TheNiddo

Megelar is the same country Edward came from. There's another character that came from that country. Not a playable character but somebody Edward pointed out. You learn a little bit more about the situation if you have Thelma support with Isaac. Also if you use her and have her battle a certain enemy two maps from now, you learn a little bit more again. (I have some grips about the various things that can be revealed in that chapter and how little in the way of hints you get before hand about them, but I'll cover that when the LP gets there). Also I believe Katarina found out about the church's destruction during the time skip. She had gone to travel back there. Probably arrived and found it destroyed.

Not using Katarina would mean you'd miss the items you receive in the after chapter stuff. I think there's another character who can also get something by attacking her but I can't remember for sure Also, Thelma's speed advantage is quite critical for when comparing her to Andrei. Your Andrei has a tad more defence than normal, and she pretty much always has more res. So they frequently have very similar levels of strength, skill, and def, but she'll have more speed and res. She also has a paired ending with Isaac. His only paired ending IIRC. Soooo its pretty much canon!

Make sure to have Katarina interact with the boss once they show up.

Funny enough the last character I have used, and I actually like them a fair bit. Turns out very well.

I've never used Meredith or Pamela. Kenrick I have though (He and Ameila are the Pent/Louise duo including pre-made support IIRC). Pretty solid, but he's basically a Paladin locked to just lances while the others all have two weapons.

Don't forget the Secret Shop this time! Get dem promotion items

Oh hey, you have promotion items for Andrei and Alicia now!

You guys and your spoilers.

Pretty sure that yes, she won't join you if you send a Lord to that house. For reasons that make sense with the right supports. Been a while, could be misremembering. Also Andrei doesn't have a forced promotion, he doesn't have a Lord class label.

Make sure not to have a Lord enter the red house on the lower left.

I'd say promote anyone once they hit level 18, Edward probably as soon as 15. Lords forced promotion is coming soonish btw.

Much like others have said: not a bad level but an awkward one. Too long of a path to get to the NPCs. RNG is RNG, generally I show up just as the last of the bulkiest NPCs are going down. Only lost Emilia once, think it would have been better if she had an Axeslayer instead of a Killer Lance. Tend to have to do something risky to stop the last thief but as long as there's a good flier going that way it normally works out. Bottom door for me always opens at the worst possible time. Though the first time I played this map on an earlier patch the bottom enemies refused to move until I got into their range. Made the map a whole lot easier but also kinda boring. Not a bad map idea, think it should have been less of a slog to get to the middle, make up for that with more reinforcements coming from the left path. Maybe one small wave showing up through the right path after like 5 turns.

Hopefully the 1-10 changes work out as expected. That was a particularly bad map for me with its never ending reinforcements. Also yaaaaay no siege tome in the treasure room. That was a complete ball breaker and momentum killer.

Huzzah, less siege spam!

I do have to admit that when my units got hit by a Hexing Rod, they were just sidelined for the rest of the map doing nothing. Would it be possible to say, have their max HP incrementally return over turns? Like say, after the first turn their max HP increased by 3 each turn until its back to the previous maximum? That way they aren't just sidelined, they'll eventually be usable again and you might not even have to wait until they got all of their HP back. Its still say, 5 turns to get back to max HP if your unit started off with 30 HP originally.

My strategy for this level:

I would absolutely use Ordanze over Nala at this point. Your Nala is just not getting strength or defence. Ordanze is pretty good out of the box.

Lets see if

Hrm, 3rd thief option... Cutpurse: can't use lockpicks or open locks without keys, but automatically steals a stealable item off of an enemy when attacking them/stealing an item doesn't end their turn (which ever one is more easy to program). Caps would probably be marginally higher than a Rogue's overall, with lessor promotion gains. In theory able to steal multiple items in one turn if you go with the second option, or able to at least steal + kill in one turn with the first option. Rogues have more utility, Assassins have more killing power.

Shining Bow targets Res I believe. Also when it comes to promotions: level 18 is fine for this hack. I've only ever gotten one unit to 20/20. And that was on the very last map. As for the next map

If you had brought Keiran along as well, you would have gotten even more dialogue: either now or later on in the chapter. Don't remember which one it is. This chapter has cost me a character before. Those lower chests can be the death of you, particularly when the game decides to be silly and that Ash has to physically step into the exit zone, can't be rescued and dropped into it.

Finally got imgur to work, unit breakdown time! But one minor note before that: Chapter 1-10. Felt like there were one or two waves of reinforcements too many. Got to the point of "okay enough already you can stop now I get the picture. Let me move forwards please." [spoiler=Post Game Units Breakdown] Belle was, overall pretty solid. She was absolutely the only unit I could use against the final boss of this demo: everyone else was getting slaughtered even attempting it if they had to eat a counter attack at all. She had a nice 4 or 5 turn 1v1 with healer support until Charles came in and popped him. As it was then I finally realized that the boss had reverse triangle and not just super dodging skills. Anyhow: solid. A tad weaker than I would like, but never really a liability. My Owen spent most of the game speed and defence screwed. Didn't get that last point of speed until the last map, same with the last two points of defence. Still, he was an absolute cannon. Point at enemy, enemy died. My first play through where he wasn't crap! Overall superior to Owen, and the best out of the Lords. Great speed, decent damage, actually had Res which was a rarity in this game. Loved his tome, used it all up. *Had one Strength Booster Started off with several bad level ups and I was afraid I was going to have to bench him. He pulled through by mid game though. Never particularly tanky, needed help with his strength, but was a very flexable unit. I really hope you guys cut down on the fighters and add in more soldiers/mercs early game now that he no longer has any swords. Early game Eagle + Lance locked + Fighters = not a good time. *Had one Resistance Booster Amazing strength, good defence, enough speed to not get doubled and to double any soldier carrying a heavy lance. Very key character for Belle's side. I like the unique staffs for her class. Made her overall more usable than Oona to me, as I could heal a hall blocking unit without putting her in counter attack range. Decent stats overall, though for a 50% magic growth I didn't hit it very much. Very much a glass cannon type character. Fairly solid if fragile at first before her speed growth kicks in, though I kinda feel like her growth rates should be swapped with Sofia. *Had a Defence Booster Aaaah Lily. Lily, Lily, Lily. I wanted to like her. I really did. But like I said previously: she doesn't have speed or defences. And she really needs one or the other. I kinda understand why her defences might have started off low, to make sure she's not too similar to Kate, but her overall bases don't carry her enough. Right now, outside of strength and hp, her growths are comparable to Federica's. Who is a prepromote. To me, there are two options. The first is to bump up her defence and resistance growths by 10% each. That puts them at 35% and 45% respectively. Drop her speed by 5%. This combination would further reinforce "this is a tanky flier". She wouldn't become the tank, that's still Darius' role between his superior defence and hp growths. And Lily would still have more speed than him thanks to her base amount. But it would let her stand out from Kate without overshadowing her. The other option is to go full Oswin on her: give her absolutely amazing base stats and then leave her growths as in. I'm talking adding 1 skill, 2 speed, 3 luck, 2 def, 3 res. Maybe a few points of HP as well. Her bases, if going this route, should be enough to carry her for several chapters even if you weren't to use her at all. And by using her, her overall slow growths are still enough to let her stay competitive when combined with her bases. Would also make her a rather unique character stats wise, you don't have an Oswin anywhere. Marques is a thief. His growths act as such. Perfectly happy with him: can dodge tank in a pinch and can deal decent damage with a steel sword, but you ain't using him for combat beyond that. *Got a Speed Booster I have a soft spot for knights. Love the fact he has 5 movement. Don't know how I feel about him turning into a sword knight, I tended to use him to tank cavaliers and fliers in particular. Lance is a better option for that than a sword. It also means he has no ranged option which hurts him. Makes him a less effective tank if he can't chuck stuff back at pesky soldiers with javelins or whatnot. *Was hexed. Max HP is actually 31. Solid all around unit. Mine was a tad strength screwed. Maybe knock 5% off of his hp and put it on his res to make him even closer to a true, all around unit. Either that or give him another point or two in his base res. Certainly not necessary overall, though I do feel that the team as a whole has a serious res problem. Not even the lords have good res, and they're classes that traditionally do: mage and pegasus knight. Harold was my most screwed over unit. In 4 levels he got 1 skill, 1 speed, 3 res, 3 hp. He growths look fine, and its great to finally have a unit with good res that isn't a healer, but mine just got screwed over hard. I think in normal situations he's going to be a very valuable addition to the team. The more all around good unit of the fliers compared to Belle's fragile speedster and Lily's... wanna-be-strength-based standings. Very useful. If you do make Lily a more Oswin like character, I'd suggest bumping up Kate's speed growth and defence growth by 5% each, just to make sure that it doesn't take her too long to be competitive with Lily. But otherwise she's a great unit, and as it currently stands is basically "Lily but better". She's a prepromote. What did ya expect. Fun fact: anytime she could double attack with her Thunder tome, the first strike missed. Only used her for two maps, but it was a weird repeating pattern. I used him for the first two maps I had him in, and then the final map. First unit you get that can really try to build res. Overall a pretty solid unit, I just wasn't interesting in using an archer much this time around. How short bows work really helps them out, though I'm still petrified of sending him towards the front lines with that defence. Didn't get to use him much, but I liked what I saw. The tankerish swordsman, though Darius is taking that role from him now. Those two might overlap a lot actually. Hrm. Glass bones run in the family apparently! Veeery much liked her bases, growths were good though like I said I couldn't help but wonder if many they should be swapped with Grace's. Got benched almost asap. Certainly helpful in the very early chapters but, if he doesn't hit his growths well he's getting left behind. Nothing I'd say I would want changed either: Good hp, strength and speed growths, okay skill and luck. Needs to get lucky quickly. Good unit. Just wanted to play around with the new staffs more than I wanted to use her. While she does give you a unit with res that can attack early on, her growths are very much approaching prepromote. She's basically Frederica with better skill/speed/luck in exchange for less defence. Balances out her overall utility, but they're barely good enough to keep her in the game. But, they ultimately are good enough I feel. As long as she doesn't get even slightly screwed. Fun hack overall, looking forwards to the next release. Do feel like the group as a whole struggles against magic a tad. If some of the ideas went through that would no longer be a problem. But as it is, there's only two reliable combat units who can really take a hit from magic and largely shrug it off (Stark, Harold), with another three units who can pull it off if they get a tad res blessed (Sawyer, Axel, Lily) and Oona who can preform that duty in an emergency. Chances are high you only have two options, which can cause problems.

Good to hear about the sub-bosses and the map redesign. Not quite done that map yet, but can I just say I absolutely hate that sniper by the prison cells? Interesting to hear that Eagle is now only Lances. Makes sense and I'm assuming we'll have a Sword Cavalier in our future. Hopefully some of the other maps early on in part 1 get double checked for enemy axe counts as well. Darius's change... don't know how I feel about it. Like using him to lure out Pegs and Cavs. Sword isn't as good at that. Makes him more different from Axel and Lily though I guess.

Jace IIRC got a base stat point shaved off (skill I think?) at some point in the past, pretty much to make sure he stays as "backup Andrei". I have had to basically use him before due to that very reason, and he's perfectly serviceable. But if both are getting their growths I find Andrei to be better. Particularly with that higher Con. Now Vincent? Vincent is a legit option. He's an axe user that actually has speed, and doesn't lose much for that fact. If Marco or Hawke are doing amazing no reason to switch, but if they're only doing average even, it's worth giving Vincent a chapter or two to try to prove himself.