>>15220475
Eirik? He makes it back to Strand and joins the Ravens if he's not with Rook/Alette but I always used him as I needed a replacement for Rook, he can go between Varl, can give Willpower and can summon a bear to block units later. A useful character.
I really like that new wave mechanic, so much so that I kinda wish it was used as part of the Wars mechanic in 1. Give you a reason to switch characters around as only characters who survive a battle will retain kills and I remember a few parts in 1 where I have a few people standing around because they were too weak to finish anyone off.
I do feel like your choices matter in a sense, you really do need to train your heroes up in your journey through the 3 games, best time is the tents in 2. If you get each hero up to 35, you can then straight promote them to 15 with a title. And while you get renown in 3 there's precious little time to stop as doing so bring bad consequences.
There's a few of the bigger ones, like saving the Dredge kid allows Rook/Alette to survive going outside the gate with Oddleif. Certain characters like Bersi, Mogun and Krumr will join the raven caravan and give you much needed people who've been with you since the beginning and are higher leveled. Having the Varl on your side is always a plus for the like of Hakon. Still managed to keep Egil alive and he was pretty solid with 20 defense at 15. Items are also really important, like weights for Alette which give her knockback on >3 strength damage and Overwatch make her really good at deny human/low armor units a turn.
>>15221070
Actually kinda liked they humanized them a bit. You learn of the Dredge from the Varl and map descriptions as this mass of invaders then you slowly realize they're families and people fleeing from the darkness that Eyvind unleashed and are lead by the Sundr which treat this more as a war than a march.
>Eyvind has a bitch fit.
Rugga has a bigger one, if you don't agree with him on certain choices leading to Arberrang he forces you into a battle, probably killing Egil in the attempt. Same with Onef and his mutiny. And that's where I appreciate the downtime to training heroes in the tent, just to get away from marching and the caravan for awhile because I know there's going to be more problems later with the possibility of losing people.