They’re monsters within.
Truth be told I can’t remember but that might actually have been my thought process at the time lol
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fwiw when i did 0 growths i just manually set all the growths to 0 in FEBuilder
there is a slight quirk in that the second merc is supposed to gain autolevels based off their character growths so having them as 0 growths means they join with their first pick stats instead, so up to you on whether you want to add it back in. on my run based on what i’ve planned the second merc doesn’t actually do anything so i didn’t bother fixing it
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I did just end up doing that, yeah
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One year ago, I played this romhack on like day one. Shortly after, I lost all my progress thanks to a crappy laptop and a busted emulator. Now, one year later, I have FINALLY been able to play and finish Hag in White from front to back! I’m so happy I got back to this, and I absolutely adore the experience from beginning to end.
Final Team + Unit Thoughts (Spoiler Warning)
Kyra
Holy CRAP what a good Lord character. I enjoyed Kyra as a character a great deal, and unlike a lot of main characters, her quality as a character carried over into her quality as a unit. Kyra wound up being solidly useful from beginning to end, and the stats show that well. I don’t know what the average Kyra ends up looking like, but this was without a single stat boosting item applied. I had made the decision to save all my stat boosters till the very end of the game, and Kyra’s were so good by the time Endgame-1 rolled around that I never gave her any.
Apate - Angelic Robe
Not much to be said about Apate, tbh. She performed her role as a unit admirably, and the access to Powerstaff and Physic made Chapter 17 one hell of a power boost for her. I adored her interactions with Tiresias, and I’ll admit I was sad to see her go in the final chapter, even though I knew how her story would have to end. 10/10 staffbot, would be manipulated into declaring war on the church again. She seldom ever saw combat unless I misplayed, her Angelic Robe was primarily because none of my other units were especially hurting for HP and it afforded me some room to make mistakes. (Or so I thought, the first time I got to the final boss I didn’t realize she moves and she had a 100% accurate OHKO on her, even with the robe. Ooop.)
Delilah - Mind Scroll
God, Jane is so right. We love to see a bad bitch winning. Delilah showed up, got some stray kills, had an absolutely goated level up, and I decided she was on the squad. I fed her one of the Mind Scrolls shortly after, and she snowballed into the monster you see today with zero additional assistance… Unlike the other Mind Scroll recipient, we’ll get to her. I know Spellsword is considered the stronger choice, and maybe it would’ve led to an even scarier unit, but I don’t care. Wicked Critch go brrrrrr
Jane
I was fully expecting Delilah to use this poor girl and throw her away like kleenex, I was so ready for the doomed one-sided yuri, only to realize that dreams can come true and we should all be so lucky. I loved these two. I love their dynamic. I love that the affection is actually reciprocated. I love the base conversation where Delilah gets furious at Nikolaos on Jane’s behalf. And more than anything I LOVE their Support A conversation. This might be my favourite Hag in White pairing. As a unit… Jane was alright. She was by far my weakest Bounty Hunter, but not by much and the other two were so good that I can hardly say ‘weakest Bounty Hunter’ is even a black mark on its own. She distinguished herself from the other two by having a superior sword rank, which gave her the niche of being the best candidate for any Silver Blades I found lying around.
Lopez
Delilah and Jane may be my favourite pairing, but Lopez may be my favourite character on a purely mechanical level. The Despoil mechanic makes him so incredibly useful, the triangle attack gives amazing utility, and promoting him ASAP skyrockets his self-sufficiency and makes sure he doesn’t fall off until late in the game. But then, right when I was thinking that maybe I should take the hit to my coffers and switch him out for Ziying, the triangle attack came back as a means to help nuke especially hardy and dangerous enemy units. Lopez is great, I love him, my only complaint is that Despoil doesn’t trigger on enemy phase and Lopez wound up killing a startling number of enemies on enemy phase.
Fango
Objectively, my Hestia has superior stats to Fango. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s my best Bounty Hunter, hands down. His availability is way better, his explosive strength means he hit harder sooner, and as always, there’s the power of the triangle attack. As a character, I was surprised by how much I liked him. I wound up killing Ioke with him, and his boss dialogue with her was both clever and hilarious given that he wound up OHKOing her with a low percentage crit. I think there’s a couple hints strewn throughout his dialogue pointing towards his ending, he’s smarter than anyone gives him credit for!
Begona
Rounding out the bandit trio, Begona wasn’t as explosive as Fango, but she was a constant and reliable body to throw at problems. The leadership star certainly didn’t hurt either. I’m genuinely curious how much harder a run would be if you didn’t use the bandits in some capacity. All in all, they’re great units, great characters, no notes.
Agari - Energy Ring, Speedwing
Wulfric
Pairing my cavs together because they both turned out very similarly. I wanted to like both of them more, but neither of them really wowed me in combat and they never managed to match my other, less mobile units in combat. Savior was a fantastic skill, though, and both of them saved me from my own mistakes countless times with their ability to rescue just about anything that wasn’t a Bounty Hunter or General. As far as their characters go, I found them both sweet and that definitely played a role in me keeping them over my other options for cavalry, but I may have to take a gamble on Glaucus and Laertes in a later run.
Pluto
I love this idiot. I knew I wanted him on the team the moment I saw him, and he didn’t disappoint. Even with his wonky skew towards magic instead of strength, Demeter’s shrines fed him enough Fell Bows to keep him relevant long enough for him to really take off. Sniper is fantastic in this game, and Pluto wound up being a great tool for punching holes in the enemy and clearing a path for sturdier units to get a foothold. My only regret with him is that there was never a follow-up to his support with Orlaith, which is a damn shame, because it means I may have to work up the motivations to write some fanfic about them or something.
Hestia
Runner-up for best Bounty Hunter, and she’d be taking it if she wasn’t competing with a triangle attack and greater availability. Hestia was fantastic and really hit the ground running. I wasn’t looking forward to having another axe unit on the team but I had to have Hestia on there, and she didn’t disappoint. She wound up running into her dad near the end of the game in a move I found very satisfying, I deeply appreciate that he’s just a nameless, faceless goon with no stated importance to the grand scheme of things, because honestly that’s the kind of recognition people like him deserve. What a cathartic character, I wish there were more Hestias in Fire Emblem.
Nicea - Mind Scroll, Curious Herb, Energy Ring, Spirit Dust, Mother’s Icon, Talisman x2, Dracoshield, Angelic Robe
Yeah.
I tried, man. I wanted her to be good. I found her story so fucking compelling. I poured my everything into getting a good unit out of her. She died so many times. She wound up somehow getting a higher magic stat than her strength stat. Cybele threw herself onto Pluto instead of going anywhere near her. I sent her against Dolus, got chills from their battle conversation, and then she got a dead level off of killing him. I cracked. I cracked and this is the monster I have to answer for.
Kairos
Meanwhile, good units. Kairos was one of my first promoted units, becoming a Spellsword around Chapter 10 before eventually being relegated to the bench. Near the end of the game I suddenly had room to bring someone back to pad out space, and it felt like he had never left, he was able to pull his weight just fine without losing a single step. I can only imagine how awesome he would’ve been if I bothered to keep him around full-time. Color me impressed, preacher man.
Eupraxia - Dracoshield, Swiftsoles
Sorry mounted units, grandma gets the shoes. I did a little bit of reading ahead and found out that Eupraxia shows up like this if you don’t recruit her the first go around, and I’m glad I went through with it. Telemus was probably a better pick for armour prepromote, but I had to go with Eupraxia. All things considered, she was very fun to use! Generals are very fun in this hack, reposition and canto+ both made Eupraxia extremely useful, and throwing the swiftsoles on her just turned her into one of the most helpful units in my army for those final three chapters. That’s even before I get into her supports, all of which cement her as one of my favourite characters in the game. In the end, she landed the final blow on her daughter. Both times.That’s just how it had to be.
Tiresias - Secret Book x2 (lol), Angelic Robe
Bless this man. This ray of sunshine deserves all the happiness in the world, and probably the swiftsoles over Eupraxia, but hindsight is 20/20. I probably should’ve went with Bishop, but grandma got me feeling the armour knight propaganda. At first I thought it’d be really funny to hand him the devil weapons as a General because he had maxed out Luck before even being promoted, but that never wound up amounting to anything. He was much too busy using staffs and reposition to get much of any combat in, particularly when Apate was double fisting Physic. I don’t regret using him for a second, though.
Thyone - Mother’s Icon, Body Ring
If old women are so cool then why isn’t there an old woman tw-ooooh my god-
10/10 Gotoh, love her, love her battle sprite, love her map mini with the little princess cone hat, love her skill, love her support with Eupraxia, love that she’s able to carve out a life of happiness after so much misery, love, love, love. Having those couple levels left to go alleviated the guilt I usually feel when the Gotoh gets a kill, which meant it was a lot easier for me to justify throwing her at a problem while the rest of my army was occupied.
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Thank you for the kindly words! I see a couple picks here I don’t see often, aside from the obvious one haha. Most people tend to have a full team by the time Hestia rolls around and don’t have the space to fit her in. Glad to see her getting some proper use - and also that you stumbled upon the easter egg!
Out of curiosity, did you miss the second Gotoh or just didn’t deploy him?
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I’m more than happy to share my thoughts! Hestia was a character that made me very happy to see, so it was well worth shuffling my army around to ensure she saw use. Her endgame easter egg felt like a pleasant surprise to validate my decision to invest in her, and I’m quite glad I did!
As for the matter of the second Gotoh, I did successfully recruit him! I probably could’ve deployed him over Wulfric or Agari, but at that point the sentimental factor kept them deployed. When I inevitably go for a second run, I’ll definitely be seeing about fitting him in. I particularly enjoyed his epilogue dialogue with Pericles, and I’d very much like to give him more of a chance to redeem himself beyond just donating his S Rank axe to the Bounty Hunter squad, lol.
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D’awwww shoot…boy I sure hope those recruitments aren’t convoluted or completely missable. Fire Emblem gives me trust issues sometimes… 
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Maybe about 3 or 4, but whatever you define as “complicated” may vary. Some are intuitive enough that you will get the gist of the recruitment right away, only one you might probably miss is Telemus, since you need to escape his map rather than fight him to recruit him later, but the only hint you get is a house that you won’t probably even visit by the time you defeat him anyways
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I have to side with Nicaea a bit, I probably wouldn’t have killed her sister but I would never want to see her again
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Here’s a recruitment guide I posted earlier.