Okay, now for the FE tradition... game notes in small text, and then unit reviews. Enjoy! (or skim to the next post if you aren't on #TeamFE)
P: 2
1: 5
2: 5, CorrinJakob
3: 6, CorrinGunter
4: 9, RinkahKaze
5: 7, RinkahKaze
6: 5, CorrinJakob
7: 11, CorrinJakob
P1: 9, ArthurEffie
8: 10, CorrinSilas
9: 15, CorrinEffie
10: 11, SelenaBeruka
11: 9, ArthurEffie
P19: 10, ArthurEffie
12: 13, NilesCamilla
13: 10, CamillaSelena
14: 8, CorrinKeaton
15: 12, CorrinGunter
16: 8, PeriLeo
17: 14, PeriKeaton
18: 9, NilesCamilla
19: 12, CamillaXander
20: 13, NilesCamilla
21: 9, CharlotteXander
22: 8, CorrinPercy
P22: 10, CorrinPercy
23: 12, CharlotteXander
24: 12, CorrinElise
25: 17, CamillaNina
26: 18, CamillaBeruka
27: 7, CharlotteXander
E: 5, NilesCamilla
Corrin: 11
Camilla: 8
Xander: 4
Niles: 4
Various: 3
Benny 1
Felicia 1 (retired C18)
Laslow 2
Mozu 2
Charlotte 5
Kaze 5
Odin 5
Izana 7
Arthur 9
Flora 12
Nina 14
Gunter 16
Silas 17 (retired C9)
Shura 18 (retired C24)
Azura 19 (retired E)
Selena 19 (retired C17)
Nyx 25
Elise 31
Jakob 31 (retired C20)
Leo 35
Peri 36 (retired C22)
Effie 42
Keaton 44
Xander 46
Percy 47
Beruka 51
Niles 58
Corrin 104
Camilla 113
Unit notes:
Corrin: She is very unique. Swords, magic swords, dragonstones. Tomes after promotion if you want, but the Levin Sword outclasses tomes unless you have a dodgetank Corrin and I certainly did not. Dragonstones can't double but hit hard magically at range 1, and up your stats. Swords are the usual, the Levin Sword is 1-2 magic and the rest are ranged 1 physical. Versatile and neat, can do offence or tanking, and Draconic Hex is a great skill for bosses. Doesn't dominate, but still in contention for the position of #3 unit in the game.
Jakob: Again, a character build never really before seen in the series. He's kinda jagenish as he starts out promoted... but gains levels as if he's unpromoted and caps at 40, so all this really means is he never gets promotion bonuses, and super-early access to promoted skills. His growths aren't wonderful either. But he's a great utility man between debuffing daggers and staves, and is a staff-user who can take a couple hits and counter early on and that's pretty great.
Felicia: Played as female Corrin, so she joins much later and isn't terribly useful, filler staff user. If you play as male, you get her early instead of Jakob, and she's... generally worse from the looks of things, a little faster but much more fragile and less damaging, at least until you get the Flame Shuriken. Also, Jakob can become a Paladin/GK, while Felicia gets much the much weaker Mercenary branch. But I imagine she's still really useful for the same reasons as Jakob.
Elise: Hey, it's a 7-move healer, automatically worth using. Elise also has some really useful passives she builds up over time: +3 durability for adjacent allies, +2 durability for male allies with 2, and eventually +2 damage and durability for everyone within 2 as a Strategist. Neato. Anyway Elise also sports rockin' magic/speed/luck so after promotion she can mount a formidable offence off of good move. 2HKOed at minimum by anything physical, though.
Silas: Cavalier with a bit of a str/def focus at the expence of speed. His personal skill emphasises this further, he can be a great situational tank. And cavalier's a useful place to be... moreso in this game than any since Tellius because they get Shelter aka GBA/Tellius Rescue, which is an extremely useful tactical skill.
Arthur: Weirdo. His big issue is his awful luck, and his personal skill lowers it further in exchange for making nearby enemies easier to crit. He's got great power and some bulk but it's difficult to use at times due to this. His son makes him a lot better, in theory, but by then he was kinda underlevelled and crappy for me. But he's awesome! Arthur, defender of justice! Too bad birds keep stealing his maps...
Effie: Another unusual unit, she's a knight with a huge Str focus and a passive which boosts it further. What does this mean? You have a unit based around getting OHKOs. Works well supporting with dual strikes, since doubling doesn't matter for those, and of course is an excellent tank until magic enters the picture. I ended up dropping her as OHKOing got harder as the game went on plus knight move being annoying, but I'm not sure if I should have; she's good certainly.
Mozu: Is Donnel who starts out less far behind but also with less payoff. I dunno. I'll use her someday.
Odin: ODIN DARK has awesome battle quotes and SO... MUCH... POWER!!! unfortunately it isn't gameplay power, Odin has bad speed and mediocre everything else and is generally pretty bad. Fates doesn't want you to go one-rounding shit at range 1-2 so mages all have some sort of big weakness, or in Odin's a bunch of moderate ones.
Niles: Is Leonardo trading Skill for Speed (archer with high res). Funnily enough this is a winning trade. I've long thought bows would suit thieves well, so this game delivered, and of course Niles gets the cool thiefy things: Locktouch and Move+1, then after promotion a choice between a horse or staves and Lucky Seven (which is less uber than in Awakening because battles average somewhat longer, but still great). There are also just enough flying enemies to keep his bows relevant.
Azura: Azura is the game's dancer, and an odd one. Her offence is actually really good once she starts gaining levels! (Though, weapon ranks can be a problem.) So she can chip in with that, and is useful for dual strikes which matter quite a bit. Unfortunately she's very fragile, OHKOs are often a worry. Her dance gives Spd+3 for the rest of the turn after a certain level and this is extremely useful, automatically puts her towards the high end of FE dancers in the series.
Nyx: The game's second non-Corrin mage, Nyx has good magic and good speed... and the worst stats in the game otherwise. She's made of tissue paper, but if you can work around that she's pretty good at one-rounding things from range. (Fire's accurate enough that her bad skill isn't the end of the world.)
Camilla: When dear big sister says she's going to kill all your enemies, she means it. Holy shit is she good. Joins overlevelled, amazing str/speed/def, flies, good skill access (Trample!), gains levels quickly... in a game which tries to give most units weaknesses, someone on the design team clearly loved her, because she has none. MVP without a doubt, carried my team. She's Haar accepting an arrow weakness in exchange for better speed/luck/res and stronger joining power, in other words, she's Haar but better. Let that sink in.
Beruka: Dramatically, ridiculously worse than Camilla, sadly. But still certainly worth using. Her Str growth is shockingly bad for a wyvern, the speed is problematic as well. But she's an excellent flying wall, and the strength base is still high, at least, and she has access to Trample and Axefaire late to help her with that Str if she gets that far. Flight's great as always, and you can never have too many high-Def/Luck units.
Selena: The pouty swordgirl returns. Selena has pretty good speed and bulk but is somewhat shaky on power, and there's nothing terribly exciting about Mercenary or its promotions. You do get a range 2 sword which helps her a fair bit... it somewhat wastes her good speed, except that she can use it without being doubled, which surprisingly few swordsmen in Conquest can claim! The best of the Awakening expies, which isn't really saying much.
Kaze: He's... super-fast, and shuriken/darts are neat weapons. His durability is awful, though, it's mage-level. Still, he's a great magic counter with high res, WTA, 1-2 range, and the ability to double them, and he's another Locktouch unit, so you can do worse than him, for all that I went with Niles myself. He debuffs, but so do the servants, and they have staves as well.
Laslow: Oh look, it's Selena trading speed and defence for more power. But any attempt for Laslow to be a power character is one that will get him mocked by various Conquest PCs who actually do that job well, so Laslow's stat build lacks a real niche. He gets a really weak rally which could occasionally make a difference. I actually ended up using him as a pairup bot at the end after a bunch of other units died, but that speaks more to how few options I had...
Peri: Offence-focused cavalier, Peri has pretty good power and speed both, though a bit shaky durability. She also has a horse, and rescue! Her personal skill gives her even more offence for the rest of the turn after getting a kill, though this requires Azura to be truly useful (though it's pretty great then). Probably the best of the later-joining unpromoted PCs?
Benny: The game's premier wall... once he gets Wary Fighter, which gives him immunity to being doubled. Def/Res/HP/Luck are all good, Def being outright amazing. I can't say I found this too exciting when you have walls who also are amazing in other ways; I usually like my units to have more offence than this (Benny never doubles and his Str is merely above average, worse than either cav). But there's certainly a niche for him.
Charlotte: Charlotte and Benny are opposites in a way, later-joining underpromoted PCs who underwhelm at first but have real potential to be the very best at their role. For Benny it's defence, for Charlotte it's offence. Only Camilla compares in Str/Spd. To pay for this, Charlotte is quite mediocre at base due to low level, low hit, and low durability... and the latter sticks around forever despite the great HP. I used her as a pairup machine for Xander and she's great at that, for what it's worth.
Leo: Leo might be the worst of the Nohrian royals, which is like being the poorest billionaire. (It might also be Elise.) Leo's main problem is that his Speed/Def aren't that great (but they aren't bad... still, he can be doubled and/or 2HKOed, and the combination is awful). He starts out strong, being promoted, and has good magic attack. Has a unique weapon which is essentially a Fire +3 which can critical, not bad.
Keaton: Keaton's that PC who is vaguely there, and vaguely solid. I used him the whole game and he's good at not dying and generally being capable, but not outstanding. 6 move 1 range lock is a downer, and his speed could be better, but beaststones give him stat customisability as you need it and his power/durability, including little things like crit and crit avoid, are all good.
Gunter: The game's true jeigan, but he only gets to be that for two chapters. Then he rejoins and is... weird. His growths are awful, but he has enough base Str, and Rescue, and pairup potential, to be worth deploying, I found. Of course if I'd been better at keeping other PCs alive, this might not have been the case. Speaking of that, he's near impossible to keep alive against magic, that speed/res is a thing. Def is okay, and Armoured Blow is a neat skill. He does get L15 skills super-easily, like the servants.
Xander: Unlike Camilla, Xander does have statistical weaknesses: speed and res. Both are quite bad! Literally being one-rounded by mages is something he needs to watch out for. More than the other great units in the game, he needs a good pairup. Thaaat said, Xander is amazing anyway. Great power, amazing durability (including crit avo), a 1-2 range attack which 2HKOs most things. You put him into a pile of non-mage enemies, watch him tank and weaken/kill all of 'em. Conquest's #2 PC.
Shura: The final three PCs are all staff users. Shura's actually the last PC who isn't at least mildly FAQ-bait, and there are still 11 chapters left when he joins! Anyway, he's an Adventurer: bows, Locktouch, staves. Actually has a staff rank and kinda okay magic, so he's like Anna in Awakening, filling a lot of utility roles. Not as good at it due to less good stats and joining later, but still solid enough. Like the other locktouch types, pretty good Res too.
Flora: The worst of the filler staff users because her bad speed/HP/def means she gets doubled and dies easily. She does have debuffing shuriken, of course, but it's not really enough. That said, still totally used her because I had plenty of use for such filler. She died several times and I never reset for her, but every time somebody else died later in the fight and I reset anyway. The Flora curse?
Izana: Amusing foppish side-character. Your prepromo Sage like Pent or Saleh, but not as good. He's ORKOed more easily than Shura but less easily than Flora, and has decent magic/skill so can mount some offence if needed. It's good to be the archduke.
I only got two kids, and all I have to say about them is that Percy has a fantastic personal skill. The kids are actually much better-balanced in this game, which means I think they're a lot more useful and the min-max/grindy types think they're way worse... which is a good thing, in both ways!