Czar_Yoshi

Since you've left Tactician already and aren't training Miriel, you'll need to invest in a Wyrmslayer for Cht.5. Lon'qu should use it and take as much exp as possible (along with Chrom), with Avatar sniping using the Renown Levin Sword. Your Avatar is going to have to take a backseat far earlier than normal because otherwise you'll hit Lv.20 before getting a MS and be stuck- so you'll also want to either hold off on Par.1 or use it for more non-Avatar training. You'll be alright in the long run, but this will hurt a little right now.

During Cht.3-6, you should focus on Avatar and one other unit- usually Miriel or Sumia. Chrom can help out when possible but not be prioritized. Lissa should get as much exp as she can, and Maribelle as well if you want two healers or get an early MS for Lissa. During Cht.7-11, focus on Chrom, your second unit from earlygame, and take one or two more- enough for ~3 parent pairs. Cordelia and Nowi make very good choices for wives for Avatar and can otherwise make good use of Fred/Vaike supports, and Panne is also a strong choice (but not for Avatar). Gregor is an excellent drop-in husband for Miriel and gains Nowi support quickly if you just want early Second Seals, and Libra's staves make building support easy and his bases work nicely with Lissa/Maribelle if you want to get one of their children. Chrom's training is particularly good in Cht.7, Cordelia's in Cht.8 and Nowi's in Cht.10. If you use Panne, make sure to save a Seal for her to get to Wyvern Rider (sell her Beaststone once you're done with it). If you use Nowi, make sure to buy her a Dragonstone+ from Spotpass Tiki and save her a Seraph Robe (get it from a Paralogue or give her one from Cht.10). If you use Cordelia, consider investing in a lightly forged Short Spear and a Str tonic to ensure ORKOes on Cht.8's Dark Mages. If either Cordelia or Sumia are present, forge the Beastkiller from Renown (or if it's damaged, buy a new one. Maybe buy a new one anyway, they're good).

If Avatar is having problems surviving alone, you'll just have to pair with Fred and tank stuff. Stahl can survive a round of combat with a Barb unpaired, Virion can poke anything, Vaike can give good boosts for support units and Chrom/Sully can finish or poke as well- as long as they get a sole enemy they should bbe able to pigpile it just fine. Trying not to let Fred get kills is good, though definitely use him for support and softening.

Or Hawkeye or Vantage+ or anything else. It's completely Lunatic+ proof.

He'll still have a Chrom and an Aversa to take down if he wants to kill clones, as well an an allied Aversa to outrun to get to them.

Wow, Yarne, that's... A very interesting expression you've got on your face, there.

Viable =/= consistent. Whether or not something is consistent is entirely subjective. No matter how happy you are with your Frederick Emblem runs, that will not change whether or not he finds them consistent. On the one hand, I wouldn't be surprised if Lunatic messes with growths. On the other, most of Awakening's non-HP growths are around 50% so you're just as likely to get blessed as you are to get screwed. Spd and Def are key. Having good Mag going into Cht.2 helps quite a bit too. Being Str/Lck screwed can change midgame strats but isn't a run killer, and Skl/Res don't really matter.

Looks pretty standard. Potential child pairing ideas?

Exactly. You can take a hit, and therefore it's possible for Robin to help out in combat if you can limit her to one battle. You're not going to find anyone other than Fred and maybe Vaike who can take more than one hit uninvested, you know. He can also do it with two Spd procs and a C Chrom support (much better odds of DS) or one Spd proc and a C Chrom support with at least 10 Spd on Chrom if need be.

Chrom can walk on water. Barbs/Myrms can't. They can't catch him should he go swimming out of the Mage's range. From there, he can walk within a tile of a shore space that's out of enemy range and everyone will come to get him, before he moves out of the way on the next turn- you use this to get them into a better position for blasting with Robin.

That's doable, not consistent. There's a big difference. I'd consider earlygame consistent if you could feasibly clear Pro through Cht.4 with no saves. Regardless, Int's Cht.2 clear is fairly consistent with low enough stat thresholds that you can reach them reasonably without the Water Trick. You'll still run into a lot of trouble later with the resulting not-overleveled-enough Avatar, but Cht.2 at least will go down with little trouble.

There's a very big difference between taking damage and living and taking damage and dying. If that "lots" isn't enough to OHKO you, your Avatar can still help out, even if you can't be the lead tank.

I don't usually go for procs on my 100% DS pairs. Having randomly triggering damage boosters sort of defeats the point of 100% DS, either my KOes still won't be guaranteed or I didn't need the procs in the first place. If you want to get that last pair, you've got some extra Skl sitting around in Ricken (Gerome has Lucina, Ricken's Sniper could be put to use elsewhere). Alternately, Morgan could shore up someone who's really bad to begin with. Your Noire pair will be a lot stronger if you can get her Frederick- Inigo doesn't want Virion but there are plenty of children with fathers Inigo would like who are willing to give theirs up for Virion.

Hah. How do you ever intend to get Vantage/Sol on your Berserker Gerome with such a primitive setup? ...

What counts as grinding differs from person to person, but there are a few common lines people draw: whether or not DLC is used, whether or not Logbook/Spotpass units are used, whether or not Spotpass shops, Streetpass shops and/or Renown are used, and some people will also go the extra mile and ban Barracks, Event Tiles and Anna shops. Most of us here focus on no DLC, moderate Renown, no Logbook units, and Barracks and stuff allowed. Shops are somewhat fair game because you still have to pay for everything and money is tight early on, so they're usually used with moderation. Nobody fights the Risen though, Lunatic/Risen is a challenge run category all of its own and one of the hardest ones out there. Everything that can be done purely using resources from in maps is generally considered fair game. Since you can't grind for exp on Fort enemies, this doesn't lend itself to may infinite type strats- even grinding Staves on infinite damage sources is held back by money issues and time constraints (seriously, why ban something nobody wants to do?) and Dance grinding Olivia isn't actually a free ticket to Galeforce for Lucina and Inigo, which is the main reason you'd want to invest in Olivia. So the water trick is fair game in most of our books. And even if it feels like cheating, odds are you'll feel like Lunatic's cheating before you're done with it and want to cheat back. Anyway, good luck with your run! It's actually a good bit different in Awakening than it is in previous FE titles. Generally the way to do it here is to get one unit so far ahead of the curve that they're invincible, and then have them run interference for a few chapters so your squishies can be fed however you wish while the bulk of the enemy force is goofing off with your tank (alternately, use the tank for massive support boosts for training the squishy of your choice, assuming you've got a few other moderately leveled units who can hold their own). Fred should serve this purpose for Avatar up through Cht.2-3, Avatar should continue the bulk of the training through Cht.6 along with one or two others (Miriel and Sumia are popular choices) and then Avatar takes the role of tank for Cht.7-11 and all the Paralogues (Chrom can get on his feet during Cht.5 and 7). After that, you should have a good team of 2-3 solid pairs to fight with, and several kids coming your way with inheritance and recruitment already set up. Proper money and Seal management are critically tied in with your ability to get everything set up on time.

A lot of those pairings used to be extremely overhyped a long time ago by people who were really bad at the game. Most of them are fine if you just care about winning but miss out on a lot of new stuff. For example, Kellam was given to Yarne because he's a really bad dad and Yarne is good enough that Kellam doesn't hurt him, but he doesn't gain anything from him either while he stands to gain a lot of things people didn't know mattered earlier from other dads, and Frederick!Gerome has good mods and a low-demand father, but was used to run skills that are rendered completely useless by newer strategies and doesn't have any good ones. A lot of those pairings also came about due to a Chrom x Olivia and Cordelia x Stahl core, which takes two very in-demand fathers (Henry and Stahl) and gives them to children who don't need or can't properly use them, which results in the rest of one's build becoming extremely pinched. Anyway, you can use those pairings and for the most part they'll work out fine- the only things you really need to change are Fred!Gerome to Virion!Gerome and then Kellam!Yarne to Fred!Yarne. However, since you've also done all these pairings before, I'd highly recommend using all new ones to work on your Support Log and experience a different team in general. If you really want GF on all the kids regardless of the lack of S supports, use Avatar x Nowi. Sully, Tharja and her are all poor wives for Apo, so go with Nowi as Nah benefits the most. Nowi also has probably the best non-Apo postgame of the three thanks to both Lifetaker and Deliverer. Ricken!Nah can go either Sage or Valkyrie, running LB/TF/All+2 and either Deliverer/Luna (Valkyrie) or Mag+2/Skl+2 (Sage). I just posted Henry!Nah strats halfway up the page.

Quick calcs because I'm in a hurrt. tldr: why would you even want him as a Berserker? Gaius!Kjelle@Assassin-B@5/15 B.Swd (LB/All+2/GF/SF/Defender) x Vaike!Yarne@Hero@4/20 B.Axe (LB/Agg/All+2/Str+2/AF), Rally Spc/Hrt/Skl/Mov/Str Kjelle's stats: Atk: 40(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +5(SF) +3(pairup) +2(All+2) +1(Defender) +2(tonic) +17(B.Swd) =91 Spd: 46(base) +5(mods) +10(LB) +6(Rally) +8(pairup) +2(All+2) +1(Defender) +2(tonic) =80 Skl: 48(base) +5(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +8(pairup) +2(All+2) +1(Defender) +2(tonic) =86 Lck: 45(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +6(Rally) +3(pairup) +2(All+2) +1(Defender) +2(tonic) =68 Hit: 163(base) +95(B.Swd) +15(S support) =273 Yarne's stats: Atk: 42(base) +6(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +5(AF) +2(All+2) +2(Str+2) +2(tonic) +17(B.Axe) =106 Skl: 46(base) +4(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =74 Lck: 45(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +6(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =64 Hit: 143(base) +90(B.Axe) =233 DS: 86(Kjelle) +74(Yarne) =100% VS double Zerker (128 Avo): 14+21+21+14+21+21 =112. 100% chance of KOing before the counterattack even without Rally Str. Kjelle takes 28 damage from Counter, so she can fight both and live. VS NS (235 Avo): 5+18+18+5+18+18 =82. KOes in 6 hits barring an 0.06% miss from Yarne. VS Thronie (248 Avo, requires Hex support): 12+19+19+12+19+19 =100. 100% chance of ORKOing before the counterattack. VS Anna (157 Avo, requires Hex support, Kjelle uses Brave Bow to avoid Counter damage leading to a possible KO with Aether): 14+24+24+14+24 = 100, guaranteed 5HKO. There might be some small optimizations left by swapping around Str+2, Tantivity/Breakers and the forge, but he can seriously get rid of anything with perfect odds. Berserker is useless next to this.

I think that's Tellius (or at least RD).

So, once we get repacking the ROM to be easier... How difficult would it be to implement a patch that changes all growths to 0%? I'd be a lot happier messing around with 0% growths if I didn't have to rig criticals and misses and the like on top of sub-1% odds of getting blank levels several times per map.

Emmeryn has hers on her head.

Trying to shave anything off that 160 threshold will give you errors. It's easy to say things like, "Everybody gets LB/Rally already so I don't have to include them..." but eventually you'll forget what you've included and what you haven't, or you won't be including the same things as other users and they won't know what you're talking about, etc. Thus, the minimum combined Skl is 160. Sage and Assassin give +7 and Sniper gives +8, by the way. The one simplification you can (and should) make, though, is to treat a class's pairup boosts as part of its own stats. Even though your support Sniper isn't actually seeing the +8 Skl that's showing up on your lead Hero, changing the support changes the pairup boosts, not the lead. So it's useful to thing about classes (and units in general) as separate lead and support values: a Sniper would be 48/56, for example.

I'm starting to feel like there's only so much you can do with your team on Cht.2, given that it's so early in the game (and especially if growths are lowered). Figuring out how to unravel whatever pile of enemies you make is going to be based entirely on who you deploy, because there's no time for teambuilding to kick in- what I'm saying is that it's probably better to focus on specific checks and counters later in the game to reward having a diverse team rather than now to promote deploying certain units. What the early maps probably should focus on is, rather than having you figure out the optimal way to the boss, figure out how to get exp to the units you want to have it- so try to do things like focus on what combinations of units can 2RKO certain enemies. As an example, in Awakening's Lunatic mode, there are two Barbarians at the start with insane amounts of HP, but after a single Silver Lance hit from Frederick, they can be OHKOed by anyone- try something like that, only a little more optional (trying to kill those Barbarians any other way is really hard). For example, you might make a pack of units specifically designed so that when you throw one specific unit in with a specific weapon (that they may have to trade for), their numbers and HP get thinned precisely to the point where some weak unit that you may want to train can go in there, kill one, and then survive and KO back all of them on EP. Or, should the player not want to do that, they just go down like ordinary enemies. As for the Halberd soldier... Why not replace him with a really tanky Knight who packs very little punch, but takes a while to get rid of (maybe even is fast enough not to be doubled by Marcus? That way, you could have a choice between going around the long way and ignoring him (like normal), or have Marcus spend a few turns getting rid of him during which the rest of your army would fight the bottom LHS foes they normally would have gone through, but this time from a defensive position and without Marcus? That might be a more interesting trade, and with good Armorslayer positioning could even create another choice should you decide to fight the Knight: have Thany go get the Armorslayer to get rid of him faster, or use her to drop someone behind him to get more attacks in per turn?

Make it not on his hands.

There aren't enough units in the game to marry everyone. No matter how you cut it, it's not possible to marry all the first gen males. If you have your Avatar marry 2nd gen, there will be two 1st gen males who cannot marry period. If you have a female Avatar marry 1st gen, there will be one 1st gen male who can't marry and one 2nd gen male who can't marry. If you have your Avatar marry Spotpass, there will be one 2nd gen who can't marry and two 1st gen males who can't marry. There aren't any builds that give anything other than this. You just can't divide a different number of males and females into pairs with nobody left out.