What are the drawbacks of using a small army?

[Armchair General]

So, I'm bored, obviously.

But this is something that I've been wondering, lately. In some of the recent games, you can field between 12 to around 20 units, depending on the map. Fates had a cap of around 25, IIRC. 

But what would happen if you did a run with the bare minimum? Like the hero, the healer, a mage (if not included with the hero), plus whatever to fill out the weapon triangle?

I'm guessing that your guys would initially outpace the opposition, enemy-phase half the army a third through the game, and get boxed in with a risk of dying towards endgame.

[Samz707]

I'd imagine it would suck in most games.

We do know that it's actually the easiest way to play Awakening though.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Solos of most FEs should be possible, at least on the lower difficulties. 5, 11, 12, 13 Lunatic without Robin, 14CQ, and 3H Maddening are the cases where I imagine solos wouldn't work out.

Modern FE can be soloed to on the highest difficulties to limited extent. As in Revelation Lunatic, I did that, and BR Luna should be no harder.

[indigoasis]

You can get extremely outnumbered by enemy forces, obviously, but if you're only using a few units, or straight up doing a solo run, they'll be the only unit(s) to gain experience, so they'll probably end up being fairly powerful by the end of the game as long as you aren't RNG screwed (depends on the difficulty, though). However, fewer units on the field will end up chewing through weapons faster since they're the only ones using them, and they're the ones being targeted by enemies the most (this can be seen when doing solo runs, and sending in a unit to be almost, if not completely swarmed by low-level mooks, having to fight off a bunch of them at once).

While eating through weapons like that may sound pretty bad, you'll really only have to spend funds on new weapons for those few units that you're using, making it so you don't have to really worry too much about making sure that everyone single unit in a big army is properly equipped. It's also good to make use of the convoy as much as you can to make sure that you're always well equipped. However, how the convoy works is different from game to game, so keep that in mind. 

When I started my Byleth Maddening solo run (which I believe that I had started before Mekkah released a video on the subject), I ended up relying on vulneraries and multiple weapons in order to help me get through battles. I also found it extremely important to take advantage of terrain effects to help prevent Byleth from taking damage that could have easily been avoided. I haven't even finished it yet since I've been distracted by other things, but I digress. Typically, your best bet when using small armies is to prepare as much as possible for enemy phase and tank through it, taking the player phase to heal and reposition your units. Terrain effects should also be a big concern as the advantages can be pivotal in deciding battles (e.g. dodging an attack that otherwise would have killed your unit if they were on different terrain). 

~ ~ ~

TL;DR: You'll typically be playing a fairly campy playstyle that relies on terrain buffs when possible, utilizing the player phase to prepare for the enemy phase so your units can tank enemy units and take them out. Weapons will probably break a lot, but you'll really only have to worry about buying weapons for the units you're using, and funds probably wouldn't be too much of an issue anyway. The few units that you use will also be the only ones to soak in all the experience, keeping them competent enough throughout the game so that they're at least on par with the difficulty level.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Low-manning is honestly optimal in most fire emblem games. Since experience is concentrated into far fewer units and you don't have any underleveled dorks to worry about resetting over from a mess of ~60% hit rates. Many players either don't think to low man or don't want to since Fire Emblem games have so many character portraits that they want to use in their playthrough. It's fun having a large army of eventually great units than it is to have 1-5 mad lads tearing up the game with no serious challenge. If you're going to avoid using so many units, you may as well design some kind of challenge run around it. "Can I get through with just archers in the old games?" "How about a solo run, but with no healer or dancer?" things like that.

[Ertrick36]

It depends, but in most games you can definitely low-man the entire story.

Generally if a game wants you to spread your forces out to tackle multiple objectives, such as a number of Conquest maps, or you have to defend a few very squishy units, low-manning would be difficult.  However, there are not very many effective counter balances implemented to keep you from low-manning - as in, not much stops the snow-balling of levels that results from low-manning apart from gradually decreasing EXP gains, which doesn't matter too much most of the time since they'll allow you to level to the point where you're OP as-is.

[null]

That's actually somewhat like how I play FE games anymore (barring 3H). I pick a certain small set of units I want to use, focus on training them, and before long they're typically ahead of where a larger team would be at the same point in the game. There are exceptions of course, with RNG influencing level ups, but overall I think it's a fairly efficient way to play.

As others have mentioned however, it can be a bit rough if enemy numbers are high or you have units that are weak to certain enemy attacks (FE11's last few chapters come to mind where most units have bad res). But generally speaking, I'd say it's the optimal way to approach FE.

Edited December 5, 2020 by twilitfalchion

[vanguard333]

I've never tried it, but apparently using only Ike is one of the easiest ways to play Path of Radiance if you just want to beat the game and don't necessarily care about recruiting everyone or getting every item.

[eclipse]

1. You may miss certain objectives, especially if there's a turn limit tied to it (hello FE6).
2. You're going to chew through certain weapon types faster.
3. Some people on the internet may say bad things about you or something. Who cares.  Play how you want.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

The less people you use, the more overpowered they'll end up being unless you're doing some LTC strats and focusing heavily on achieving low turn counts. The only real disadvantage is that you may find yourself with insufficient resources for dealing with multiple side objectives.

[Dark Holy Elf]

In general low-manning actually breaks Fire Emblem, since the characters become overlevelled. Solos are rarely optimal, but something like 4-6 units usually is.

Fates might be the exception just because you get such diminishing returns for exp when you're even slightly higher-levelled than your opponents, so it's hard to become too overlevelled.

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Solos of most FEs should be possible, at least on the lower difficulties. 5, 11, 12, 13 Lunatic without Robin, 14CQ, and 3H Maddening are the cases where I imagine solos wouldn't work out.

Solos aren't possible in Radiant Dawn due to how potent the regen of the last few bosses is. FE3H Maddening solos have been done, I gather; too easy to stack up stats on one unit. I've completed solos FE7 and FE8 before; 8 didn't present too many difficulties but FE7's final map seems like it completely walls many pure solos (mostly because dealing significant damage to the final boss is tough outside of a few specific weapons and you need to quaff elixirs every round, while you only have five inventory slots with no access to convoy).