The Best Archer You've Never Used!

Tomas is one of my favorite units in fe1 and 3, but he can go under the radar, both because a lot of people haven't played those games, and because he has an unimpressive first impression. Here's why I think he's pretty neat!
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Curing Sorrow - WhimsyHeath
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[@blindcocostudios]

When I saw the microwave teaser, I wasn't sure if you were going to let him cook or roast him. I'm glad it was a cooking video. Justice for my boy

[@actuallizard]

I can't roast Tomas, he's a skrunkly!

[@sequitur7222]

I really have to respect your dedication to fe1

[@actuallizard]

ITS GOOD I PROMISE

[@Green_964]

Fell in love with this character based on his design alone when I first played Shadow Dragon, been one of my favorite characters ever since.

[@augustboyle383]

I was not expecting Stephen A in a fire emblem video 😂

[@ellenhalfmoon]

I used Tomas on my first FE3 playthrough due to a recommendation. It turned out really useful as a sniper. Also it's interesting how different are the Archanea games from their remakes and how units change between them.

[@glitchwarrior7270]

I recognized the Tomas image in the thumbnail from the start, being one of the only people who's ever actually used the guy. In the Kaga games at least, his high base level is actually a *great* attribute of his due to the Orion's Bolt barely being contested and since my Jeorge was dead he was my main sniper in both FE1 and FE3B1.

[@MudFan]

Thank you Marth for the cool Engage tip!

[@kelvinnoodles]

I had never really given him a chance until I heard you talking about him and he's one of my favourite units in fe1 now

[@alazoneia]

Back in my first playthrough of Mystery of the Emblem, i saw his portrait, and was like why not he looks cool and I genuinely love him hes my favorite character. So happy theres a video about him. I wish he didnt start at level 8 though

[@lazykatie42069]

I actually ended up using him in fe1 bc both Gordin and Jeorge died, I spent his join map feeding him enough kills to get him to promotion and was not disappointed

[@CommerceHollifield666WWFSMD]

Love to see my boy Tomas get some much needed appreciation, used him when I played FE3 and was impressed by his performance

[@cblazerc]

ngl, when I saw the title I thought this would be a video about the 3-13 archer, lol.

[@Alklaine]

I've been streaming FE1 on purple site and it's my first time playing! I immediately benched him but I'm not too far past his join that I won't try to use him in the rest of my run! On chapter 13 now 🥰 thanks for the solid advice and reasonings! I'm excited!

[@BigKlingy]

Huh. I knew the Parthia doubled exp gain in Engage but didn't realized that was a reference to FE3. Guess it shows how long it's been since I played that. I agree that there isn't much competition for the Manual in FE3. Weapon Level was always a weird stat to me, because anyone you train is eventually going to end up with way more than they need, and there's some units who have awful growths/bases aside from Weapon Level (Matthis and I think Vyland). They're probably SUPPOSED to have a "bad stats but make up for that with good weapons" gimmick but in practice with WLV benchmarks so low anyone can use whatever they can soon enough. Orion's Bolt is really funny in FE8 because Neimi is the only one who needs it, so it might as well be sell fodder if you don't plan on training her. I used to prefer them ditching unique promo items for Master Seals, but you have a point that it now means there's more competition for them. "A pre-promote the game took out of the oven a little early" is how I see Farina in FE7 too, especially given there's an Elysian Whip in her join map. I appreciate discussions of units with non-obvious uses like this, reminds me of when people used to think Knoll was bad until they realized he could insta-promote into Summoner for sweet utility. And I still swear by Jean in Engage having uses even untrained due to giving you a Chain Guarder without needing a Second Seal and staff utility.

[@SkullKidAu]

I actually used Tomas in my recent playthrough of FE1, and yeah, he was definitely putting in work

[@mitchell102]

Cool video & interesting analysis as always. I'll definitely have to give Tomas a try next time I play FE1. Unfortunately, that's never. Lol

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL ActualLizard videos!!!! ❤

[@bazbazbaz.]

honestly what also doesn't help tomas in shadow dragon is that wolf and sedgar exist with their absurd growths so like good luck trying to compete with a guy who can reclass into general for free and still have a bow rank

[@metalmariomega]

Yeah, I noticed how stupidly easy it is to promote Tomas in FE1, and that Snipers have REALLY good promotion bonuses letting him keep up with Jeorge really easily. Even with my FE1 playthrough being slow as molasses he still found time to get to his promotion before Gordin, which says a lot about how much of a pain getting 8 levels is for wimpy bow units compared to just 2. Also neat to note that in New Mystery he CAN take out the reinforcement Dracoknights that show up in his join map regardless of difficulty, and while that's the extent of what you're able to do with him there, it's also WAY MORE than what most late game units can do in that game on higher difficulties.

[@zerikane]

I would like to introduce Castor for FE3. Unlike the forgetable Warren, Castor's Combat is great in either indoor/outside maps. I would consider Them the Brighton and Hicks backup of FE3. Otherwise I LOVE this video on a supplmentary unit which the games give. Tomas is a great aid when you want more support. The Bonus maps with Archenea Saga do show his utility best.

[@EthanKironus8067]

I think he's one of the guys I let die on my first Shadow Dragon playthrough after trying to use every unit. If I correctly remember, it was one of the manaketes in Archanea castle that did him in. 8:20 - I go absolutely ballistic, I REALLY HAVE TO PLAY THAT THING. Even if it ends up eliminating some of the unique charms that make Shadow Dragon so cleanly replayable, that kind of creative remake is still always fun if handled well and it certainly looks like it was done well. Plus I doubt there's ever been a person who played SD and didn't curse the lack of modern mechanics at some point. Also, you really should've made a joke about not confusing him with everyone's favourite librarian in the franchise. P.S. You can use him in Ch 12 by passing him a bow, and bonus points if you exhaust Volzhin's weapon and/or just ping the healers for EXP farming.

[@General12th]

Hi Lizard! You're not a scrub!

[@hectorgregorio95]

I beated fe3 book 1 a couple of years ago. Havent beaten book 2 cuz my dancer kept dying to a Ballista and later I lost my sav file. But i definitely will try the game again once i finish my fe6 run

[@constantconstant8943]

Oh I was curious when someone said to run Tomas in book 1 when I said "I got Castor I was good", fully thought Tomas was one of those FE1 filler units lol.

[@MrBannnaHead]

I enjoyed the analogy

[@henryreturns1397]

The best archer is Shinon in Radiant Dawn - He comes with beast STATS , and have A LOT OF DEFENSE - He is close on promotion too on 3rd tier - On Promotion he gets more range to attack and becomes more of a beast - And if you bring him to the tower , slap there the double bow - Not even that , Shinon even has provoke so enemies comes to him , leavnig your other units "FREE" - Oh and the scene of part 2 where he shoots the arrow to free Lucia , he looks so fucking badass

[@michaelchoate6213]

Shinon is my favorite in the series. He has that badass cutscene in RD and is just a funny, irredeemable douchebag. He's legitimately good in RD, and a pretty useful Jagen-esque Sniper in PoR.

[@MarceloKatayama]

Provoke on an Archer is incredibly silly.

[@kay_real]

i don't like shinon because he's mean :(

[@arceuskiller115]

another slept on FE1 unit is radd, he can spend his entire join chapter in the arena if you sent a healer over to him and after that he should be pretty well off depending on how fast you are playing but at a casual pace I got him to like level 10 and he was out preforming most of my army stat wise

[@cole4836]

Hi! I'm actually playing FE1 because of your videos, I'm definitely gonna try using Tomas for sure, but do you have any other tips or videos you'd reccomend I watch before continuing playing? I'd love to watch a video going over everything you need to know before playing fire emblem 1 or something like that lol

[@empressmako]

In fe1 i used george but i’m training castor in fe3 and will definitely compare him to castor when he joins

[@jamesfreeman6946]

Stephen A’s videogame takes are unironically better than any take he has about combat sports that ESPN forces him to talk about

[@actuallizard]

Yeah He's certainly had some, uh, interesting combat sports takes.

[@jamesfreeman6946]

@@actuallizard ESPN should just give him a script instead of letting him say whatever when it’s a sport he doesn’t know

[@Fin0fLenster]

I'm partial to Castor in FE3 Book 1 since they kept his jacked growths that characters who can't promote in FE1 had but is now able to promote. He definitely lacks the super good promotion gains that Snipers get though, aside from the horse movement.

[@SamuraiSam]

love the Stephen A. cameo lol

[@ohblock3670]

I think he's still good in FE11. The sniper promotion still brings him up to B bows with 45 wexp away from A. Silver bow chip is nice, plus considering his higher str compared to Jeorge given this games promo system being more akin to FE3, his str better holds up later in the game to one-shot many dracoknights even on hard 5 with the parthia, specifically chapters 21 and 22. Jeorge is somewhat notoriously known to be a little short on hard 5 from what I've seen later on. Although it is important to mention that Lorenz is also in a similar boat: being good with the parthia and one-shotting dracoknights. His slightly better str also allows him to get the sneaky dracoknights with more bulk (though horseman Lorenz has the same str as sniper Tomas). Both are okay picks tho for the later dracoknights in the game. In FE12 he's definitely at his worst. Really his only thing is dracokinght chip for chapter 17, 18, and maybe 19. The silver bow is okay chip for them even on lunatic, though obviously he'll easily get one-rounded on higher difficulties which is a downside. Also obviously other units like Jeorge, Macellan, and maybe Sheena (though she can't chip on 17) are notably better with parthia access at base. Also ig he has pretty high growths even for this game (I've used him on hard 4 two times, pretty fun), though obviously this doesn't make him better really. I may as well mention BSFE while I'm here. He's okay in chapter 1, the two rng is handy. Really all the units on that map (all units in BSFE in general tbh) are useful. He can fight mages on enemy phase, even through walls. His killer bow is also nice of course, killing as much enemies as quickly as possible is a big part of the game and the crit chance helps. Really that's about it, just a solid unit in a game where you make use of all your units. Anyway sorry for rambling on, liked the video! I'm playing FE1 rn (I'm using him dw), and considering playing FE3 b1 again after since I have a FE11 playthrough to do later, may as well play every version of book 1 again. I didn't use Tomas previously in FE3, though I want to this time. Still one of my favorite archers in the franchise. Thanks for the vid spreading the good word of Tomas, goodbye :)

[@Hebleh]

I love Tomas in Shadow Dragon especially because his join chapter you can get some good levels off his join chapter priests Hes basically just better than Gordin and Jeorge in a lot of ways, with investment

[@juicyjuustar121]

I pretty much just used Jeorge for bow stuff in FE1 (until he died, that is). I really just wanted to get through the game bc by the time I got Tomas I was starting to lose my mind (though I did use Midia cuz I liked her design and she was a paladin I could actually use (all my other paladins and potential paladins died extremely early)) Full disclosure I was not able to beat the game I got softlocked on the final chapter due to a glitch, but most of my team was just fliers and pre-promotes

[@Enrique_Gonzalez_]

My 1st playthrough of FE1 had me use Gordin in nearly every map and he was awful for the 1st half of the game, mostly just getting HP & Weapon lvl level ups. Imagine my surprise when, after painstakingly getting him to level 10 and using the Orion’s Bolt, Gordin went from barely doing chip damage to regularly one-rounding 90% of enemies. Sniper bases are a hell of a drug.

[@viviblue7277]

He can promote and thus has potential but he takes so long to do things. Also I like to give the manual to Julian in fe1 for obvious reasons. If I want an archer in fe1 I tend to use gordin. I have used Tomas in a fe1 draft before, he’s decent. Ogma really carried that draft team on his back though.

[@gamerkyle2402]

In my opinion, another "Great Value" unit with hidden potential is Radd. He has some of the best growths in the game, on top of flat promotion bonuses in FE3. He may start with Mercenary base stats with no personal bases, but it's really not that bad considering FE3's enemy quality. A few levels from the reinforcements on his joining map can really make him snowball past the competition. Sadly, if Shadow Dragon did Tomas a disservice, then it committed a downright crime against Radd: Heavily nerfed growths on top of the imbalanced Weapon Triangle and Master Seal competition.

[@elivcdxv1852]

tomas has sick hair though

[@PriestOfTheHelix]

Since Shadow Dragon was my first FE game and I played it when I was like 10, I actually used Tomas on my first ever playthrough. I reclassed him into a Myrm because I thought it would be funny and used him until endgame. Him and General Sedgar took on all of the reinforcements on the left side of the map and Tomas died to an unlucky crit the turn before I killed Medeus. I've used him every playthrough since. God speed you garbage archer, never forget.

[@HonkHonkGoose776]

I use him all the time, didn’t realize he was good lol

[@bladerdj3503]

Justice for the unknown!

[@Fizz-Q]

TOMAS YEAAAAH tomas is fun in all games, the 5 base speed demon cannot be matched, specially when he gets the 1 str over jeorge

[@just-mees]

The only thing I know about Tomas is that according to some datamined values they're not male or female, this is probably a mistake and not textual but you gotta take what you can get for representatiom 😭😭😭

[@starkillahx]

11 was my first fe game and I had decided to off most of my characters because I wanted to do the gaiden chapters and Tomas just looked so generic that I had to use him. I also didnt have an archer

[@harrybrown7745]

Imagine a rom hack map that uses this concept ala arron v samson, giving you two units who can only grow to reach a certain niche over the course of their joining chapter, with the less used unit being lost at the end of the chapter?

[@jerry3115]

That's basically just picking a unit with extra steps, i don't see the appeal. I think there's a good reason nobody ever did training based recruitments like donnel ever again.

[@harrybrown7745]

@@jerry3115 but I would argue otherwise, and say tying unit growth to story progression in this way is an underutilized objective across the series. I think even on maps where your main units are stronger it would be an interesting objective to make me pay attention to something other than the big huge fight happening in this map(vs the last 12 that played the same way).

[@DarkWorldQ8]

I have to admit, I've never used him in my 2 runs of FE11 and FE12. I have never played FE1 or FE3 and don't plan on ever playing them.

[@SawyerGreenfield-hl1rh]

Tomas is the character I use for reference when talking about units no one remembers. So he has that going for him.

[@TerminaFE]

Neat vid that I knew was inevitable due to how often you have hyped the dude up. I will now without hesitation grant the award for most forgettable FE1 character to Caesar.

[@thekoifishcoyote8762]

He joins next to a guy named Radd. Their stats and growths barely even matter.

[@portalguy2246]

Well this is the excuse I needed to play FE3 again

[@bongosmcdongos4190]

Yeah Tomas is solid in 1, possibly the best archer (better growths than George). If castor could promote it'd be him instead.

[@birdbig6852]

Because I lost Ogma and Nabarl early, both Jeorge and Thomas were really good in indoors maps but Merric was better.

[@NachostheXth]

I love underrated units, it's so satisfying to make them good Etie was probably my surprise MVP in engage, by beefing up her SPD, giving her the +1 range ring and a horse, she was an awesome unit for supporting my frontline

[@cowabungasheeit]

Tomas is probably the best bow unit in FE1. If you struggle to train Gordin to level 10 he only has 1 more strength on average and a 10% strength growth advantage, while everything else about them is almost exactly the same. Jeorge's speed is obnoxiously mediocre, castor has 6 move and even worse speed and Sedgar is atrocious. Wolf can be good with a speed ring but that's a pretty big ask when better candidates like Minerva exist. In FE3 book 1 I would say that Castor definitely has him beat though; Tomas only averages 10-11 speed after promotion which is about what Castor will have while also having much better strength, higher movement and and even a better speed growth. Needing to dismount sometimes is a bit of a bummer, though. You get a second Orion's bolt much sooner in FE3 though so using both of them isn't a bad idea.

[@alexpowell1184]

Castor though…

[@ZegZegZegZeg]

It’s actually Leonardo tho

[@GoonCommander]

Unfortunately he's not funnier than "I hit it on the mark!" And Castor happen to kill medeus for me in both book 1 and 2 so he's got some tough competition. 😅

[@LP-zn8sc]

Thomas may be a great archer, but george is sexy so rip bozo.

[@cyndit9054]

If he's so good, why isn't he in FE3 Book 2? (aka the only part of FE1 or 3 that I have actually played) 😆

[@guydude439]

The only thing i remember about Tomas is that he has the most feminine looking character portrait I've ever seen on the FE wiki

[@sirbradfordofhousejones]

Of course Stephen A smith would say that. He’s the biggest Jugdral apologist out there and will go to any length to dismiss quality Archanea units. Media bias YET AGAIN

[@ivanbluecool]

Clearly the best bow uses are hand axe and javelin users. They got auto pirage shot from fates.

[@pksprite6401]

I feel like in FE3 book 1, Castor and Wolf are significantly better than Thomas, and would take spots as 2nd and 3rd best archer over him. Both join much, much earlier, Castor has some pretty impressive damage output with his growths (60% compared to Thomas’ 20%) and can promote into Horseman with an uncontested promotion item, and both can also do the whole Manual for Parthia cope thing you talk about here. Hell, just with measuring how useful certain units are, you could probably argue Gordon to be better. Like, you can make Thomas work… but why tho? Even in FE1 where the Orion’s Bolt is pretty clearly just for him, I really don’t see any point to having a “Jeorge 2” in a game where the enemies are so easy to manipulate. It’s not like in FE6 where wyverns are actually nigh unstoppable, this is FE1 and 3, where stat boosters are on crack and you get very strong precursors to Pent in Wendell and Boah. So yea, great video as usual, but I’m not convinced. I don’t think there’s much value in Thomas in a typical playthrough, despite all of this.

[@actuallizard]

on fe3: Castor has a few issues to me. First he needs to get 7 levels to promote and I don't think he's contributing much during this time, Tomas doesn't either, but getting Tomas to promotion is just setting up 4 Parthia kills for him, Castor's training arc is quite a bit longer. Castor also can't always use parthia en route to promotion at all. His base wlvl is 6 or 11 if we give him the manual. So he needs to hit his 20% wlvl growth, which he won't before level 10 about a third of the time. And then horseman promotion is a lot worse than sniper statistically. Horseman only gets 3 move, 2 skill, and 2 def on promotion and you lose it on indoor maps. Sniper gets 2 strength, 5 skill, and 5 speed, in exchange for one less def and move, and they keep it all on indoor maps. Wolf similarly doesn't get to enjoy the sniper promotion bonuses and also loses out on indoor maps. He also has only a 20% speed growth. So if we level him to 10, he'll have 8 strength and speed. which is 1 less strength than a promoted tomas, and 2 less speed. Plus I think 7 levels is actually a pretty non trivial amount for both wolf and castor. They won't be one rounding so it's a lot of kill setup for them. Unless you want to wait for parthia, but even then its still a longer training arc than tomas has. The thing I like about tomas is he's just short of ready to go. I wouldn't really like him if I had to train him much. So, for me he's above the early archers that need to a lot more kill feeding to get going. Archer in fe3 isn't really a high enough impact role that I want to heavily invest in one, so I like the Jeorge's and tomas' that just kind of do stuff for fairly little input.

[@pksprite6401]

@@actuallizard I agree that archers aren’t something in either of these games that you want to put a lot of investment into… but Castor is a Horseman! 3 move and 2 range on outdoor maps give him unprecedented range for a cavalry unit, and he actually has the stats to make use of this in the long term, unlike Wolf or Sedgar. Plus, I think Castor can contribute just fine early. He’s statistically your best Archer until Jeorge, and can do the same useful Archer things that anyone can, but with good stats. For example, he can help out on both Minerva maps, and on the map where Caesar and Radd join (that map usually ends up being quite choke-pointy whenever I play it for some reason). Even in that third of the time where you get screwed and he can’t get Parthia, Jeorge can still use it just fine. And then, Castor keeps growing even after promotion, so he has more shots to get that 1 weapon level point, thanks to the FE3 exp formula. On indoor maps you have Jeorge, a Castor who will still have fine stats, and no wyverns (so less demand for strong archers). So I’m never missing Thomas much at all. Wolf is more of a short term filler unit, doing the Horseman stuff before Castor promotes. His stats are honestly passable at first, and even if he’s not a long term unit, I’d say that’s more than Thomas’ totally skippable utility. It’s cool that Thomas has an avenue to viability, which is indeed more than can be said of other Archanea replacement units like Radd, Dolph, or Vyland. But to me, it all kind of comes off like coping over the specific combination to make someone like Bunet or Anna work in Engage.

[@edgecolthearts8096]

Thomas is actually stronger than Gordon and George str wise

[@mysmallnoman]

Eh archers and bows are bad in FE1/3 because the games are enemy phase heavy and there's no point in using bows ever Also " powerhouses like Leon" lol what

[@itsallenwow]

Bro the reason these characters aren’t popular is because they’re in FE1 lol

[@actuallizard]

Yeah, that's one of the first things I said in the video lmao

[@lightbrand_]

Classic case of "should’ve watched before commenting"

[@eitannativ6850]

Hiiiii