raw tanking class is probably Wyvern Lord).  I will grudgingly give this a 7 but in practice it feels a bit more like a 5 or 6 since I'm not a fan of running the builds that most optimize it.  Worst comes to worst, just use it on a physical nuke with Swift Strikes / Fierce Iron Fist and ignore the Prot bonus, but it does only offer +5 to Hit rather than say Goneril Valkyries also offering +8 attack and +20 Hit in the bargain, so it's not truly optimized if you're not also eating the occasional hit.

Galatea Pegasus Co.: 9/10.  The best accessible-to-all-routes flying combat battalion.  Alliance Wyvern Co. and Immortal Corps are probably better, but they're VW-only, and Galatea both offers basically all the stats you want AND has the merit of joining nicely early.  It's just great.

Gautier Knights: 9/10.  Stride/10 but with better stats than the Monks, so if you have Sylvain, definitely upgrade your Stride user if any to this.  Joins early enough to be relevant as well.

Fraldarius Soldiers: 6/10.  Good if and only if you're doing some sort of Vantage + 100 Crit build, in which case you get the biggest crit bonus of any battalion.  No Hit boost is unfortunate, though, so probably not optimal for a Killer Bow Hunter's Volley Sniper, the other build that like high Crit.  I've never bothered running the Vantage build myself, but I don't think this battalion is essential to it or anything - there's a bunch of 15 Crit battalions out there with larger attack & Hit boosts like King of Lions / Goneril Valkyries / Leicster Mercs / Cichol Wyvern Co. that might be better anyway.

Gaspard Knights: 2/10.  What the hell happened here, IS.  Ashe's battalion is substantially worse in every single stat than Galatea Pegasus, which flies?  I don't get it.  Was it supposed to have some super-unique Gambit that got dropped at the last second?  Typo in the stat sheet?  Gets a 2 solely for at least being an early-joining B-rank battalion compared to guild-bought B-rankers, but you must have been building Authority *hard* to have so many B-rank Authority characters pre-skip to even consider using them.  Which you probably won't anyway even then.

Edited November 11, 2022 by SnowFire

[lenticular]

Welcome back! Now let's see if I can remember how battalions work.

Duscur Heavy Soldiers: 7/10. Are you running a def tank? If yes, then you definitely want these. If no, then you might want these. The obvious standout feature is the highest prot on any battalion, but it also has good might and a strong and uncommon gambit. I don't really consider the avoid penalty to be a deal breaker, since I'm mostly playing under the assumption that the enemy is hitting most of their attacks anyway, regardless of whether that's at 75% displayed hit or 90% displayed hit (for instance).

Galatea Pegasus Co: 8.5/10. There's an argument to be made that this is the best flyking battalion for any house other than the Golden Deer, with the only real competitor for that title being the Cichol Wyverns. Would this like a better gambit? Definitely. How about a touch more prot? Sure. Are either of these things enough to stop this from being great? Not remotely.

Gautier Knights: 6/10. This is the one from this batch where I expect that my opinion diverges furthest from consensus. I'm just not that big a fan of these. The two big selling points are Stride and the high avoid rating. Both of which are, on paper, excellent. But the whole package just doesn't work for me. For starters, I'm not the biggest fan of dodge tanks, but if I am running one, it's almost always going to be a flier who can't use these. And if I'm not stacking evasion, then 20 avoid typically isn't enough to stop me from playing under the assumption that my unit will be hit.

There's also tension between what Stride offers and what the avoid offers. A Stride user is typically going to be one of my rearmost units, since all the units that it buffs are going to be able to rush ahead. Meanwhile, a dodge tank almost always wants to be the most advanced unit so that it can be the one drawing aggro. The two best features of this battalion are in direct conflict with each other, making it very difficult to use both to their full potential.

I've also stated before that my preference is to put Stride onto a unit with Physic since they can still contribute if they're stuck behind everyone else. For such units, the Gautier Knights are probably a downgrade from the Seiros Holy Monks. Gaining prot and charm is nice, but losing out on might and hit probably more than offsets it. I also like putting Stride on force-deployed units for battalions if I've not really been using them. And again, this loses out in this use-case too, since such units probably won't have B in Authority.

But, with all that said, I'm still giving it 6/10, because it still has decent enough stats and Stride. If you use it, it will definitely put in work. I can imagine it being a good choice of battalion for something like Bow Knight Ashe, for instance.

Fraldarius Soldiers: 5/10. Just as the stats on the Duscur Heavy soldiers are heavily weighted towards prot, and the stats on the Gautier Knight are heavily weighted towards avoid, the Fraldarius Soldiers are weighted towards Crit. However, I rate crit less highly than either of the other two stats, so that's not a great start here. It also comes with a fairly poor gambit, which also contributes to it getting a lower score. Not a terrible battalion, but an underwhelming one.

Gaspard Knights: 1.5/10. Let's compare the Gaspard Knights to the Kingdom Knights. At max level, they have identical physical attack, hit, and crit, as well as the same gambit. The Kingdom Knights have +1 resilience and +5 avoid whereas the Gaspard Knights have +2 to magical attack, +1 prot, and +2 charm. Pretty even, with the Gaspard Knights appearing to just shade it. Except that the Gaspard Knights require B rank Authority and are available no earlier than Chapter 9, whereas the Kingdom Knights only need a C rank in Authority and were available fully 6 chapters earlier. Even if you are training authority hard and getting lots of units to an early B rank, it's dubious whether this is even better than the available C-rank options.

[haarhaarhaar]

Welcome back! I've been using this thread to help guide what battalions I pick up and when on my current run, so on lots of levels very happy to see the thread return!

Duscur Heavy Soldiers - 7/10 (EDIT: Retroactive score increase to 8/10)

Looking purely at the stats, this deserves higher. +10 Prt means this battalion is best at its niche, but it also has the second-highest available boost to physical attack - and I think it's the earliest available B-rank battalion. To the point where unless you've really focused on raising a unit's Authority, it's not likely anyone can even equip it in Chapter 6. AM is also the best route for physical tanks (between Dedue, Alois, and Gilbert, a def-tank is available for every chapter from Ch.6, and Balthus also exists for DLC users). However, I think the viability of def-tanks fluctuates throughout the game, and the penalty to Avo means that they are the only units who truly appreciate this battalion. The restricted nature of who wants to equip it means it won't get higher than a 7. 

Galatea Pegasus Co. - 8/10

More accessible than Cichol Wyverns, and available/equippable for longer. Could do with more Hit, but that won't stop me from equipping it as soon as a flier hits B-rank Authority. Lure is not competitive with other gambits you see at B-rank, but I quite like its movement effect (basically a Reposition for enemies), which chimes well with being a flier with Canto - there's definitely worse gambits on flying battalions. 

Gautier Knights - 7/10

Sylvain has arguably the easiest recruitment conditions of any character in the game, so I think this is the most accessible of the paralogue battalions. But Stride doesn't normally belong on frontline units, and physical units (who want the atk/avo boost) tend to be frontliners. There is a case for certain builds using this (Bow Knights/Tricksters/War Clerics/Assassins) but the fact your healer doesn't want this counts against it. Where this battalion comes into its own, though, is when you have to split the party. Stick this on a Paladin, Stride one group, and then use Canto to head to the frontlines of the other group. Its stats and bulk mean it won't let your Paladin down, and you're covering two bases with one unit. When it matters, it really does matter - but I don't always need to split the party, and the builds I mentioned before definitely have competition for their battalion, so no higher than 7.

Fraldarius Soldiers - 5.5/10

A crit boost without a hit boost (or, less importantly, avo) is not ideal. But there are certain niche uses of this, where you know you want as high a crit rate as possible (often when you're setting up against the Death Knight without Lysithea or Hubert around), and if you can rectify hit rates in other ways then by all means bring this. But there are other paralogue battalions that buff hit and provide only slightly less crit than this one, and they normally win out.

Gaspard Knights - 2/10

The weird thing about this battalion is I can't tell why it would suit Ashe. Most other character battalions at least appear to complement their character's canon strengths, but I can't see how this screams Ashe. For the stats it provides, B-rank Authority is also much too steep - Ignatz's battalion is better and comes at C-rank, so I don't know what's happened here. In fact, it's worse in most respects than the house armoured battalions available at B-rank Authority. But, I'm still more likely to equip it than the battalion presenting themselves at below a 2/10, so this is the score it gets.

On 10/14/2022 at 1:45 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Essar Research Group

  Hide contents

Accessibility: E-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 5 (all routes), complete 4 online liason missions (NSO required)

As a point of information, I just got this battalion again, after completing 3 of the 4-person recon missions. So theoretically, you could get it in time for the Chapter 5 battle if you explore on all free days that month - more realistically, you're actually accessing it from Chapter 6.

Edited November 25, 2022 by haarhaarhaar

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, haarhaarhaar said:

Gaspard Knights - 2/10

The weird thing about this battalion is I can't tell why it would suit Ashe. Most other character battalions at least appear to complement their character's canon strengths, but I can't see how this screams Ashe.

I dunno. "Has no particular niche and is outclassed by other, better options" seems like pretty quintessential Ashe to me. Jokes aside, though, I do agree. If I were tasked with making a battalion that fit Ashe, I'd have gone with high hit (to help him attack at long range), high crit (to complement his high dex), bow users with the Fusillade gambit (to match his bow use), and maybe make them cavalry to fit Ashe's idolisation of storybook knights. These do absolutely none of those things. It's such a weird choice.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yay, welcome back!

Duscur Heavy Soldiers: 9 stats, 7 gambit. B rank grounded, C6 paralogue.

Paralogue battalion time. These have very good stats, generally. Duscur Heavy Soldiers has a solid 8 atk, but what it really stands out for is 10 prot... best in the game. A must for any concrete tank, useful for any physical grounded unit. Even has very solid gambit, a mini-lord one. Hard not to find a lot to like, here. I definitely think this one is being underrated here a bit; you get it relatively early, and I basically always use it.

In a vacuum: 8.5. Adjusted: 8.5/10.

Galatea Pegasus Co.: 9 stats, 3 gambit. B rank flying, C7 paralogue.

10 evade is the best you get on a flying battalion outside of VW and DLC, 7 atk is nice too, and the mixed bulk is also surprisingly good for everything that sneaks past avoid. The gambit is the main thing holding this one back... but even so I always use this, every playthrough.

In a vacuum: 6.5. Adjusted: 8.5/10.

Gautier Knights: 9 stats, 9 gambit. B rank grounded, C7 paralogue.

Hello, did you want Stride with actual good stats? I certainly do, at least. To top it off, just as Galatea is often the best battalion for flying dodgetanks, this is the best one for grounded ones. Awesome.

In a vacuum: 9. Adjusted: 9/10.

Fraldarius Soldiers: 8 stats, 3 gambit. B rank grounded, C8 paralogue.

And finally, we start to stumble a bit. Fraldarius' big selling point is 20 crit, the only way to get that. Unfortunately, crit builds tend to want hit as well, and this provides 0 of that, so its stats aren't as good as this niche might suggest. Oh well. Still not a bad choice, but unlike the previous three, not a particularly great one.

In a vacuum: 6. Adjusted: 5/10.

Gaspard Knights: 6 stats, 6 gambit. B rank grounded, C9 paralogue.

Kinda unremarkable, like a knight battalion with B-rank charm, but also B-rank requirement... and late. Doesn't have much use, as such, but if you were forced to use it for some reason, it's fine.

In a vacuum: 6. Adjusted: 3.5/10.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[haarhaarhaar]

5 hours ago, lenticular said:

I dunno. "Has no particular niche and is outclassed by other, better options" seems like pretty quintessential Ashe to me. Jokes aside, though, I do agree.

Oof. No Prt-boosting battalion is saving Ashe from the truth.

9 hours ago, lenticular said:

If I were tasked with making a battalion that fit Ashe, I'd have gone with high hit (to help him attack at long range), high crit (to complement his high dex), bow users with the Fusillade gambit (to match his bow use), and maybe make them cavalry to fit Ashe's idolisation of storybook knights. These do absolutely none of those things. It's such a weird choice.

This would have been much better. Deadeye, and I guess debuffs/locktouch are his main unique contributions, so a battalion that reflects those would have been nice.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Welcome back, everyone! I appreciate that everyone seems to have stuck around through the hiatus. There are still quite a few battalions to go, so I hope you can all stay aboard for just a bit longer. As usual, we'll start by reviewing our scores from last week:

Spoiler

Duscur Heavy Soldiers received 5 grades, averaging out to 7.34

Galatea Pegasus Co. received 5 grades, averaging out to 8.16

Gautier Knights received 5 grades, averaging out to 7.76

Fraldarius Soldiers received 5 grades, averaging out to 5.54

Gaspard Knights received 5 grades, averaging out to 2.68

So, Galatea Pegasus Co. flew on high in players' minds, whereas Gaspard Knights left people aghast. Regardless, it's clear we're entering into a bunch of some of the toughest battalions available in the pre-skip. Speaking of which, let's move forward with...

Chapter 12: Piles of Pre-Skip Paralogues

Like the last round, we'll be looking at five more battalions. These battalions are all available through pre-skip paralogues. But whereas the last round was oriented around Blue Lions acquisitions, this time we're considering those associated with the Leicester Alliance. Here they are:

Gloucester Knights

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Cavalry

Availability: From chapter 7 (all routes), with Lorenz recruited, complete “Land of the Golden Deer” paralogue

Gambit: Assault Troop

Endurance: 105

Phys: +2 / +6

Mag: +2 / +6

Hit: +10 / +15

Crit: 0

Avo: 0

Prt: +1 / +5

Rsl: +1 / +5

Cha: +7

Leicester Mercenaries

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 8 (all routes), with Raphael recruited, complete “Death Toll” paralogue

Gambit: Blaze

Endurance: 105

Phys: +3 / +7

Mag: -2

Hit: +10 / +20

Crit: +10 / +15

Avo: 0

Prt: 0 / +4

Rsl: 0

Cha: +7

Victor Private Military

Spoiler

Accessibility: C-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 8 (all routes), with Ignatz recruited, complete “Death Toll” paralogue

Gambit: Assembly

Endurance: 105

Phys: +2 / +6

Mag: 0

Hit: +5 / +15

Crit: 0

Avo: 0

Prt: 0 / +2

Rsl: +2 / +4

Cha: +5

Goneril Valkyries

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 10 (AM or VW only) or 12 (SS only), with Hilda recruited, complete “Dividing the World” paralogue

Gambit: Assault Troop

Endurance: 105

Phys: +4 / +8

Mag: -2

Hit: +10 / +20

Crit: +10 / +15

Avo: 0

Prt: +2 / +6

Rsl: +1

Cha: +7

Almyra Mercenaries

Spoiler

Accessibility: E-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 10 (AM or VW only) or 12 (SS only), with Cyril recruited, complete “Dividing the World” paralogue

Gambit: Fusillade

Endurance: 30

Phys: +3 / +5

Mag: 0

Hit: 0

Crit: 0

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: 0

Rsl: -2

Cha: +1

Now, are these battalions among some of the best - or do they fall short? Here's what I think - spoiler-tagged, as you know to expect by this point.

Spoiler

Availability:

Gloucester Knights show up by completing "Land of the Golden Deer", which is first available in chapter 7 - this earns them a 4. Meanwhile, Leicester Mercenaries and Victor Private Military are earned via "Death Toll" (available from chapter 8), while Goneril Valkyries and Almyra Mercenaries come from "Dividing the World" (available from chapter 10, assuming AM or VW). This earns each of them a 3.

Accessibility:

Last week, we were only considering B-rank Battalions. This time, not all of them fit that mould. Almyra Mercenaries are E-rank Infantry, so they get a 5. Meanwhile, Victor Private Military are C-rank Infantry, earning a 3. The other three are all B-rank Grounded, so they get a 2 each.

Gambit:

Gloucester Knights and Goneril Valkyries each bring Assault Troop to the table. It's nothing new to us, so I'll just say 5 apiece.

Leicester Mercenaries bring forth the Blaze, allowing for a one-time stun of as many as 9 enemies. That also deserves a 5.

Victor Private Military offer Assembly, a rather underpowered two-tile affair. You can use it two times, so what score is more deserved than 2?

And Almyra Mercenaries come with Fusillade, a gambit renowned for its range and anti-flier effectiveness. This warrants a 7.

Stats:

Gloucester Knights offer a fairly formidable statline: +6 to both attacking stats, +5 to both defensive stats, and +15 Hit. This is definitely a battalion worth upgrading from meager origins. It's one of the best spreads around for a grounded hybrid attacker, so I'm awarding them a 9.

Leicester Mercenaries may be purely physical, but let's get a look at the exact number, shall we? +7 Attack, +4 Protection, +20 Hit, and +15 Crit... and all it costs is -2 Magic. Those are some pretty serious boosts to offensive potential, especially on a crit-oriented build. They deserve a 9 as well.

Victor Private Military look a bit more reserved by comparison. No magical malus, but we drop down to +6 Attack, +15 Hit, and +2 Protection... although +4 Resilience may make up for it. Even if it's a step back, it's still a very strong stat line. I think a 7 is appropriate here.

Goneril Valkyries offer just about the same boosts as Leicester Mercenaries, but with 1 more point of Attack, 2 extra Protection, and 1 extra Resilience. Honestly? It's hard to see this as anything less than the single-best stat distribution for physical attackers that we've looked at thus far. This combination of attack, Hit, and Crit is potent - and they're no defensive slouches, either. These fierce female fighters warrant no less than 10.

Lastly, we look at Almyra Mercenaries. This bunch just offers a couple boosts: +5 to Attack and +10 to Avoid, with a loss of -2 Resilience. That's a big attack number for an E-rank battalion, to be sure... but they offer no Hit boost, and only +1 Charm, making you wonder if Fusillade will even land. They're moreso competitive with buyable midgame battalions, so I think a 4 is the right call here.

Uniqueness:

Gloucester Knights are... well, they aren't totally unique at this point. Assault Troop is quite common, and a technically higher-power battalion is available around the same time, by completing the Balthus/Hapi paralogue. Still, +6 in each attacking stat (and +5 in each defensive) is uncommon enough to earn them a 1.

Leicester Mercenaries may be the first battalion to offer the specific combination of +20 Hit and +15 Crit. Which seems hyper-specific, but if you're trying to bolster crit on someone who also has hit issues, then they may be uniquely suited to the role. Also a 1.

With Victor Private Military, they do offer a high attacking boost for a C-rank battalion, and relatively early on at that. Of course, if you have the DLC, it's eclipsed by Nuvelle Chamberlain Co. just a chapter later. But then again, Victor Private Military give more Hit... what the hell, let's give 'em a 1.

Goneril Valkyries, as mentioned, improve upon what the Leicester Mercenaries do... but then again, they also come later. Among all available battalions, none match their Attack/Hit/Crit combination of 8/20/15. Super-specific, sure, but suffice it to say that they're uniquely strong, for a 1.

Finally, Almyra Mercenaries. An E-rank battalion that grants +5 physical attack isn't unique, as anyone sick and disturbed enough to bother getting Essar Research Group can attest to. Regardless, it is still quite rare - and in combination with +10 Avoid, technically unique among E-ranks. Another 1.

Convenience:

All of these battalions can be acquired by completing the relevant paralogue. For players who choose to lead the Golden Deer, the necessary characters (Lorenz, Raphael, Ignatz, and Hilda) all start in-house. The one exception is Cyril, but he can easily be recruited by just talking to him during exploration (assuming Teach has hit level 10). So they're not especially hard to reach, and I don't personally consider any of them exceptionally hard to complete - even if some of the sub-objectives, like keeping the NPCs alive, can be a challenge. They all get a 1 here.

Endurance:

Almyra Mercenaries make us look back to a time where 30 Durability was the norm, and just like in those days, they earn a 0. The other battalions all bring a meaty 105 Durability to the table, each earning a 2.

Experience:

Gloucester Knights are one of the best choices for a grounded hybrid attacker. Say, an Assassin who also carries a Levin Sword, or a Sniper who can do Hunter's Volley on either side of the damage equation. Even on a pure physical or pure magical attacker, their stats are respectable. I find myself using this bunch almost every playthrough, even into the lategame. They easily deserve a 2.

Leicester Mercenaries suffer from a generic name, and technically being overshadowed by another bunch here. That said, they're a great choice for any physical attacker with B-rank Authority before "that group" becomes available. Plus, there are cases where you'd rather have Blaze than Assault Troop. I think it's close enough that they tend to have a space on most armies, even in the lategame. They get another 2.

Victor Private Military may actually be better than either of the last two when they show up - because you're at a point of the game where most in-house units have hit C-rank Authority, but few (if any) have climbed up to B-rank. As such, they're a no-brainer on a physical attacker of choice, with truly formidable boosts for their time. That said, once you're in the post-skip, with most units at B-rank, they're somewhat less impressive. So I'll give them a 1.

Goneril Valkyries are "that group" I mentioned a couple paragraphs. Their stat boosts are hard to overstate for any physical attacker who doesn't care about dodging hits. These should be the first battalion assigned to the first grounded physical attacker who hits B-rank Authority - and they'll likely have a place on your team up until the Endgame. These have been one of my favorite battalions to use. They earn a 2.

Almyra Mercenaries are a little bit tricky to place. As mentioned, +5 physical attack is awesome for an E-rank battalion, and Fusillade is a very strong gambit. Then again, the lack of a Hit boost is a bit of a bummer. And at chapter 10, how many of your units are actually still back at E-rank Authority? Perhaps some you've picked up late from out of house, or those that you've had to rush to ranks for certain class certifications, spells, or combat arts. Maybe Felix, if you've been leaning in to his personal skill. But most of your units will be at C-rank then, at which point, there are numerous battalions competitive with this one. I can see sticking this on a "straggler", but it definitely won't hold up well post-skip, much less into the lategame. They get just a 1.

Final Scores:

Gloucester Knights: 4 + 2 + 5 + 9 (*2) + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 35 -> 7.0

Leicester Mercenaries: 3 + 2 + 5 + 9 (*2) + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 34 -> 6.8

Victor Private Military: 3 + 3 + 2 + 7 (*2) + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 27 -> 5.4

Goneril Valkyries: 3 + 2 + 5 + 10 (*2) + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 36 -> 7.2

Almyra Mercenaries: 3 + 5 + 7 (*2) + 4 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 = 29 -> 5.8

In any case, what do you think? Have I been fair in my assessments, or am I making some critical mistakes? How do you feel about these battalions? Let me know in the comments!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Gloucester Knights: 8 stats, 6 gambit. B rank grounded, C7 paralogue.

I'm a fan. Gloucester boosts every relevant stat by a significant amount except crit/avoid. It's not stratospheric in any one area, but it's wonderful for a Part 1 battalion. Amazing for a hybrid, but just plain good for anyone else. May not make it to endgame, but often does, because it has to fall out of the top battalions list for both my grounded physical and my grounded magical units.

In a vacuum: 7.5. Adjusted: 8/10.

Leicester Mercenaries: 9 stats, 6 gambit. B rank grounded, C8 paralogue.

A very competent B-rank option for a physical unit, Atk/Hit/Crit/Prot are all good, and a respectable battalion. Especially on CF where it doesn't compete with Goneril Valkyries, it stands out in a good way. On other routes it may not make it to endgame, but is solid midgame.

In a vacuum: 8. Adjusted: 8/10

Victor Private Military: 7 stats, 3 gambit. C rank grounded, C8 paralogue.

Ah, Ignatz, a representative of the commoner class... whose family owns a private military. Anyway, the stats obviously aren't as good as the above (even for a pure physical unit, Gloucester offers the same atk/hit but better defences/charm). But they're certainly good for a C rank battalion. Really, this is a lot like Nuvelle Chamberlains: very good for C (not as good, but not too far), but you should upgrade out of it due to the stats not being truly standout and the poor gambit. You can get it a chapter earlier, but it requires a paralogue, I'd say that balances.

In a vacuum: 5.5. Adjusted: 6/10

Goneril Valkyries: 10 stats, 6 gambit. B rank grounded, C10 paralogue.

Goneril Valkyries have the best stats for a pure physical battalion, only lacking res and avoid. They also have a competent gambit. It's not available on CF and faces competition from King of Lions and Duscur Heavy Soldiers on AM, but on VW/SS? If you're using even one grounded physical unit, there's a good chance this is what you give them in the second half of the game (Indech Swordfighters and Gautier Knights are the main competition, due to their gambits).

In a vacuum: 8.5. Adjusted: 8.5/10

Almyra Mercenaries: 4 stats, 7 gambit. E rank grounded, C10 paralogue.

This group's Gaspard Knights, i.e. a version of a battalion you've had for a while, gained too late. In this case, it's basically Seiros Archers, with more attack but less hit... but you don't get it until Chapter 10 at the very earliest (AM/VW only), by which point if you wanted a Fusillade battalion, you can use a Snipers (Kingdom or Alliance), which has better stats. Being specifically E rank (as opposed to D or C rank) is sadly almost useless by now, although it deserves a half-point over the B-rank Gaspard.

In a vacuum: 5.5. Adjusted: 4/10.
 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[SnowFire]

Gloucester Knights: 8/10.  Very similar to Nuvelle Stewards, but packing +1 to both damages, some more endurance, and Prot at the cost of Resistance, Crit, and Avoid.  Basically a winning trade, although that's to be expected for a B-rank battalion.  GK, NS, & Leicester Dicers are all pretty good if you're running a mixed damage unit and are pretty solid even on slanted units (a Byleth or Edelgard won't complain about more damage on Levin Sword / Bolt Axe).  Can be used into the endgame with a clean conscience if you want.

Leicester Mercenaries: 8/10.  A very solid battalion.  Per above comment on Fraldarius Soldiers, it's a good option if you're building a crit-heavy Vantage unit, but thanks to Hit +20, it's also a solid option on Snipers who kill stuff with Hunter's Volley or Bow Knights.  Paralogue isn't that hard so a reasonably early join if you want 'em, too.

Victor Private Military: 5/10.  Almost strictly worse than Nuvelle Chamberlains?  Gambit is better and +5 Hit but everything else is notably much worse, and both are C-rank battalions.  They're still okay, but definitely have fallen off with the DLC competition.

Goneril Valkyries: 9/10. The premier non-Lord grounded combat battalion, offering all the stats a frontline physical unit cares about - Phys, Hit, Crit, Prot.  Can't really go wrong with them as long as you don't stick them on a mixed-damage unit (but that's what Gloucester is for!).

Almyra Mercenaries: 2/10. I'll give the Mercs this: if they joined in Chapter 3, they'd be great!  ...they do not join in Chapter 3.  Even if you're using Silver Snow Cyril and some late-recruited E-rank Authority unit due to planning disaster, just give them already trained E-rank battalions rather than trying to build a new one...  they'll get out of E-rank pretty fast, especially given that you can just give them a Knowledge Ring this late in the game, and you can then equip them with battalions with more than 30 Endurance.  They get a 2 rather than a 0 solely because our hypothetical late-recruited E-rank authority character we're building a new battalion for might be a high-Charm character and if you really desperately want Fusillade, this is an option (very very late-recruited Ingrid if she's backtracking to a grounded class, maybe?!).

--

As a general philosophical comment...  lest the top-line scores for this batch and the Lions paralogue units look like score inflation, the pre-skip Paralogue battalions are great and basically define the meta.  IS didn't really seem to balance Paralogue battalions with regards to availability, so it's not like the post-skip Paralogue battalions are notably better, so the pre-skip ones are both among the general best in their roles (Galatea Pegasus, Goneril Valkyries, Gautier Knights) AND are around for many more maps AND don't need catch-up training later.  These high scores will be balanced by a lot of 2s & 3s for post-timeskip battalions that don't come packing some truly unique Gambits like Blessing or Dance of the Goddess.

Edited November 14, 2022 by SnowFire

[lenticular]

Gloucester Knights: 7.5/10. Pretty much unmatched for hybrid attackers. Supreme Armor Co. is better, but is route-specific. And I think I prefer Gloucester Knights to the (higher attack) Leicester Dicers due to the increased hit and the superior gambit. And this is available earlier than either of those two. Of course, hybrid attackers are generally not great, so being the best at a niche role is only worth so much. Fortunately, it's still very solid for pure physical attackers, especially given its early join time. I'm less inclined to put it on a pure magical attacker, sicne they generally prefer to have a magical gambit as well, but it can fill that role too if it has to.

Leicester Mercenaries: 8/10: Excellent bonuses to attack, hit, and crit. Only one other battalion in the game can offer this level or better in all three stats. And it then also comes with decent if unremarkable prot and a decent if unremarkable gambit, meaning it doesn't really have any weaknesses. The only reason not to run this is if you're running an unusually small number of grounded physical attackers.

Gonneril Valkyries: 8.5/10. Going out of order, because oh hey, here's that one other battalion. This basically does everything that the Leicester Mercenaries do, but does it slightly better. It appears two chapters later, though, which means that the gap isn't as wide as it might be, and I actually toyed with the idea of giving them the same grade because of it. Regardless, I'm most likely using both of these.

Victor Private Military: 5/10. Might see a little bit of use for a few chapters, but will almost inevitably be swapped out before too long. In the continuum of the trade-off between gambit and stats, this has notably worse stats than the Nuvelle Chamberlains and a notably worse gambit than the Alliance Snipers. There might be a few cases where I'd prefer the jack-of-all-trades, but I think I'm more likely to want to go for either the best stats I can get or the best gambit I can get, and this offers neither.

Almyra Mercenaries: 3/10. Pretty good, if you happen to have someone still at E rank authority at this point. You almost certainly don't have anyone still at E rank authority at this point.

[haarhaarhaar]

Gloucester Knights - 7.75/10

This is arguably the best battalion that supports both physical and magical attack, and I like running units like that. But characters that can do both stop being effective in the mid-to-late-game, and specialists prefer other battalions. Still, its balance and high attack boosts make it a straightforwardly good battalion I field for most of the game.

Leicester Mercenaries - 7.8/10

One of the best non-lord physical battalions, with Blaze to boot. It has better stats for physical units and a better gambit than Gloucester Knights, but more units can use Gloucester Knights profitably, so I don't feel there's a big gap between them.

Victor Private Military - 6/10

When it first becomes available, it is one of (maybe the?) most powerful physical battalion you can use outside of the DLC (because B-rank Authority in Ch. 8 is a push at best, and certainly unlikely to be widespread), and helpfully comes with a hit boost. But its lifespan is determined by when most or all of your team hit B-rank, which normally isn't too long after. Still a solid choice for that period of time, so it deserves its 6.

Goneril Valkyries - 8.2/10

A better version of Leicester Mercenaries, with the exception of not having Blaze. The fact that this battalion is available on three out of four routes, despite having the power of a house lieutenant's battalion, is what puts it over 8. 

Almyra Mercenaries - 4/10

You will be able to do better than this battalion when it first becomes available. But looking purely at physical attack, it might make your top 9-10 units at the time, depending on authority. It'll drop away soon enough. My strongest memories of this battalion lie in making the early game of NG+ Maddening vastly more manageable, as an E-rank battalion with +5 attack and Fusillade - not sure if that should influence my grading.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Hi everyone - hope you're doing well! Today, we can kick off another round. But first, let's review the scores from the last round.

Spoiler

Gloucester Knights received 5 scores, averaging out to 7.65

Leicester Mercenaries received 5 scores, averaging out to 7.72

Victor Private Military received 5 scores, averaging out to 5.48

Goneril Valkyries received 5 scores, averaging out to 8.28

Almyra Mercenaries received 5 scores, averaging out to 3.76

It's a wonder that any of Almyra's Mercenaries made it into Fodlan, with how fierce a front the Valkyries of House Goneril put up! Anyway, surely we're done looking at pre-skip paralogue battalions, right? Well...

Chapter 13: Pummeled by Pre-Skip Paralogues Aplenty

That's right - there are more pre-skip paralogues to ponder! We've looked at those associated with the Blue Lions and Golden Deer, so what about the Black Eagles? Well... they don't have any. Only Dorothea has her Paralogue before the timeskip, and all she gets from it is a Goddess Ring. So, let's look instead to battalions associated with the Church of Seiros.

Macuil Evil Repelling Co.

Spoiler

Accessibility: A-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 8 (all routes), with Manuela recruited, complete “Oil and Water” paralogue

Gambit: Resonant Lightning

Endurance: 105

Phys: 0

Mag: +3 / +7

Hit: +20 / +30

Crit: 0

Avo: 0

Prt: +1

Rsl: +2 / +6

Cha: +10

Indech Sword Fighters

Spoiler

Accessibility: A-rank Armored

Availability: From chapter 8 (all routes), with Hanneman recruited, complete “Oil and Water” paralogue

Gambit: Retribution

Endurance: 105

Phys: +4 / +8

Mag: -2

Hit: +10 / +20

Crit: +2 / +10

Avo: 0

Prt: 0 / +4

Rsl: 0

Cha: +10

Cichol Wyvern Co.

Spoiler

Accessibility: A-rank Flying

Availability: From chapter 9 (all routes), complete “An Ocean View” paralogue

Gambit: Assault Troop

Endurance: 105

Phys: +3 / +7

Mag: 0

Hit: +10 / +15

Crit: +10 / +15

Avo: 0 / +5

Prt: +2 / +6

Rsl: +1

Cha: +10

Cethleann Monks

Spoiler

Accessibility: A-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 9 (all routes), complete “An Ocean View” paralogue

Gambit: Resonant White Magic

Endurance: 105

Phys: 0

Mag: +2 / +6

Hit: +10 / +20

Crit: 0

Avo: 0

Prt: +1

Rsl: +3 / +7

Cha: +10

Holy Knights of Seiros

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Cavalry

Availability: From chapter 11 (all routes), with Alois recruited, complete “Sword and Shield of Seiros” paralogue

Gambit: Assault Troop

Endurance: 75

Phys: +3 / +7

Mag: -2

Hit: 0

Crit: 0

Avo: 0

Prt: +1 / +5

Rsl: +3 / +7

Cha: +7

Here we have four battalions associated with the foremost allies of Saint Seiros. Plus, we get an evolution of the Knights of Seiros from before. So, what do I think of this bunch? Find out in the spoiler tag below.

Spoiler

Availability:

The first two battalions come from "Oil and Water", which is Hanneman and Manuela's paralogue. It's available as soon as when they join, in chapter 8. The next pair show up in "An Ocean View", and while Flayn joins after chapter 6, this one can't be played until chapter 9. Finally, Holy Knights of Seiros require Alois to be recruited, which can't happen until chapter 11. Despite the variance between these three timings, they're all in the "late pre-skip" territory, so I'm giving them all a 3.

Accessibility:

For the first time, we're looking at A-rank battalions. Macuil Evil Repelling Co., Indech Sword Fighters, and Cethleann Monks are all A-rank Grounded, so they get a 1 each. Cichol Wyvern Co. are also A-rank, but as a Flying battalion they get 2. Finally, the Holy Knights of Seiros are B-rank Cavalry, so they also get a 2.

Gambit:

Macuil Evil Repelling Co. provide Resonant Lightning. It's probably the worst of the "Resonant Magic" spells, but it hits hard and has a great area-of-effect. That's enough for a 6.

Indech Sword Fighters give the rare Retribution gambit. I previously called it the best support gambit in the game, so they get a clean 10 from me.

Cichol Wyvern Co. offer Assault Troop. A very common gambit, to be sure, but actually one of the better ones we've seen from flying battalions. This earns them a 5.

Cethleann Monks bring Resonant White Magic to the table. I don't see very many people using this battalion for the gambit, especially at a point where Physic is plentiful. This earns them just 3.

Finally, Holy Knights of Seiros also have Assault Troop. They, too, will get a 5 on this front.

Stats:

Macuil Evil Repelling Co. are a magically-inclined battalion - the first we've really seen out of the paralogues. At maximum level, they grant a tremendous +7 Magic, +30 Hit, and +6 Resilience, alongside a more modest +1 Protection. And as an A-rank battalion, it offers +10 Charm. This is honestly an excellent statline, ensuring that any Mage who receives it will hit hard and hit true. When the only "flaws" are no boosts to Crit or Avoid, I can't give this any less than a 9.

Indech Sword Fighters are on the physical side, but their boosts are actually pretty comparable. +8 Attack is phenomenal, as are +20 Hit and +10 Crit. +4 Protection and +10 Charm round the line out. Relative to the Goneril Valkyries, it offers a bit less Crit, Prt, and Rsl, but more Charm. At just a step behind, I'm comfortable granting them a 9 in their own right.

Cichol Wyvern Co. reward a meaty +7 Attack and +6 Protection, along with +15 each to Hit and Crit. +5 Avoid and +1 Resilience close it out. So, less Avo and Prt than Galatea Pegasus Co., but more Hit, Crit, Prt, and Charm. It's better enough that I'll bump it up to the vaunted 10.

Cethleann Monks are another magical battalion, granting similar boosts to the Macuil squad, but a bit more subdued. +6 Magic and +20 Hit are here, as are +7 Resilience and a scant +1 Protection. Not the best we've seen, but still quite strong and welcome for a magical attacker. They get an 7.

Last and possibly least, the Holy Knights of Seiros start off strong with +7 Attack, +5 Protection, and +7 Resilience. And... that's it. Well, there's also a malus of -2 Magic. Good damage and bulk, but the lack of Hit or Avoid boosts is a slight letdown. Let's settle on 6 for 'em.

Uniqueness:

Macuil Evil Repelling Co. are your first source of Resonant Lightning on Black Eagles and Blue Lions routes. Therefore, they get a 2.

Conversely, if you choose to lead the Golden Deer, then the Indech Sword Fighters will be your first and only source of the Retribution gambit. This makes them irreplaceable on the route, and earns them a 3.

Cichol Wyvern Co. don't really do anything strictly unique, in terms of stats or gambit. Still, they're a flying battalion that come at a time when you start putting more characters into flying classes. This warrants 1 point.

Cethleann Monks may not be the only battalion with Resonant White Magic, but they might just be the only good one with that gambit. If you really want to use this gambit, then they're the battalion of choice. They get 1.

Holy Knights of Seiros don't really do anything unique. Assault Troop is pretty common, and while the boosts to Attack and Resilience are large, they aren't unparalleled. They deserve 0 on this front.

Convenience:

All of these battalions are acquired by completing a paralogue. Of course, this requires you to dedicate at least part of a weekend to doing so. The good news is, the characters you need for them can be easily recruited. Flayn auto-joins your army after chapter 6, and you can just talk to the teachers and Alois. And while difficulty is somewhat subjective, I don't count these among the harder paralogues. So I'll give them all a 1.

Endurance:

Holy Knights of Seiros have 75 durability, while the other four have 105 durability apiece. So they all get a 2 in this sense.

Experience:

Macuil Evil Repelling Co. are one of my go-to battalions, particularly in the lategame. They deliver some of the best boosts to Magical Attack and Hit of any battalion out there. Combining their Hit boost with a big Charm bump helps compensate for Resonant Lightning's poor accuracy. This is a great one to use, and absolutely worth a 2.

Indech Sword Fighters are the only source of Retribution on Verdant Wind, rendering them essential to enemy-phase strategies on that route. Even if you don't care for the gambit, they offer great stat boosts, too. By the time I hit A-rank Authority, these are one of the first battalions to deploy. They get a 2 as well.

If I'm using a physical flier with A-rank Authority, then I'm using Cichol Wyvern Co. It's just that simple. The only case where I can see it being neglected is a "no fliers" run - and even then, its stat boosts hold up for grounded units. They get a 2.

Cethleann Monks, on the other hand, don't see nearly as much use from me. Resonant White Magic feels like little more than a waste of a gambit slot. And while their stat boosts are good for magical attackers, they are eclipsed by another battalion we just looked at. Still, if I'm running a bunch of Mages, they could find some use. They get a 1.

Holy Knights of Seiros... have I used this bunch? Maybe once or twice. Their gambit and boosts aren't bad, but unfortunately, they're rather unmemorable. They don't exactly compete well against other B-rank physical battalions you can get from paralogues, unless you really want that Res. I'll give 'em 0.

Final Scores:

Macuil Evil Repelling Co.: 3 + 1 + 6 + 9 (*2) + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 35 -> 7.0

Indech Sword Fighters: 3 + 1 + 10 (*2) + 9 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 41 -> 8.2

Cichol Wyvern Co.: 3 + 2 + 5 + 10 (*2) + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 36 -> 7.2

Cethleann Monks: 3 + 1 + 3 + 7 (*2) + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 26 -> 5.2

Holy Knights of Seiros: 3 + 2 + 5 + 6 (*2) + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 = 25 -> 5.0

Again, a lot to say about these battalions! So, what do you think of them? Do they stand up to the ones we've already looked at, or maybe even surpass them? Or does being locked to A-rank Authority compromise their usability? Let me know below!

[SnowFire]

Macuil Evil Repelling Co.: 4/10.  Wrong Resonant X Gambit, although Hit +30 helps compensate for it I guess.  DLC has kinda ruined its viability as Timotheos Magi, Nuvelle Flyers, and Leicester Dicers are all quite solid mage battalion options that don't need to bother getting to A rank Authority while being better on stats.  Insert usual comment that the slog from B to A is substantially longer than a lot of other skill levelling, so having viable equivalent-or-better battalions at B is a pretty huge drawback.  Maybe okay if you're running a lot of mages AND recruited very few out-of-housers, I guess, but that's it.

Indech Sword Fighters: 6/10.  Retribution is very important for some builds, and it's better in the lategame which is when you might have built A-Authority on someone.  In general, I'm pretty happy with just B & C rank battalions though; if you're not making use of retribution, this isn't really upgrade over some of the B-rank battalions we just scored like Leicster Mercs or Goneril Valkyries in stats and lacks a damaging gambit.  Usual disclaimer that it's more like 8/10 if you're really exploiting Retribution and quite good, and 5/10 if you never really use it much.

Cichol Wyvern Co.: 7/10.  They're okay, and the flying battalion shortage kind of forces all of the battalions that do fly up the ranks, but I honestly prefer Galatea Pegasus if Ingrid is recruited, which has only a B-rank requirement.  If you need more flying battalions and can grind your way up to A Authority, the Wyverns can find a role though, sure.

Cethleann Monks: 2/10 1/10.  I don't think I've ever bothered to equip these.  Resonant White Magic is just too niche, and the stats are worse than Nuvelle Attendants who were available with far less Authority grinding.  Maybe potential filler in some sort of goofy 7+ mage run?  (EDIT: See Elf's comment below, I'm downgrading it a point for failing at even that.)

Holy Knights of Seiros: 6/10.  It's worse than most Paralogue B-rankers (no Hit boost, whoops), but it's acceptable, like a weird variant of Duscur Heavy Soldiers.  "Mixed tank" isn't a role the game likes that much but if you're attempting to build one, this is a good battalion for it, I guess, since it packs the respectable +7 physical damage as well.

Edited November 19, 2022 by SnowFire

[haarhaarhaar]

Macuil Evil Repelling Co - 6.5/10

When the game first came out, this was one of the best magic battalions in the game - especially for CF, where it exceeded Vestra, and its only genuine competition was Ordelia Sorcery Co. (+10 Hit is probably better than +1 Atk). But its early availability is mitigated by the fact that nobody will equip this till probably midway through Part 2, and the DLC brought with it more competition. Even still, I absolutely would run this battalion on a grounded magic attacker for endgame, because Maddening makes the hit boost even more salient. The 6.5 comes from the fact that it's not hugely relevant before the later game.

Indech Sword Fighters - 6.5/10

The only reason I'd field this over Leicester Mercenaries is for Retribution, which I don't tend to use often. I tend not to care at all about Retribution before the late-game, when this battalion becomes relevant - but it is still the strongest Retribution I can get, and a strong battalion in its own right. Again, not higher than 6.5 due its lack of earlier relevance.

Cichol Wyvern Co - 7.5/10

Available on all routes, solid gambit, and stats-wise your best flying battalion on at least two out of four routes. If you're fielding a physical flier, they're probably running this if they can. If you're fielding more than one, then you're definitely running this. Of course, it depends how much mileage you get out of fliers (or how committed you are to A Authority), and again, lack of earlier relevance caps its score beneath the top tier. But it's still really good.

Cethleann Monks - 2.5/10

Where my love for Resonant White Magic is tested. Not really, though, because I've always maintained the gambit loses its relevance outside of the early game, which this battalion certainly will be. In fact, you should have most of the powerful magic battalions fully levelled by the time you can equip this, so it's actually quite hard to justify. The only possibility I can think of is where your physical units are running the support gambits you normally use (Stride/Retribution etc.) and you're looking for something to put on your healer, where your healer has A-rank authority. Its Res is matched but not beaten by battalions on every route, but boosts to Res and Hit, and a decent boost to Atk, are perhaps the things that matter most to a healer? I don't know, I'm struggling. 

Side question - does the Cha boost of the battalion (or indeed, the Authority skills) affect the power of Resonant White Magic? 

Holy Knights of Seiros - 5.5/10

I cannot think of any unit that I've built specifically for high Def and high Res. But normally, somebody that wants one appreciates the other, and I guess Paladins sort of naturally fall into the role of dealing with both physical units and casters. So yes, I do field it, but not normally beyond mid-game, where I'm still dealing with the glut of paralogue battalions. 

[lenticular]

A rank in authority is a lot to ask. It's certainly attainable, and not all that difficult, but it will almost inevitably come at a cost. If you're putting in the time and tutoring to grab it then it means that you're delaying or abandoning something else. Maybe you're slower getting to A+ in your main weapon for Prowess Lv5, or you're delaying being able to certify into a master class, or you're abandoning thoughts of hitting S rank in your main weapon, or not bothering with a dip into armour for weight -3 and Armour Knight cert. Whatever the case, there's almost always going to be some other option that you could be training instead. So for A rank battalions, the question is generally "does this offer more than the combination of a B-rank battalion and the skill training that I'm forsaking by getting it?"

Macuill Evil Repelling Co: 3/10. There are 10 battalions that offer +7 or better to magic attack, and this is one of only two of them that want an A rank in authority. And because of the way that this game does paralogues, it generally works out that the more mages you're running, the more good magic battalions you have. The 30% bonus to hit is nice, but hit is rarely something that I'm desperate for on a mage. The extra charm is also nice, but not worth the cost of the upgrade from B to A authority.

I do have a question for anyone more intricately familiar with the details of the game's mechanics than I am, though. My understanding is that, when calculating a gambit's hit rate, the battalion's charm bonus is included in the calculation but the battalion's hit bonus is not. So if you compared the Macuill Evil Repelling Co. (30 hit, 10 charm) with the Alliance Magic Users (0 hit, 5 charm) the former will have up to a 25% higher (displayed) hit rate for Resonant Lightning than the latter and not 55% higher. Can someone either confirm or refute this for me? If I'm wrong here, then I might bump my score up a little bit since Resonant Lightning really would benefit from that extra accuracy.

Overall, I hardly ever use this. It's not a bad choice for Lysithea, since she requires relatively less effort to reach A authority than anyone else (due to her authority boon combined with Mastermind), but I wouldn't bother for anyone else.

Indech Sword Fighters: 7/10. Do you want Retribution? If yes, this is great. If not, this is... still pretty OK, I guess? Notably, one of the benefits of upgrading to an A-rank battalion from one with B rank is that you get extra charm. And while extra charm is always nice to have, it's less impactful on battalions which don't have an offensive gambit. The stats are a downgrade from Gonerill Valkyries, but an upgraded over most grounded physical battalions, so you might consider pushing on for A authority just for the stats. But if you're running something that is able to take advantage of both the stats and Retribution, then these can really shine.

Cichol Wyvern Co: 8/10. Alongside the Galatea Pegasus Co, one of the two best flying battalions in the game. Personally, I prefer the Wyverns for a unit who can run either, but rate them slightly lower overall due to the higher authority requirement. But it's something of a moot point which is better, because if you have both then you're probably going to run both. Good flyng battalions are in short enough supply that this typically will be a big enough upgrade over whatever it's replacing to be worth the investment in authority, and I will typically always make sure that I get at least one flier to A authority specifcally to run these.

Cethleann Monks: 1/10. Well, it's a good job that the other rewards from this paralogue are so amazing, because otherwise these monks would be a real letdown. While I'm not a fan of Resonant White Magic at the best of times, if it does have a place then that place is in the very early game. By the time you can be running this battalion, it may as well not have a gambit at all. The stats aren't bad but are nothing to write home about, and are generally worse than several other lower-rank battalions. Definitely not worth the investment of getting a unit to A-rank authority. I don't think I've ever used this, and I doubt I ever will.

Holy Knights of Seiros: 3/10. These are a bit weird, in that there are two ways to get them, both of which have their own problems. The first possibility is to hold off on doing the Sword and Shield of Seiros paralogue until chapter 11 when you've recruited Alois. I generally feel that it is a mistake to do so. If you do hold off, your extra reward is a copy of this battalion. On the other hand, if you do it sooner, you get to enjoy all the other rewards for four additional chapters. Personally, I'd rather have everything else four chapters earlier, back when the experience and the extra copy of Seiros Archers were both more relevant. And in the hypothetical case where you leave the paralogue until late because you have a lot of other paralogues to do, that just means that you've done a lot of other paralogues and got a lot of other battalions, many of which are probably better than this.

On the other hand, you can wait until Part 2 and buy them in the battalion guild starting from Chapter 14 (outside of Crimson Flower). At which point it's probably too late for these to have much relevance since they're now competing not only with the battalions from Part 1 paralogues, but also with those from Part 2 paralogues and the others that are available in the Part 2 battalion guild.

I'm having a really hard time imagining the circumstances where this would be something I'd want to use.

[Dark Holy Elf]

@lenticular You are correct, battalion boosts to hit do not affect gambits. So yes, Macuil Evil Repelling Co. would be a better battalion if it traded some of its hit for Resonant Flames, at least IMO.

Also generally agree with your preamble about A authority. It's 640 extra exp compared to B, and while you'd get some of that naturally, it's still a fair chunk. In particular, it's almost the same as the gap between E and B.

@SnowFire So regarding a 7+ mage-run, I decided to look up mine and check! And Cethleann Monks didn't make the cut. Perhaps without DLC, or with lesser recruitment, it would? I found my old file and checked my battalions used at endgame, and they were Gloucester Knights, Supreme Armored Co, Timotheos Mages, Leicester Dicers, Nuvelle Fliers, Empire Magic Users, Nuvelle Attendants, Merchant Military, Macuil Evil Repelling, Vestra Sorcery Engineers, Seiros Holy Monks, Empire Holy Magic Users. The Impregnable Wall battalion was also trained and ready to go but I didn't use it for the last map (I had used it earlier). This is CF obviously, but the other routes wouldn't change things much: you lose Vestra and Supreme Armor, but you gain Ordelia Sorcery and a second Macuil, at minimum. You can quibble Merchant Military, here, but it let me completely dump authority on one unit (Hapi), so I stand by the choices i made here. Cethleann Monks is bad.

Macuil Evil Repelling Co: 9 stats, 7 gambit. A rank grounded, pre-timeskip.

If you get a mage to A authority this is a very solid battalion, the 10 charm helping offset that it's Lightning and not Flames. 7 mag / 30 hit is in the running for best in show, though a bit more prot would be nice. If I get a mage there, I'm using this, but it's not so good I feel the desperate need to get a mage there. Lysithea is its most likely user due to the boon and Mastermind.

In a vacuum: 8.5. Adjusted: 6/10

Indech Swordfighters: 9 stats, 8 gambit. A rank grounded, pre-timeskip.

Similar enough stats to Leicester Mercs, but at A rank. In practice I think this would be worse than the above (while the stats are theoretically similar, Indech has more direct competition for its niche of lategame grounded physical), but it has Retribution... the only source of it on VW, even. So you may wish to build for it just for that. A bit worse on AM where there's another source of Retribution, but the stats are a pretty big upgrade even then.

In a vacuum: 9. Adjusted: 7/10

Cichol Wyvern Co: 10 stats, 6 gambit. A rank flying, pre-timeskip.

Stat-wise, it has it all: atk, hit, crit, prot, charm. Even has a good gambit. Notably, even on a non-flying run, it would still see some use as a "might as well upgrade to it" when someone runs out of other things to train and decides to go for A authority, because it's an upgrade on Leicester Mercs and lateral to Goneril Valkyries (+3 charm on both). But of course it's a flying battalion, so you will use it. Compared to Galatea, yeah needing A is a downside, but it's obviously worth getting someone there to use it. In practice you'll use both... this one needs more investment and/or comes slightly later, but is the better battalion while you have both, I'm fine with that having the same score. Kinda tempted to go to 9.

In a vacuum: 8.5. Adjusted: 8.5/10.

Cethleann Monks: 8 stats, 2 gambit. A rank grounded, pre-teimskip.

On the other hand this has basically no niche, as per the above notes. Resonant White Magic is not only bad, but its main use is early. Its stats are certainly good, but by the time you get it you have many that are even better (including potentially TWO versions of Macuil, which notably better stats).

In a vacuum: 5. Adjusted: 2/10.

Holy Knights of Seiros: 7 stats, 6 gambit. B rank grounded, C11 paralogue.

EDIT: I misremembered its gambit, so this is actually okay. It's in this zone where you probably won't use it (by Chapter 11 you very likely have a variety of better B rank battalions... perhaps not on a no-recruit CF run though, I suppose) but if you're forced to it's okay. The Atk/Prot/Rsl are all solid at least.

In a vacuum: 6.5. Adjusted: 4/10.
 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[DaveCozy]

Sad that I'm just joining in 😞 I had a lot to say about some of those previous ones. I can agree with almost all of the summary gratings except Kingdom Archers; that one is rated way too low imo, Retribution OP and D rank is really busted, specially when it's on a route with the only Battalion Vantage + Battalion Wrath unit Dimitri. It makes that combo super easy to abuse.

Macuil Evil Repelling Co.: 8/10

High authority requirement and being magical holds it back (some monsters love being immune to magic with barriers up). But frankly, the reason you go for this battalion is due to its very high Hit+ bonus when maxed. Lysethia and to a lesser extent Hubert have very good reasons to want it due to that, specially in fast/efficiency runs where you may not want to master Archer for Hit+20 with them. Macuil is simply indispensable if that's the case as you can simply focus instructions on Authority and ignore bows. But even if you feel like going for hit+20, it doesn't hurt having an extra +30 hit on top either, specially when you run into enemies like 180 Avo Cyril in Crimson Flower Endgame.

Indech Sword Fighters: 8/10

Retribution is busted, nuff said. Being able to counter back at any range with any 1-range weapon means you can set up enemy phase steamrollers with ease. Only reason I don't rank it higher is due to its high authority. It has very solid stats too fwiw, as it allows the user to get a hit boost and a crit boost to set up enemy phase offense themselves with something like Wrath equipped; although that unit should ideally have a ranged weapon too.

Cichol Wyvern Co.:  8/10

It's the 2nd best non-DLC flying battalion by far, only held back by its high authority requirement. Only flying one that can hit 4-tiles ahead with its gambit; even if assault troop isn't that great it's not like flying battalions have much to look forward to either. And it has very solid stats too, particularly for any potential dodge tank that wants to use Avo-stacking with (Battalion) Wrath.

Cethleann Monks: 1/10

There is no reason to use this battalion, unless you really need the hit boost and Macuil is with another unit. But I'd argue you've already used too many offensive mages in your team if that's the case. The authority requirement just makes it really stiff to use too, and your healers have better ranged spells by then too.

Holy Knights of Seiros: 4/10

Fun fact; this battalion can't be bought if you go Crimson Flower, but you can still get it if you do Alois' paralogue while he was recruited in ch11. That's about the most notable thing I can think of though, because it's otherwise a very average battalion; not bad, but not great, just all around average.

Edited November 18, 2022 by DaveCozy

[SnowFire]

On Macuil: Fair clarification that its Hit boost doesn't help landing the Gambit.  Don't think that really changes the score, but good to know.

On Cethleann: If the Monks didn't get used even in an all-mage playthrough that would most be tempted just for the raw stats of +6 Magic, that's enough for me to downgrade it to 1/10, never useful but not actively counterproductive.

On Holy Knights of Seiros: I'll admit that the niche they serve isn't common, but I will say re Elf that they're at least substantially better than the failure that is Gaspard Knights in every relevant respect other than join time.  +2 damage, +7 Resilience, and doesn't have a random -5 to Avoid; in exchange for minorly less endurance and lacking +5 Hit.  They even have the same Gambit.  Gaspard really is in a league of its own in pre-skip disappointment, while Holy Knights does the same thing but at least lets you potentially build a mixed tank, even if this niche is less useful than it should due to general paucity of enemy mages.  And the join time advantage isn't even as relevant as it might normally be due to both of them being B-Authority required when you might not have enough B-Authority characters around C8-C10 to care.

[Dark Holy Elf]

35 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

+2 damage, +7 Resilience, and doesn't have a random -5 to Avoid; in exchange for minorly less endurance and lacking +5 Hit.  They even have the same Gambit.

Oh, whoops. For some reason I thought Holy Knights of Seiros had Linked Horses, but I see that you're right, it's Assault Troop. That's what I get for voting off memory! That does nudge Holy Knights a bit ahead to me, I'll go and edit it later.

6 hours ago, DaveCozy said:

Sad that I'm just joining in 😞 I had a lot to say about some of those previous ones. I can agree with almost all of the summary gratings except Kingdom Archers; that one is rated way too low imo, Retribution OP and D rank is really busted, specially when it's on a route with the only Battalion Vantage + Battalion Wrath unit Dimitri. It makes that combo super easy to abuse.

I'm not sure if Shanty Pete's 1st Mate will update rankings later but I would definitely encourage you to go back and do the ratings you missed; I always like seeing what people say about things!

Personally I think the Kingdom Archers rating is fair, because while it is a good battalion, its niche gets stepped on once you start reaching A rank authority to use Indech Swordfighters instead; I rarely find I need multiple people with Retribution, and the stat upgrade is substantial, so Kingdom Archers falls by the wayside at that point. But that's why we need more people rating things; if you think it deserves a 9 or whatever you should give it one and pull the score up.

Edited November 19, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 11/18/2022 at 10:25 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

@lenticular You are correct, battalion boosts to hit do not affect gambits. So yes, Macuil Evil Repelling Co. would be a better battalion if it traded some of its hit for Resonant Flames, at least IMO.

Huh, I didn't know that. Or if I had, I had forgotten it. Battalion Hit rate calculations are an absolute enigma.

On 11/18/2022 at 10:25 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Also generally agree with your preamble about A authority. It's 640 extra exp compared to B, and while you'd get some of that naturally, it's still a fair chunk. In particular, it's almost the same as the gap between E and B.

Interesting insight. My rating system grades battalions linearly by authority (i.e. the difference between C-rank and E-rank is equivalent to that between A-rank and C-rank), but I'm starting to wonder if that's fair. Usually less than half my units are at A-rank even by Endgame, whereas B-rank is near-universal.

On 11/18/2022 at 2:28 PM, DaveCozy said:

Sad that I'm just joining in 😞 I had a lot to say about some of those previous ones. I can agree with almost all of the summary gratings except Kingdom Archers; that one is rated way too low imo, Retribution OP and D rank is really busted, specially when it's on a route with the only Battalion Vantage + Battalion Wrath unit Dimitri. It makes that combo super easy to abuse.

Thanks for joining now! Even if you're late to the party, you are welcome to rate the earlier ones. I will add them to a running document of scores, and re-calculate all the averages at the very end. I know there are a lot of older ones, so if you just want to grade some and not others, then that is fine, too.

On 11/18/2022 at 8:24 AM, lenticular said:

Holy Knights of Seiros: 3/10. These are a bit weird, in that there are two ways to get them, both of which have their own problems. The first possibility is to hold off on doing the Sword and Shield of Seiros paralogue until chapter 11 when you've recruited Alois. I generally feel that it is a mistake to do so. If you do hold off, your extra reward is a copy of this battalion. On the other hand, if you do it sooner, you get to enjoy all the other rewards for four additional chapters. Personally, I'd rather have everything else four chapters earlier, back when the experience and the extra copy of Seiros Archers were both more relevant. And in the hypothetical case where you leave the paralogue until late because you have a lot of other paralogues to do, that just means that you've done a lot of other paralogues and got a lot of other battalions, many of which are probably better than this.

That is a fair point. I have generally held to the rule of rating battalions by their first appearance, but it's left me wondering whether any battalion would actually get a better rating based upon their secondary appearance. In the case of Holy Knights of Seiros, I think it balances out (at least per my own rating scheme). The second copy gains a point for convenience (since they can be bought, rather than requiring a paralogue), but loses a point due to availability (chapter 11 versus 14). Of course, the question of "is an earlier second Seiros Archers better than a pre-skip Holy Knights of Seiros?" is a tricky one, which unfortunately falls outside the bounds of this project.

I do think it makes "Sword and Shield of Seiros" unique, in the regard that you might not want to do it right away. This can apply to other paralogues, but usually because "my army isn't strong enough right now" or "I don't have enough activity points". This is the only one where its timing correlates to whether a unit shows up as Green, or as fully playable. It can be nice putting Alois back in Brigand, to start working toward Death Blow. Not to mention, giving him a battalion of your choice.

On 11/18/2022 at 7:29 AM, haarhaarhaar said:

Side question - does the Cha boost of the battalion (or indeed, the Authority skills) affect the power of Resonant White Magic?

At least per the wiki, the healing amount of Resonant White Magic only depends on the user's Magic stat. Charm doesn't come into the equation (same with other support gambits), so it's function on this group is purely defensive. I don't know whether the "White Magic Heal +5/10" skills, from Priest/Bishop respectively, come into play. I could honestly see them going either way. I assume the Authority Lv. X skills have no effect, but I haven't tested this yet.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Good evening, everyone. I imagine you're all wondering why I've gathered you here. It's simple, really - we need to go over last round's battalion scores.

Spoiler

Macuil Evil Repelling Co. received 6 grades, averaging out to 5.75

Indech Sword Fighters received 6 grades, averaging out to 7.117

Cichol Wyvern Co. received 6 grades, averaging out to 7.7

Cethleann Monks received 6 grades, averaging out to 2.117

Holy Knights of Seiros received 6 grades, averaging out to 4.583

Seems that folks are big fans of Saints Indech and Macuil, with their formidable Armored and Flying battalions, respectively. On the other hand, Saint Cethleann's support squad got no respect. Better keep this news away from Flayn...

So that's it, all the battalions from pre-skip paralogues! We're finally ready to move to the post-skip, and... what's that? You... bought the DLC? Well, then our suffering just has to continue, doesn't it?

Round 14: Pay-to-Play Punishing Paralogues Proffering Proficient Battalions

We have five final battalions from pre-skip paralogues to consider today. If nothing else, I'm grateful that the numbers have lined up, keeping these last few weeks rather consistent in how much we've got on our plate. These come from three paralogues: two from "Black Market Scheme" (Balthus x Hapi), two from "A Cursed Relic" (Yuri x Constance), and one from "The Secret Merchant" (Anna). Let's dive into them, shan't we?

Leicester Dicers Corps

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 7 (all routes), with Balthus recruited, complete “Black Market Scheme” paralogue (DLC)

Gambit: Onslaught

Endurance: 105

Phys: +3 / +7

Mag: +3 / +7

Hit: 0 / +5

Crit: 0

Avo: 0

Prt: +1 / +5

Rsl: +1 / +5

Cha: +5

Timotheos Magi Corps

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 7 (all routes), with Hapi recruited, complete “Black Market Scheme” paralogue (DLC)

Gambit: Resonant Flames

Endurance: 105

Phys: 0

Mag: +3 / +8

Hit: +5 / +10

Crit: +5 / +10

Avo: 0

Prt: 0 / +2

Rsl: +1 / +5

Cha: +7

Mockingbird's Thieves

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Infantry

Availability: From chapter 8 (all routes), with Yuri recruited, complete “A Cursed Relic” paralogue (DLC)

Gambit: Absorption

Endurance: 105

Phys: +1 / +5

Mag: +1 / +5

Hit: +5 / +10

Crit: +5 / +10

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: +1 / +3

Rsl: +1 / +3

Cha: +5

Nuvelle Flier Corps

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Flying

Availability: From chapter 8 (all routes), with Constance recruited, complete “A Cursed Relic” paralogue (DLC)

Gambit: Resonant Lightning

Endurance: 105

Phys: 0

Mag: +3 / +7

Hit: 0 / +5

Crit: 0

Avo: +5 / +10

Prt: 0

Rsl: +3 / +7

Cha: +8

Secret Transport Force

Spoiler

Accessibility: B-rank Flying

Availability: From chapter 9 (AM or VW only) or chapter 13 (CF only), with Anna recruited, complete “The Secret Merchant” paralogue (DLC)

Gambit: Stride

Endurance: 105

Phys: +1 / +3

Mag: 0

Hit: 0

Crit: 0

Avo: +10 / +15

Prt: +1 / +5

Rsl: +1 / +5

Cha: +8

Are these battalions worth the price of admission? Or do they offer little that isn't already possible from main-game battalions? Here's what I think:

Spoiler

Accessibility:

These battalions are all B-rank, so that makes it easy. Nuvelle Flier Corps and Secret Transport Force are both flying, so they get a 3 each. The rest of them are grounded, so they all get a 2.

Availability:

"Black Market Scheme" is first playable in chapter 7, which is early enough to award Leicester Dicers Corps and Timotheos Magi Corps a 4. As for "A Cursed Relic", it can first be played in chapter 8, giving Mockingbird's Thieves and Nuvelle Flier Corps a 3. Finally, Anna's paralogue can first be played in chapter 9 (assuming you went with the Blue Lions or Golden Deer), so the Secret Transport Force gets a 3.

Gambit:

Leicester Dicers Corps have Onslaught, which is... underwhelming, to say the least. It's only hitting two targets, with up to two uses. It does decent damage at least, so it nets a 3.

Timotheos Magi Corps offer Resonant Flames, a magical gambit with a large area-of-effect and high hit rate. Even with just one use per map, it's among the best offensive gambits in the game. This squad nets an 8.

Mockingbird's Thieves offer a gambit with similar area-of-effect, and one use, in Absorption. So, it's gotta be great too, right? Well, a paltry hit rate of 30 would say differently. This battalion receives a mere 2 on its gambit.

Nuvelle Flier Corps have Resonant Lightning. This one's very similar to Resonant Flames, but with more damage and lower hit rates. I'd say it's a losing trade, but still renders a good enough gambit to earn 6 here.

Secret Transport Force also have a gambit with the "Diamond" AoE, and this time with 2 uses? Who could it be? Why, it's our old friend, Stride! One of the game's most ubiquitous support gambits, this earns the squad a 9.

Stats:

Leicester Dicer Corps grant a stunning +7 to each offensive stat, alongside a solid +5 to each defensive stat and +5 Hit. Of note, their +5 Charm is unusually low for a B-rank battalion. In other words, while they're 1 point behind Gloucester Knights in each offense, they have 10 less Hit and 2 less Charm. That feels roughly lateral, so this bunch can enjoy their own 9.

Timotheos Magi Corps are a magical battalion, through and through. They offer an excellent +8 to Magic, along with +10 each to Hit and Crit, a formidable +5 Resilience, and +2 Protection. This leaves them very close to Nuvelle Attendants Co. (who boost Avo instead of Hit, have less Prt and Charm but more Prt), so I'll give this bunch a 9 as well.

Mockingbird's Thieves provide +5 to each offensive stat, alongside +10 each to Hit, Crit, and Avoid, +3 to each defensive stat, and +5 Charm. Very much a "jack of all trades, master of none" battalion. That said, these boosts are all pretty respectable. Relative to Nuvelle Stewards, it's offering +5 Avoid and +2 Prt, but at a cost of -4 Rsl and -5 Cha. That's a step behind the top-rated squad, so I'll consider them a 9.

Nuvelle Flier Corps are another purely magical squad, with +7 Magic, +5 Hit, +10 Avoid, +7 Rsl, and (a slightly outsized) +8 Charm. Relative to Alliance Magic Users (whom I gave a 5), they're strictly superior: +2 Attack, +3 Magic, +5 Hit, +3 Rsl, and +3 Cha. At the same time, I definitely think they're behind the aforementioned Timotheos bunch. So I think an 8 would suffice here.

Secret Transport Force are the last group here, and they have a weird statline. They pair a scant +3 Attack with +15 Avoid, +5 to each defensive stat, and an outsized +8 Charm (seriously, what is it with this game and giving Pegasus battalions a higher-than-expected Charm boost?). It's obviously underwhelming relatively to the ones we've just looked at... but, what about comparing it against a much earlier battalion? Relative to Jeralt's Mercenaries (whom I gave a 5), they have -10 Crit, +5 Prt, +5 Rsl, and +7 Cha. That's usually a winning trade, so I'll bump them up to 6.

Uniqueness:

Leicester Dicers may have a decently common gambit, but they make up for it by having the highest offensive boosts of any hybrid battalion. While it's not as "standout" as being the highest in any single stat, I would say it's nonetheless worth 2 points.

Timotheos Magi Corps are, on Verdant Wind, the only source of the Resonant Flames gambit. That is enough to push them up to 3 on its own.

As for Mockingbird's Thieves, if you're playing Azure Moon, they are the only source of the Absorption gambit. However you feel about it, it does make them unique, so they gain a 3 as well.

While Nuvelle Flier Corps don't have a unique gambit, they do stand out as the only flying battalion that provides a boost to Magic. All others either debuff the stat, or else leave it untouched. This provides them with a singular niche when it comes to magically-oriented fliers, so they get a clean 3.

While the Secret Transport Force aren't your first source of Stride, they are your first flying one. Is that enough to be considered totally unique? It's hard to say. I think I'll compromise, and give them a 2.

Convenience:

All of these battalions come from paralogues, and the characters who activate them are easy enough to recruit, assuming you've played the DLC. So there's no problem in accessing the maps. The problem, instead, comes in completing them. These paralogues are... hard. "Black Market Scheme" scatters your army, and you have to reunite amidst many enemies. "A Cursed Relic" forces you to defend an NPC who's on the other side of the map from your starting location. And "The Secret Merchant" somehow thinks it's acceptable to throw Bow Knights at the player's army in a pre-skip map (perhaps it was balanced around its post-skip appearance on CF)? As such, these are among the tougher paralogue battalions to actually acquire. Not convenient at all, so they all get a 0.

Endurance:

Like many of the battalions we've earned in prior paralogues, these ones all have 105 durability. This earns them all a clean 2.

Experience:

You might think I've used Leicester Dicers Corps a ton, treating them as my go-to for hybrid builds. Truth be told, I tend to favor Gloucester Knights in that role. The Balthus/Hapi paralogue is much scarier than Lorenz's, so I usually get his battalion first. Plus, Onslaught is just worse than Assault Troop. I've gotten good work out of them occasionally, so I'll give them 1.

Timotheos Magi Corps are absolutely getting use, assuming I completed "Black Market Scheme". They tie for the largest Magic boost in the game, alongside sizable Hit, Crit, and Rsl boosts - what's not to love? They top it all off with the renowned Resonant Flames. Totally worth a 2.

I have a bit of a confession with Mockingbird's Thieves - I've used them more than they deserved. On my latest playthrough, I made Teach a hybrid unit, and this battalion seemed ideal for her. Sure, Absorption has a terrible hit rate, but thanks to a torrent of tea times, Teach had the highest Charm of anyone in my army. If anyone could land an absorption, she was the one. The Hit, Crit, and Avoid were all helpful, too. I'm happy giving them a 2, even if others may (quite reasonably) overlook them.

Nuvelle Flier Corps are a must-have if you're running a magical flier build. Whether that's Dark Flier Constance, Wyvern Lord Annette, or Falcon Knight Marianne - they want this. Quite an easy 2.

At first, "flying Stride" sounded... amazing. Overwhelming. Absurdly overpowered. But when I stepped back a second, it occurred to me: "wait, I want my flier to be Strided, not Striding"). If you're like me, you want tons of movement on your fliers, to get them wherever you need, so Stride support is great in that regard. It doesn't matter whether the Strider is a fierce Falcon Knight or a pitiful Priest. Of course, you can use this battalion on a non-flier, but in that case, it's doing very little better than Gautier Knights. Now, to be totally fair, there are cases where you want "Flying Stride", if the target is too far away for a grounded Stridebot to reach. But I didn't find that coming up enough to warrant using this bunch. I'm giving them a 0, unfortunately.

Final Scores:

Leicester Dicers Corps: 4 + 2 + 3 + 9 (*2) + 2 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 32 -> 6.4

Timotheos Magi Corps: 4 + 2 + 8 + 9 (*2) + 3 + 0 + 2 + 2 = 39 -> 7.8

Mockingbird's Thieves: 3 + 2 + 2 + 9 (*2) + 3 + 0 + 2 + 2 = 32 -> 6.4

Nuvelle Flier Corps: 3 + 3 + 6 + 8 (*2) + 3 + 0 + 2 + 2 = 35 -> 7.0

Secret Transport Force: 3 + 3 + 9 (*2) + 6 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 0 = 34 -> 6.8

But that's just what I think of them. What do you think of these battalions? Let me know below!

[lenticular]

Leicester Dicers: 6.5/10. These are decent enough, but there are just too many different things working against them to get a high rating. The bad gambit. The paralogue that unlocks them being unusually difficult for the time it appears. The way that hybrid attackers just aren't that good. They can get the job done, but I'm not excited by them.

Timotheos Magi Corp: 8.5/10. These, on the other hand, I am excited by. They come with the joint highest magic attack of any battalion in the game and the single best magically attacking gambit in the game. And then also get a useful little bonus to both hit and crit as well. What's not to love? If I'm only running a single grounded magical attacker, this is the battalion I want them to have.

Mockingbird's Thieves: 3/10. I want to like these. I really do. I've tried to make them work. But then I inevitably end up dropping them when they just aren't working for me. The stat boosts just aren't particularly great for the point of the game when they arrive, and Absorption has a bad habit of missing when I need it the most.

Nuvelle Flier Corps: 8.5/10. The unique selling point here is being a flying battalion with magic attack. If you're running a flying unit who attacks with magic, then you want this. It's almost irrelevant to talk about how good this is, because it doesn't have any competition in its niche. But it is good. Even if you aren't running a magic-using flier, it's good enough for consideration for grounded mages. Not quite top tier there, but worthy of consideration. But the high marks are mostly because of how it empowers builds that just wouldn't work without it.

Secret Transport Force: 7/10. I haven't really used this one much since I don't usually recruit Anna, so this is mostly theorycraft. This looks to be something of a weird one. I can certainly imagine several niches for it, but none of them are amazing. Firstly and most simply, there's the possibility of putting Stride on a flier, though I do agree with @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate that this isn't as awesome as it sounds. It's also a perfectly good choice to put on a grounded unit to give them Stride. As I've mentioned, I like to have Stride on my healers, and for that use case, this is the only choice that's a straight upgrade on the original Seiros Holy Monks. It also has the best Avoid stat of any flying battalion (tied with Immortals Corps) so is an option if you just want to make the dodgiest dodge tank who ever dodged. Or, if you're running two magic fliers, then this wouldn't be a bad choice. The first one would want the Nuvelle Fliers, but for the second one, having no penalty to magic and a support gambit is probably the best you can do. And all of these things are good but none of them are great. There's nothing that makes me want to rush out and put any of this theorycraft into practice.

[SnowFire]

The DLC really shook up the battalions metagame.  The 3 Nuvelle Battalions (although I rated 'em higher than most) and these 5 battalions are excellent and available pre-skip, which really weakens the case for a lot of post-skip battalions, since you only ever need 12 at most.  Plus, the Wolves are a totally free recruit with no need to mess with Byleth's build or worry about missing out on unit-as-an-enemy content, so assuming you're willing to clog up the roster a bit, doing their Paralogues is more reasonable than other random out-of-housers.  I guess the one downside is that their Paralogues are rather hard, but that just means not to do them the second they unlock - getting these two chapters late or so isn't really a huge problem when the battalions are end-game qualified.

Leicester Dicers: 8/10. It's pretty much a copy of Gloucester Knights available to any route.  Gambit & Hit bonus are worse, but the Phys/Mag damage is +1...  a slightly losing trade but not enough for me to dock it a point.  And while yes, Hybrid attackers have known issues, it's very easy to build at least one of them - notably, the 0-effort Byleth that just takes the free Enlightened One unlock probably wants a hybrid battalion so that they can threaten better Levin Sword damage, if nothing else.

Timotheos Magi Corp: 9/10. The premier magic battalion for when you're not stashing support gambits on mages but just want to kill stuff.  +8 Magic, +10 Hit, and a great gambit.

Mockingbird's Thieves: 6/10 5/10. The most well-rounded battalion of all time.  Not great at anything but it does feature boosts to pretty much everything.  Also, part of why hybrid attackers got a bad rep in OG 3H was that there weren't enough battalions to go around, so if you're running a lot of hybrid units and you've already deployed Dicers / Gloucester (if recruited) / (route-specific Supreme Armored Co.) and need yet another battalion of that type, then these will do the trick, so it does fill a niche.  While better than running a non-hybrid battalion on such a unit, these are kinda cleanly the last in line, though.  Doesn't help that Absorption, while cool, is still pretty bad objectively. (Maybe if vanilla 3H had more fancy terrain like Cindered Shadows and Yuri could park on a +40 Avo square to survive some bold charge-in-the-middle play like Absorption wants you to do.) (EDIT: Forgot about Nuvelle Stewards - which are extremely similar and available at C-authority.  MBT has slightly better Avoid, Nuvelle Stewards has a better Gambit...  eh that's enough to push this down a point.)

Nuvelle Flier Corps: 8/10. Essential if you're running a Dark Flier or some sort of Bolt Axe Wyvern Lord build, and solid enough otherwise.  Per comments on Macuil Evil Co. above, that battalion's stock has seriously sunk since the Nuvelle FC showed up, as they're very similar battalions but one only requires B-Authority. Macuil is probably a very slight upgrade if you hit A-Authority, but this is skill training time probably better spent hunting for Black Magic Range +1 instead.

Secret Transport Force: 8/10. Not really my style, I've never run these personally.  That said, they are Yet Another Flying Battalion in a game where flyers are extremely good, and has one of the best (with route-specific Immortal Corps) flying Avoid scores, so if you just want to focus on creating an unkillable flying dodgetank that happens to also have Stride, these are solid.  The measly +3 might doesn't make me super enthusiastic as that gets into "might start missing KOs" range, hence why I haven't actually run this that often, but I can't deny its usefulness on more supporty units or more focused dodgetanks.  The other drawback which I won't focus on TOO much is just that Anna's paralogue just sucks, especially the non-Eagles version, as it's clearly designed for post-skip with Jeritza yet done pre-skip in other routes.  Ninja reinforcement Bow Knights vs. pre-skip units on a fog of war map?  Ugh, not fun (in the literal sense of not being fun).

Arnault Goddess Circle: 6/10.  Think I missed rating this one from when we did the Eagles pre-skip battalions.  A very strange battalion that lets you equip another battalion on top of it, but denies you your accessory slot.  I guess regen can be handy on some maps and if you didn't deploy a lot of healers, so it's okay, but not really required or anything.

Edited November 22, 2022 by SnowFire

[haarhaarhaar]

Loving the naming sense for this thread @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate!

3 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Arnault Goddess Circle: 6/10.  Think I missed rating this one from when we did the Eagles pre-skip battalions.  A very strange battalion that lets you equip another battalion on top of it, but denies you your accessory slot.  I guess regen can be handy on some maps and if you didn't deploy a lot of healers, so it's okay, but not really required or anything.

Is this real, or a joke I'm not getting?

On 11/20/2022 at 1:48 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

At least per the wiki, the healing amount of Resonant White Magic only depends on the user's Magic stat. Charm doesn't come into the equation (same with other support gambits), so it's function on this group is purely defensive. I don't know whether the "White Magic Heal +5/10" skills, from Priest/Bishop respectively, come into play. I could honestly see them going either way. I assume the Authority Lv. X skills have no effect, but I haven't tested this yet.

Thanks for checking - I might test it out on my current run.

On 11/11/2022 at 12:43 PM, haarhaarhaar said:

Duscur Heavy Soldiers - 7/10

On 11/11/2022 at 2:46 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I definitely think this one is being underrated here a bit; you get it relatively early, and I basically always use it.

If it's possible to modify gradings @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate, I'd like to raise my grading for Duscur to an 8/10. I think in hindsight @Dark Holy Elf was right, and I was underrating this a bit - using it on my current run has made Part 1 paralogues a lot easier, and will probably make face-tanking a lot easier even for people I don't normally consider for the def-tank slot. I've been looking at battalions on my current run, and it may make endgame based on current performance, so raising my score by a whole point is my way of trying to reflect that change in opinion.

 

Leicester Dicers Corps - 7.65/10

I stand by what I said before about Gloucester Knights being the best mixed battalion. +1 phys/mag Atk on this battalion, but +10 Hit and Assault Troop on Gloucester Knights. And Gloucester Knights has the availability advantage of not being in a rough paralogue. That being said, Balthus is a free recruit, and this battalion's Atk boosts alone mean it could be in your party for a while. So I can't dock it too severely compared to Gloucester Knights.

Timotheos Magi Corps - 8.25/10

It isn't quite the best magic battalion in the game I think, but it is far more accessible than its competition, which means it is getting a higher score than either of them. I think its balanced stats counts against it - magic battalions I deem better stat-wise (Macuil and Ordelia) have stronger Hit and comparable Atk - which are basically the only two stats anyone who wants this care about. The Crit and Prt boost are nice, but not significant enough to a mage that I value them.

Mockingbird's Thieves - 2.5/10

Dare I say that these aren't good? Yes, your hybrid wants it, but not as much as other battalions on here. For normal units, this is competitive/better than C-rank battalions, but doesn't compare that well to B-rank battalions. It's locked to arguably the hardest paralogue in the game, pre- or post-skip, and it has Absorption, which I can't run with a straight face. Waiting around to get Holy Knights of Seiros annoys me, but I'm still more likely to field that than I am to field this. At least Alliance Veteran Duelists arrive at C-rank, where I'm still happy to play around with battalions, but I'm not fielding this on anyone who I've toiled to get B-rank for. 

EDIT: To point out that Nuvelle Stewards Co. exists, which you get basically for free if you have the DLC and requires C-rank Authority, and compared to this has -5 Avo, -2 Prt, +4 Res, +5 Cha, and a much better gambit. So this could rank as low as 5th on the list of battalions your hybrid actually wants, where all the battalions that rank above it are also better for normal units as well.

Nuvelle Fliers Corps - 8/10

By stats/gambit alone, this battalion deserves a bit less - but it flies, and your Dark Flier loves it, so it ascends to the top tier, because magic + flight is that good. If you aren't running a Dark Flier, dock it a couple of points, because you'll field it in the midgame but not for too long in Part 2.

Secret Transport Force - 6.5/10

I'm struggling in my current run on whether to field this or the Kingdom Wyvern Co. as my third flying battalion. Flying Stride is theoretically good, because I can Stride from positions I might not otherwise be able to - but if I'm running a flier, I want them to have the effects of Stride more than anyone. There's no real reason to run this on a grounded unit (Gautier has better Atk/Avo, Holy Monks has no Authority requirement or Mag malus), its stat boosts aren't great for B-rank, and I'm not much of an Alert Stance+ person. I'm giving it a 6.5, but I don't feel happy about it.

Edited November 21, 2022 by haarhaarhaar