I hope Combat Manuals work like everyone is saying they will, and it's not just an extra convoluted step to get skill inheritance!

- 675? That's insane. I mean, I could always use more space, but I think having to scroll through over 500 units would drive me mental!

- Ooo nice. I pulled Swordhardt today, and guess what, he ISN'T +SPD! (He-s +res, so not much better but he's not +spd!) That's it for me summoning on that banner. The one I have the least interest in from the red pool, but I'm not complaining, I was summoning red to get at least one of the three. And it left me with 1 orb after I summoned him, so I'm glad I'm done with that banner now. Now back to trying to get Ephraim/Veronica. (also welcome back, haven't seen you post here for a while, where did you go? or am I just blind)

Hah yeah I know, I know. I think I prefer that to knowing I've just sent home a unit that I then want for inheritance, though. I really think this is gonna be a game changer! Like it's going to be amazing for GHB units as you're never gonna get one with better IVs so you can just... vault them forevermore.

My team Anna for this round were... pathetic. We ended up with a handful of territories at the end but I ended up rank 2 with around 165k points, lol. My infantry squad had a couple of shaky moments but I found a couple of maps that worked for me and could max them pretty constantly. And a lot of my friends lead with +10s n stuff that helped a bunch. There was a great M!Morgan with Life and Death and Wings of Mercy who was a great improvement in my own copy; Grima's Truth is amazing with its buff/debuff, too.

Also been playing Awakening recently, too. I'm playing my first 'iron man' which is emotional but refreshingly fast. So far I've lost Cordelia, Libra, Panne, Olivia and Maribelle, in that order. Cordelia was lost to an archer I hadn't spotted, whoops (I usually mark em all on the map but after playing older titles kinda forgot) and Libra just suicides before I could recruit him. The other three fell to same turn reinforcements ugh. I'm up to chapter 15 I think? And this is the first time I've paid attention to the story I think oops. It's... funny to come back to it after circling around the rest of the series, I'm finding it much easier and am not intentionally 'breaking' the game.

- Yeah, I got shunted to Anna this round too, and there was only one place, if that, I could battle like every time! My armour team is doing terribly too, needs more people with ranged attacks to snipe the barracks, but I've already got all my range armours on there. WoM is super helpful in GC.

Are you doing your 'iron man' on casual so you can still get child units/endings? Or going the classic route and having them gone forever!? Once you get over the first death, the rest are easy :P I was looking to play FE7 again, and I was going back over my old save files to decide which to delete, I forgot how many units I lost in my Iron Man. I remember working really hard for Kent/Fiora support, and she sadly too died to an archer I didn't see (like he took over the ballista after I killed the first guy at the ballista!) Kent died too later, and Erk died the second to last chapter! I think that was one of the only times I actually used Erk.

My armour team usually does okay because I just stack Wards so they can tank anything but... it just isn't coming together at the moment. I had a Pain+ Priscilla decimate me earlier as I couldn't navigate across the body of water with my close units, nor could my mages kill her. Hmmm maybe I could use Guidance B!Ninian, I currently run Azura but it's probs not optimal.

I'm doing Classic, I'd struggle to let them truly go otherwise. Maribelle was a hard one because she was so close to promoting - at level 18 - but got one shot by a Pegasus Knight that dashed in with a Javelin so had ridiculous range. Thankfully I'd just promoted MAnd iriel to a Sage so at least I have some healing on my team. I might Second Seal Lissa to a Troubador and see how she fares. I don't really care about marriages and children, to be honest, because I'm too attached to the units I already have haha. I am trying to pair so marriages do happen but it's incidental, typically. I'm really enjoying it, though, and it's fun to give the spotlight to units I usually neglect (I'm using Nowi and Gregor for the first time and wow can Nowi tank anything).

I think I'm gonna navigate through Birthright and Conquest when I'm done with Awakening and then circle back to tying up the loose ends of the GBA games. It's quite refreshing to play with the mod cons available to me, haha, they did a nice job making the worlds feel alive and rich (y'all maybe we need an FE General Discussion thread, especially with Three Houses next year). I can imagine 7 being a good game to Iron Man though, a nice quick easy play and not hair-tearingly difficult. Which model were you playing on?

- I switched to B!Ninian on my team, and it seems to be doing better, even without guidance. Just have that extra range opportunity has been helpful.

Only way man! And I agree with you re:child units. I used them in Revelations just to have some variety in that game. (I played revelations like it was geneaology part 2: the children continuing on the parent's story and finding out the truth about why their parents went to war)

I skipped the fates games (I think we all know how I feel about Fates... someone off-handedly mentioned that if Takumi had been the 'Lord' in that game, and not Corrin, that it would have been a much better game... I am inclined to agree, Corrin was rather bland and had some stupidly OP shit like turning into a dragon that was never really explained, but like Takumi's little side story line in Birthright was far more interesting than anything else in that game, even if it was poorly done and written, but imagine if that was the MU arc? It would have been so much better) Anyway, I'm playing Sacred Stones again, then might go through FE7 again. I believe my iron man was Hector Normal (not hard, that would have been too much, had enough units die in that run as it were, but Raven is critical in HHM, he died in my Iron Man)

I would totally be down with a FE discussion board.

Gave up trying to solve it myself and used a guide for Infernal Marth/Robin... I gave Abyssal a quick go but I think I can live without the gold accessories.

I really struggle to get further than level 15 on Grand Conquests because I get bored, and I run into some insane builds on the units. That said, it's been really fun using friend units, I'm almost convinced I want to pull for M!Grima next time he's on a banner.

Completed Forging Bonds... I think it's my favourite game mode, I enjoy the extra conversations even if they do get a bit pandering-to-player sometimes.

I need to go back to the core games before Three Houses is released. So far I've got FE7, FE8 and FE4 runs on the go. FE7 I'm on a pirate ship and I keep loosing Guy to mages (kind of just tempted to lose him and give up on a deathless run), FE8 I'm on the Ephraim route level where there's the castle and I keep getting Berserk staffed, and FE4... I've just started chapter 2.

I also get bored with Grand Conquests. I'm not sure why, I just... don't find them fun. I realized I wasn't having ANY fun at all doing them on Infernal so I went back to Lunatic which made it a little more enjoyable for me, but eh.

I did finish my Forging Bonds event too, though, and like Fluttershy, I just REALLY like it? I didn't finish the last one (I just kept forgetting about it) and I'm bummed I didn't, since it's such an easy and different way to earn up hero merit and get some nice items on the side. I hope they keep adding them, maybe even a little more frequently, because it's just nice and enjoyable.

--

I'm like a third of the way through FE9, but I need to get out my Wii to finish playing that (and FE10) and it's just... pure laziness that I haven't. I really should though, so I actually finish those instead of playing Awakening... again. Which I'm also currently doing. Oops. FE13 is just such a good "I don't have a lot of time to play games but it's relaxing for 20 minutes before bed" game for me at this point though, so I think that's part of why I go back to it so often. Maybe I'll make it my goal to finish 9 and 10 before Three Houses comes back out.

I think I like Conquests because I like Emblem teams in general, so it's fun to have an excuse to run a stack of fliers or armours, for example. I've found the groove with my armours - I feel like the trick is to make sure they stick together rather than spread on separate objectives. My team is really lacking in speed - or Bold users - but they can clear Infernal pretty solidly. If you're stacking just 5 Wards, you're effectively getting +20 Def/Res. Also I only ever play on tiles with special effects active, it's way too hard otherwise. But yeah, I like that each match offers something different, no matter how frustrating the foe (yes, I did encounter a +10 Brave Hector earlier and yes, he did rip through my team).

That's a really interesting concept for a Revelation run, I like it! Everything else around Fates is a hot hunk o' junk but the gameplay itself is spot on. So I can block everything else out and just enjoy it.

Haha I've actually never played Casual because I was always convinced it would get me in to bad habits. Still, it's surprising how much the game has opened up to me now I have more... credentials under my belt. I feel like I know what I'm doing, kinda! That said, I managed to lose Tharja to a crit from an armour knight and then immediately lost Lissa who was parked some way behind Tharja. ;_; Naga's Voice - the chapter where you scale Mila's Tree - was next, and I managed to lose Robin... twice, whoops. The reinforcements are so obnoxious that I just ended up ignoring them on my successful run. I know some restart the game but I don't have the willpower for that haha. So I promoted my stragglers and added Henry to replace Tharja (he's like level 13... oh also no grinding because grinding makes it too easy), and he's currently backpacking on Miriel, and also Anna and Say'ri who add heal utility and a Robin backpack (she's been paired with Miriel for most of the game but I kinda need them both on the frontlines). And then, by some miracle, I managed to clear the next chapter without significant problems. There were problems, but they weren't significant haha.

Three at once! I'm not sure if that's a cure for insanity or a cause of it haha. I feel like deathless runs are starting to bog me down a little so am trying to be more open to losing units. It's hard when you've invested so much but I think that makes the experience more memorable, too.

Honestly, I'd say FE9 hasn't aged super well. It was the first title I went to after the 3DS block and it's interesting - it is a huge step up, graphically, from the GBA titles but feels like a stepping stone to the 3DS titles, so lacks the polish which make them sparkle. I can see why people would love it but I wasn't blown away (and lol, chapter 17 is the absolute worst). All that said, it is a good game and totally worth delving into. It's just... yeah, I can see where the ambivalence would stem from. FE10, on the other hand, is in my top three alongside 7 and 14. It's a flawed and often frustrating game but epic in a way no other game of the series is, in my opinion.

We bought FE9 on a whim when we still lived in Kansas -- we had sold a BUNCH of our old games and systems to the local game store for extra moving cash, and we got a ton of cash back but then like $90 in store credit for all those little extra things not worth much (We had a lot of stuff). I'd always looked at the SINGLE COPY of the game when we went in and was like "I'm just not paying that much for a Game Cube game" but then with that credit and the fact that we were moving... I grabbed it and never looked back. Something similar happened with us getting FE10 out here. NGL, our goal is to play them and then sell them back to the local store here for a good chunk of change, but of course we need to get to that point. I think a big problem I had is I played a few of the older FE games, took a LONG break, played Awakening, and then went to play FE9 and remembered I couldn't... pair units up to move them across the map easier, for example, and that definitely makes it hard. But I do plan to get through it -- if only so I can finally play FE10.

[edit] For more thoughts! As much as I love Takumi, I agree with the overall idea that the Fates games just... weren't fun, story wise? I played all three and I've TRIED to replay both Birthright and Revelations (I haven't bothered to replay Conquest because the end absolutely KILLED ME and I don't want to put myself through that again) and didn't make it far into either. There's just something sort of... eh about it. A lot of it for me was the forcing of children on us; in Awakening, it made a LOT of sense, and here it was just like "It was popular WE NEED TO DO IT AGAIN" and it really just doesn't fit.

(THOUGH I love the EXP DCL in Fates and playing the EXP DCL in Awakening is so depressing now)

But I'm that person now that always plays on Casual. Always. I always play games through the easiest mode on the first try because I want to enjoy myself, so I really appreciate that they added casual in -- and get really annoyed at people who act like casual is a curse upon FE that ruined the games. (Not saying any of you are! But there are def. people who act like that, as I noticed when I was looking up guides for my Awakening Lunatic run... a lot of "I can't stand people who play Casual Lunatic what is even the point". THE POINT IS I'M RESETTING ENOUGH). If anything, it helps more people enjoy the game, which is great for the franchise! It's so fun to see how much it's grown since Awakening came out.

- GC I just boost up to the full 8 lances 2x daily and let AB do all the work. Made it to Tier 25 for full rewards. Did enjoy forging bonds though, Finally got everyone to 3500, Hector was the last. He ended up 1500 points behind everyone else when they were all completed, but he started off being the most nosy.

I gave up on Abyssal. Looked at some online strats and decided that all the feathers and merges and foddering off wasn't worth it for a useless accessory.

lol chapter 2 in FE4. The chapters are soooo long! But I really enjoyed that game. I'm grinding supports on my FE8 game right now. I think it would be fun to have 100% complete support log. And it's too hard to do on FE7.

- I'd like to replay FE9 & 10 but I don't own them, or a Gamecube, or a wii, so I guess that's not going to be possible unless I go room with my friends in ontario again for 3 months. They are super rare now though, I saw 9 selling at a convention for 150$ recently.

I also tried to reply Fates... couldn't do it.

- It totally doesn't actually work with the story, but it's where my mind went in order to justify playing that game a 3rd time! lol. Hrm, how did I work it out again, something something Corrin inadvertently reset time every time one of her siblings died, and that's why the kids were actually all super old, cus time kept resetting for their parents but not for them, and finally they were like we're old enough now that we can intervene and get you to stop fighting this useless war, we gonna help Azura tell you what's really going on here!

Sounds like your Iron man is pretty harrowing. I don't recall having as much trouble (though I probably did some grinding, at least on the regular risen spawns, no boxes though) I think I only lost Sumia, Lonq'u, Lucina (sads) and Gaius (even more sads) Oh, and I lost Flavia on the map you get her. I think I lost Donny one the last or second to last map too.

Awww, I just got barely demote to T18 from 19, was ranked 12600 something two hours from the end, and top 12900 moved up, but I went down. :( Oh well, same amount of orbs!

Alright, up to 4 merges on Hana now. I was also able to get the ideal IV I wanted on her while pulling on the Legendary Marth banner yesterday (+spd -hp). Still a ways off, but I'm near the halfway mark. I will need to get to giving her premium fodder sometime soon, starting with Brazen Atk/Spd (I do have a Linus lying about, thank god).

I wish I got the chance to play Awakening and Fates just to see what all the hubbub is about. I have been considering it for awhile, but I don't have a 3DS, and I can't afford to throw money around at the moment. Someday...

-checks on my Brave Lucina as I plan to level her up with a group of Libra, Leo and Brave Veronica to prepare her for a TT team- Attack Bane/Def boon....not really good x_x

Edit: I realize it's a Voting Gauntlet not a TT, maybe I should avoid leveling Lucina in the group right now.....though then again I have so many Braves and I won't be able to use them all...hmmm

Alright, I joined Team Roy, and it looks like he'll be the underdog of VG this time around, which actually fits him as a character.

Hey, anyone need a Marth for VG? I imagine some of youse guyses need buffbots. I plan to put him up once I get home.

i joined veronica! i’ll probably join lyn if we lose? the only other one i have is ike...

jamke’s battle was fun! i did horse emblem for the first two and i tried it for the third, but i ended up going with flier emblem. and even then, it was mostly corrin and her backup dancer :B i gotta get her a nice tome, she’s been a champ.

looks like a lot of people are excited for the upcoming banner and that’s great! but i can’t lie, my first thought when i saw it was, that mage would be great fodder for morgan ;>>

also people are like lol dual rally+ means skill forge, all those people who foddered celica for db4 will regret! and i’m like... shrug emoji i wouldn’t have used either version of her, the only thing i feel bad about is alm asking about celica when he’s on the home screen.

I joined Hector, surprising no one.

My only thought on the new banner was, 'Hey IS agrees with me that Lewyn and Sylvia should be together!' I hope we finally get another 4* summonable dancer, but that's about it. dual rally + is super broken, +6 to two stats? Like, +4 or +5 to two would be enough guys, wtf. Tactics skills are still pretty new, and in a month they're gonna be obsolete.

i shouldn't have picked veronica. i'm not going to see a single damn bonus! haha oh well

also i wish i could give cherche's axe refine to fred... maybe she'll be my next green merge project. i like lewyn's art A Whole Bunch but i have no orbs that aren't orbs for hrid. we'll see.

ehh... i think tactics/wave skills are better -- easier to get, passive, don't take your movement assist, etc. the one exception is if you're going for maximum arena score, since apparently the dual rally+ is worth 400 sp :U

[edit] hrid got non-sooty art in the datamine. yay, hrid!

Shoot, looks like the Nintendo Direct has been delayed due to a quake in Hokkaido. Sheesh, right after a typhoon that happened about a week ago in Kansai. I hope everyone is okay.

- Yeah, I think everyone is too tired of seeing 5 million versions of the same units, so a lot of people went with Veronica cus she's new and unique, the rest of them all have at least 3 variants. And I was more thinking along the lines of Hone + skills which are probably on the verge of being released that are going to thwart the tactics.

- I head about that :( I hope everything's alright too. I have a friend with family who had a bunch of property damage from the typhoon :(

I'm still a bit wary about folding up my units and turning them into paper, this combat manuals thing seems too good to be true...

-joined Roy as he was kinda my "surprise brave"-

and spend the whole morning turning spares into manuels......and forgetting who was better to SI and who was better to feather.

x_x granted the singles I favored my not be the best stated.....but I'm starting to realize in the case of afew the memorys outwieght the IVs. Though that said I know that aspect is frowned competitively.

On another note, I may need help figuring out something with weapon refinery. >_< I have enough stones for days...but I've ran out of dew, I also have alot of units who hasn't had their weapons tweeked because what to upgrade them to isn't obvious.

Pretty much anyone with Silver weapons or normal weapons who lack a fancy upgrade or holiday weapons. In the case of weapons like these should I pick the upgrade that has a stat that may benifit the unit in general ( like the example the Fae channel gave for putting a speed + on Effie's Silver Spear) or may lessen the sting of a IV issue ( such as a infiltry with a Speed Boon/Attack Bane)

- I have a bunch of units that I don't use that have all of the stat refines of their weapons just cus they had enough SP and I needed dew OTL. I also need to remember to check some IVs before converting to text. For instance, I know my level 40 Raven is -att, but I don't know what either of my unlevelled ones are, if either of them are +att it's more worthwhile to use them instead.