Generals are the promoted versions of Knights. They have excellent defense, good attack, surprising evasive ability for their size and bad resistance. They are quite slow, but what they lack in maneuverability they make for with defensive and offensive ability. Many of the bosses in several games are generals (or their lesser form earlier in the game)
Combat
Generals can be used like "walls" to block enemy forces and are quite useful in survival and defense objective battles. They can be used to block small entrances to prevent opposing units from getting past them, this is very useful if you wish to stop theives from escaping. A General's weaknesses are magic and anti-armor weapons, as well as fast moving durable and powerful characters like Heroes, experienced Paladins and Warriors. The rarity of a general ever being out matched on the field through sheer brute force is high, which means they are very valuable to any team and their durability is very helpful to weaker units as they can hide behind them. Another thing that helps Generals is they gain the ability to use bows which can deal with Mages slightly but you shouldn't risk using a bow to completely destroy one (Unless you are using something like a Killer Bow or Parthia, neither of which are very likely due to their high weapon level)In Radiant Dawn, Generals can Promote to Marshall greatly improving most stats. Trying to beat any fire Emblem game without using a general or marshall would be an incredible challenge. One tactic that people tend to use is giving generals the movement boosting items, essentialy turning them into a long range destroyer.
A battle animation of a General, Amelia from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones attacking with an Axe.
Weapon Usage
Generals have been in every Fire Emblem game to date, and have had varying weapons available for them. This chart shows the differences.
| Game | Available Weapons |
|---|---|
| Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi | Lances, Swords |
| Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo | Lances |
| Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Axes, Bows, Lances, Swords |
| Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 | Axes, Bows, Lances, Swords |
| Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi | Axes, Lances |
| TearRing Saga: Utna Heroes Saga | Swords |
| Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Axes, Lances |
| Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones | Axes, Swords, Lances |
| Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance | Swords, Lances |
| Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn | Swords and Lances, or Lances and Axes, or Axes and Swords or Lances, Axes and Bows (SP Class verison) |
| Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon | Lances, Bows |
Skills
In Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Generals have the skill Great Shield.
In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, generals can learn Luna as their Occult skill, while in Radiant Dawn they learn it automatically when they promote to Marshalls.
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