AXE USERS ARE BACK, BABY
play notes on thracia 776, part 1
one thing that made genealogy of the holy war stand out from later titles is that it resisted the urge for symmetry in its design. maybe the most prominent example of this is in its distribution of weapons between playable. as is traditional for fire emblem, the three melee weapon types have a rock-paper-scissors style pecking order where swords trump axes, axes trump lances, and lances trump swords. this cyclical shape asserts an even systemic balance between the weapons that arm the majority of the world's warriors.
in practice, the relationship between these weapons is complicated by unequal distribution. among the units in your army in genealogy, sword users are represented roughly three times as much as lance users, and lance users three times as much as axe users. dedicated axemen number one apiece in each generation of the game (plus one "master knight" that can use every type of weapon). moreover, they tend to be somewhat weaker than other units as they all lack abilities that enable them to hit multiple times per round, which is one of the cornerstones of a real powerhouse unit in genealogy. (unlike other FE titles, genealogy restricts the ability to strike twice per round against slower foes to units with the "pursuit" ability, which all dedicated axe users lack). my few axe users remained useful because of their high base damage and their advantage over enemy lancers, but struggled to keep up with my swordsmen and lancers, especially at higher levels (except for my master knights, who only dabbled in axes and mostly excelled for other reasons).
so it's funny when thracia 776 opens by giving you 4 axemen in the very first mission of the game, and making them some of your most powerful units. thracia removes the "pursuit" requirement from genealogy, allowing any unit to double attack if their speed is high enough, and the high constitution of axe fighters means their speed isn't inhibited by heavy weapons, letting most of them (besides marty) double attack with ease. their high constitution also makes them well suited to capturing enemy units, something you can only do if the enemy has a lower con score than you. capturing enemies and stealing their gear is the only way to replace deteriorating weapons and make money so far, so my axemen's profiency at this makes them feel absolutely essential, in stark contrast to lex and johan in genealogy. as icing on the cake, the first chapter heaps rare and powerful equipment on them: orsin gets a a high-critical throwing axe and halvin gets a brave axe, which grants him additional attacks each round. in the following chapters, i would have to go out of my way to keep my axe fighters from dominating the battlefield and hogging all the experience. it's very different from genealogy.
there are semiotics in play here. axe users in fire emblem are traditionally are brigands, pirates, barbarians, and brutes. in genealogy, you play as lords, knights, and scions of aristocratic houses and legendary bloodlines. even in the second half of the game when you're rebelling against the empire, your axe users are noble sons. your revolution isn't aimed at destroying corrupt power structures but replacing the evil emperor with a good one, ordained by gods and light. thracia 776 is about reenthroning the rightful prince too, but on a smaller scale, inside an independent kingdom under imperial occupation. will this game take a more radical tack than its predecessor? i'm not optimistic, this is still fire emblem after all - but the elevation of axe users, the conspicuous mechanical foregrounding of the "lower classes" and the marginal status (well, compared to genealogy) of the elite early in the game, gives me some hope that the resistance in the thracian peninsula will be of a somewhat different character than seliph's crusade to restore the status quo. (we're on like chapter 3 though so we'll see)