When I saw this post two units immediately popped to mind. Stefan from Tmgc and Marlow from Cerulean coast( not the one from elden ring). Stefan is a very divisive unit though with most leaning on viewing him as a Franz(derogatory) and dropping him asap. Now I can definitely concede he has a middling early game performance and with his 3 durability per use combat art Adept he can run up quite a bill just killing things.
HOWEVER, tmgc is a long haul and an environment that an early joiner like him is worth training through for his eventual payoff. Now, what’s that pay off you are probably wondering, well Stefan is a sword cav who promotes to a sword/lance paladin. Lances are his real bread and butter, steel lance and javelin in the mid game are two great tools for high might adept kills and ranged kills respectively.
At level 15 unpromoted Stefan learns knight aspirant which in tmgc has the added effect of making combat arts not cost extra durability while within the HP threshold. This massively boosts how much he can get out of lower durability effectives going from 6 durability per adept round to 2. Now, we funnel his lance rank for the rest of mid game a frankly easy feat since they are his best might stick at this point and he really doesn’t care about normal doubling. Now we’re in the beginning of the lategame, and Stefan has built himself to S lances and he has respectable all around stats with investment.
The true Saunion comes into play, a 2-3 high might lance that refreshes every map, with the caveat that it Cannot double. A bit awkward of a legendary weapon with ohkos not being an easy feat in tmgc most lance units can only use it to reliably chip. But Stefan? Who has Adept, letting him double with the True Saunion immediately starts one rounding with an adept hit alot of enemies, with the flexibility of an 8 move unit. By this time Stefan also gets access to thief utility which is a small footnote but another checkbox for his usefulness.
Tmgc is a game about taking out seemingly impossible stat blocks with smart positioning and leveraging what the game gives you, so Stefan will be running around generally holding the Axe handle a +3 str stat booster. Seemingly a humble bonus in a stat environment like tmgc but that’s +6 damage on adepts and ALOT of the time makes the difference in thresholds. Now it’s lategame, Stefan has a whole arsenal of Lances to kill with, the true Saunion, master lance, another S lance the Nuisson( I spelled this wrong) that’s a more general 1-2 lance. Now only a few maps are left but we obtain the Soaring Shaft. Gifted to mankind by God himself retina, this holdable adds +2/+3 min and max range to ALL lances.
So what this means is the True Saunion goes from a 2-3 weapon to a 4-6 weapon. 8 move unit, 6 range reach with a weapon that he can uniquely leverage to get kills only the games ranger carbon could achieve ( who is imo the best combat unit in the game). The Other S lance becomes 3-5 and does even more damage then true saunion.
So, from humble beginnings and missing steel sword adept one rounds, Stefan grows into a god of death with unmatched ranged potential barring a few units. Is this an optimal strategy? Probably not, is it fun as hell seeing him chuck lances from 6 tiles away? Hell yeah.
Now Marlow, or MarGOD as I often yell at rivian unprompted. Prefacing this with saying with its lower XP gain and, more subdued growth spreads I very much prefer cerulean coast on fixed mode, but it is a hack I adore. Marlow joins in the early mid game, a mage rider, an anima cav he appears at a glance to be a middling stats ( with large HP) canto+ mage. A useful unit but nothing special.
However I would call him one of the best units with unmatched flexibility and applications. In the first interlude we will be saving the coffee a +1 speed booster for the arrival of MarGOD, with it he gets 12 as ( I may be fudging what the exact base speed is with coffee) but it lets him double a large amount of enemies for quite a while.
Combined with use of the wind tome that gives speed while equipped and his respectable magic he will be one rounding from the get go. Now, his personal skill amaterasu heals 33% to adjacent allies, completely tame for a CC skill but simple can be effective. What this means is a side in a split can be absent of a healer or that healer can be doing something else either combat or using one of the many utility staves CC provides.
The most essential part of Marlow’s toolkit is the wide variety of anima tomes at his disposal to keep it simple CC has fire, wind, and thunder tomes ( with the best names ever seriously look at them they are fucking hilarious). These all generally share the same properties in their lines so Fire tomes are melee generally with a 33% savage blow effect, wind tomes are speed granting with later tomes significantly boosting bulk and thunder tomes are high might decent weight but lower bulk
. All three of these effects Marlow can use in my opinion better then any other anima mage. Always at the vanguard, with CC enemy packs frequently moving in groups the 33% savage blow can decimate a group of tough enemies softening them up for allies to finish, the wind line offers massive bulk potential with Marlow’s large HP and serviceable defenses also typically being brave he can clinch one rounds with it to, locked at 2 range generally he won’t be able to retaliate right away but he can do risky enemy pulls most can’t even dream of. The thunder line is simple and to the point, you want something dead? Marlow doubles it and kills it with one, often you wanna swap him to something else after but this is fairly easy.
So all in all what do we have? A 7-8 move canto+ unit who hits on resistance in a low res game, with a wide range of tools for the job with the cherry on top of a healthy amount of adjacent target healing for simply existing. I didn’t touch on Stefan much character wise but he’s a silly little goober not a ton to say, same with Marlow though he is a rough and lazy Town guard. However Marlow joins the party in story to help his sister and niece in their time of need and I think that’s sweet. A guy who cant be bothered to put in any effort will put his life on the line for his family. I can think of ALOT more units to gush about from all the awesome hacks I’ve played that hold a place in my heart but these two are some of my fav.