Cromar - Bells of Byelen
Earlier, Lowres did a write-up on Benji, and how his unique kit and major drawbacks (accuracy and stats) turned him from a bad mage into an anchor, someone who could simplify the long turns and large maps found in Journeys Gaiden by giving you a jumping off point. Similary, Retina talked about Teodor, and how sometimes, it’s good to let a unit be inarguably dominant for the sake of greater design goals. The unit I want to talk about hits on both these points in a way that I think makes him truly something special.
Cromar is a Hero who joins in C6 of Bells of Byelen. His stats are incredibly high, in both base and growth, far surpassing any of the units you get in the first half of the game. Fun fact, his numbers are directly copy-pasted from Zieg, a similarly powerful early unit in TearRing Saga, and one you might know for certain story spoiler reasons. He also shows up with Dullahan, a Prf taken again from TRS (albeit from Shigen instead of Zieg,) which grants him immortality while it’s equipped. That is, if he dies while holding it, he will simply revive following that round of combat. If that wasn’t enough, Cromar’s status as a prepromote who joins before Chapter 13 also grants him a permanent, hidden EXP buff, meaning that his insane growths aren’t just a shiny medal.
Obviously, these insane traits come with a catch. Cromar’s skill, Dusk Bringer, activates Fog of War after his first round of combat on any map of the game. Every time Cromar attacks while fog is already active, the universal vision radius on the map changes in a decreasing cycle (7 → 6 → 5 → 4 → 3 → 7.) As a downside, Cromar’s skill is incredibly daunting, and turns a large portion of BoB’s playerbase away from Cromar’s juicy statline. However, with proper planning, you can mitigate this downside and reap the benefits of one the most excitingly dominant units I’ve ever had the pleasure of using in Fire Emblem.
Is the Map Feeling Foggy?
Fog’s scary, often bullshit, and people are willing to bench a unit this stacked just to avoid it. This is undeniably true, but it’s worth noting that Fog is worse on some maps than others. Large, multiobjective gauntlets aren’t amazing for Cromar, as Fog just kinda hurts you more on those types of maps. There’s more reinforcements, probably more base enemies to memorize, maybe a whole second phase. But then you get chapters like Chapter 7: Crimson Harvest, or Chapter 20: Blood Hunt. These are relatively contained, with fewer reinforcements and more stationaries. Fog isn’t just managable in these cases, it’s outright trivial. Recognizing which maps Cromar can go to town on rewards reading maps in preps, and coming to a judgement on whether or not he’s wanted/needed. It’s a great game-within-a-game, and it gets you to interact with the mechanics!
Some chapters, like Chapter 18: A Test of Strength, have a lot going on, and Cromar might not want to show up for them. That’s okay, and isn’t even much of a downside for Cromar anyway. Fatigue means no one truly has perfect deployability for the entire game, so he’s still resetting his Fatigue for future maps.
Gonna give particular shoutouts to Chapter 8: Zykhra Gate, where my personal favorite strategy is to split my army into Cromar and not-Cromar, where Team not-Cromar takes on one half of the map while Cromar solos the other half with the Ice Sword. (which he can use thanks to his incredible B Swords at base, he needs it trust me)
You Can Like, Not Use Cromar For a Few Turns, By the Way
Some maps that seem like they’d be bad for Cromar are actually the exact opposite. You just have to re-read Dusk Bringer’s description:
(emphasis mine)
Cromar doesn’t activate Fog of War on deployment, he activates it after combat. This means that he can be kept in the back pocket for a few turns, and then brought out to the frontlines (thanks to his 7 Mov, oh yeah, he also has 7 Mov, btw) for a tricky enemy phase, or a more frantic second phase on a multipart map. Chapter 13: Journeying West is a map with a deceptively dangerous back half, in which the entire map runs at you in an attempt to overwhelm you. This is the exact type of scenario in which Cromar thrives, so you can deploy him and use him for Shoves and Rescues, and then frontline him when it really counts.
Conclusion
This unit fucking rules. Bells of Byelen’s cast trends super hard towards the middle, with a lot of units ending up somewhat unexcitingly usable, but not much more. Cromar exists in complete defiance to this design norm, and in doing so, can warp entire playthroughs around him. It’s also nice that he’s like, actually good enough to warrant wanting to warp your run around him. Pretty much everything about the guy is another layer of subgame (Are you going to deploy him? Are you using him immediately, or are you saving him for a specific part? Should he be using Dullahan here, sacrificing accuracy for safety?), which is something I have nothing but respect for. Also, he’s a unit who’s extremely dominant that scales comically well that isn’t trivializing the game. You’re still asking a lot of questions while using him, and getting rewarded for your decision making. I urge you, if you’ve played Bells and skipped over this gem of a unit, give him a shot some day. He’s great. And if you haven’t played Bells, maybe think of this post if you do decide to try it.