Ernst (Order of the Crimson Arm) & Callahan (Blessed Heart)
Got a double whammy here, since these two units are very similar and I love them both. Whenever I start a game and see that there is no promoted jagen, I’m always somewhat predisposed to being skeptical of the game’s quality right off the bat. A game can still be plenty good without a strong early unit, with Echoes being my primary example of an earlygame paced around largely weak units, but it tends to set off alarm bells for me. Less common, however, is the Oswin-type unit: a high level unpromoted unit who takes the place of a more traditional jagen, while aiming to be more comparable to growth units in the long run. Ernst and Callahan both set out to be like Oswin, and they do the job fantastically.
Part 1: Ernst
Ernst is a level 10 myrmidon joining in chapter 1, and while he only comes with an iron sword, his high bases let him both ORKO enemies early on and also take hits better than the armor who joins in chapter 2. This hack also notably has weapon rank bonuses, meaning his base C swords gives him 1 extra attack, and it’ll only go up as his sword rank grows from all the combat he’ll be doing. When he can’t ORKO something, he leaves it low enough for anyone else to pick up the kill. Enemies don’t constantly spam javelins and hand axes either, so being locked to swords is perfectly fine for him. While Ernst is an infantry unit, you also get 3 mounted units within the first couple of chapters to get him where he needs to go, but because he is inarguably your best combat unit, he tends to set the pace of these maps anyway. There’s something so satisfying about having your best unit throughout the first 9 chapters of an FE7 hack be the myrmidon of all things.
While Ernst gains exp very slowly due to his base level 10, he’s usually doing so much combat in earlygame that he can stand to get a couple of levels before he promotes. There are two potential ways to promote Ernst in earlygame: chapter 4x, a gaiden map with a separate party, has a master seal that you can convoy warp, allowing the main party to get it earlier than intended. Alternatively, the chapter 6 boss drops a master seal. Convoy warping the first seal is more something you do for 0% where you don’t care at all about extra levels on Ernst, but he does just fine unpromoted in chapters 5 and 6 if you want to pad out his stats a bit. Either way, chapters 6-12 are all either seize or kill boss maps, with Ernst being your best boss killer at this point, really evoking the same feeling of juggling Rutger up to objectives and letting him go to town. After chapter 12, Ernst does tend to slow down, and you will get two other infantry sword prepromotes who hard outclass him later on, but he can still easily keep up all game if you consistently use him (and if his levels cooperate).
The main problem with Ernst is how he relates to the rest of the cast. Ernst is awesome, but everyone around him during earlygame is the exact opposite, with nobody else having very competent bases. So while it’s a ton of fun to make the most of him, it’s not as good as it could be since it’s hard to care about investing in many other people early on. Algimas the lord and Sven the wyvern rider are generally your best picks, but otherwise you don’t start getting more units with actually good bases until chapter 9, where the separate party from 4x merges with the main army, and you get units like Lani the pegasus knight who are really good. I do still love Ernst and I think he’s a big part of why I enjoy OCA so much, but he’s not perfect.
Part 2: Callahan
Callahan might be perfect. He’s a level 10 fighter who joins in the prologue. Unlike Ernst, Callahan isn’t really capable of ORKOing stuff most of the time. He has good HP, strength, skill, and luck, but his speed and defense are on the middling side, so he’s more relegated to taking hits and chunking enemies so other units can finish them off. If he is able to double something, he usually will kill it, though. The closest comparison to a vanilla game would be Vander, who functions very similarly (though Callahan does tend to have more consistent hit rates).
Callahan does have one other fun trait at base, which is his instant B support with his wife, Linne the mage, joining in chapter 1. This actually gives no extra hit, but instead gives 1 point of attack and defense (and some avoid/crit/crit avoid), which is super great for putting him just barely over thresholds. For instance, in chapter 1 this support allows Callahan to one shot enemy mages, otherwise leaving them 1 HP off without the support. It’s a really unique decision tool for a unit to have that I almost never see in other hacks, and rewards good positioning of your other units to make the most out of it. Linne and Callahan can get an A support after a while, but it gives no additional attack or defense, so it’s not all that valuable. Just a fun reward if you continue using them together.
Like Ernst, Callahan can also promote very early, with a hero crest being given from a house in chapter 4. Callahan can either promote to hero (which gives +2 speed) or warrior (which gives 0 speed but better everything else, along with the skill Lancebreaker). Hero’s extra speed doesn’t really do much since Callahan wasn’t doubling a lot anyway, while Warrior makes him better at his job and even more versatile with Lancebreaker and bow access. Blessed Heart makes all bows have 1-2 range (except for the 3 range bows), and Warrior now starts with D bows, meaning you can really get his bow rank pretty high if you focus on it. With good weapons like longbows, or the midgame S rank axe that gives +5 speed and hits like a truck, there are plenty of tools to keep Callahan going strong later on, even through late game.
Compared to the cast of OCA, Blessed Heart’s cast is generally a lot more competent at base, which indirectly makes Callahan feel even better to use. Now when Callahan leaves something low, I actually have other units I care about training whom I can feed that kill to. And yet Callahan doesn’t get outclassed later on either in the same way that Ernst does. Blessed Heart’s cast is pretty small, and there’s no real axe prepromote anywhere in the game. If you don’t wanna use Callahan for your main axe user, you have to use one of the other growth units instead. But just off his bases, promo gains, and all the good tools he gets access to, Callahan has fantastic longevity and consistency. When Ernst begins falling off, he usually starts missing doubling thresholds which severely cuts into his damage output, since he’s so reliant on his speed to really do his job. But since Callahan is all about strength and accuracy, he never really gets worse at that due to the continual influx of new toys for him. And that’s not to mention that he’s getting levels the whole time and can gain even more strength, skill, and luck. Nor Blessed Heart’s holdable and tradeable stat boosters, which he can use as needed.
Part 3: These Guys Are Really Cool And You Should Play Their Games
That’s all I got, really. Just read the section header.