Gladius/Units

These units seem to be useless for a speedrun:

• Mongrels - Extremely weak, despite having a high initiative. Secutors are a much better choice if lights need to be used.
• Beasts - There are strategies for using wolves or bears, but they are either rather slow, or require multiple of the same unit. Plains Cats may need more looking into though. Scarabs and Scorpions require completing a long, very difficult league and may cost too much time, especially being so late in the game.
• Mongrel Shaman - Weakest arcane class by far. Useless even in non-speedrun gameplay. Although at least one arcane class is required to complete the game.
• Berzerkers - They are only powerful when you use Rage, but you then lose control of them, and while they usually make decent moves, it's too risky to be worth using in a speedrun. Without Rage, they are pitifully weak.
• Legionnaires - They aren't too bad of a unit, but your main heroes, along with Murmillos, are much better medium units.

These units are probably essential to speedrunning:

• Centurions - Very powerful, though they don't appear to have any combo attacks unlocked when you recruit them at a convenient time.
• Gungnirs/Peltasts - The Long Throws are extremely effective on everything except Undead Summoners/Legionnaires and Murmillos. Peltasts are probably better, since their long throws don't take up as many skill points to use. Plus, the shapeshifting abilities of Gungnirs aren't useful if everything goes your way, which should happen in a speedrun. But in Ursula's playthrough, Gungnirs are your only option for the beginning.
• Secutors - Their use in the beginning comes from Surprise Attack from behind, since most units don't acquire Awareness until later in the game. When in Imperia, you should buy the Harpe in Caltha's shop, and buy the critical damage + accessory from an accessory shop. This will make your critical hits do ridiculous amounts of damage. They can be as powerful as regular mediums and heavies, but have much higher initiative.

These units may be useful for a speedrun, but need more looking into:

• Archers - Eiji is very effective, but having multiple archers could be useful. One archer you can recruit in the Windward Steppes is several levels higher than your school, but can still be recruited.
• Minotaurs - They are extraordinarily powerful and useful in most battles, especially since they are immune to many of the light warriors' advantages. But to do the sidequest to unlock one, you have to complete Imperia Untamed and Mongrel Siege leagues in Cro Beska. This will give you enough cups to unlock the tournament, but it is much faster to do Quarrel in the Mawl since only one battle is necessary to complete the league. In addition, completing the sidequest may give you a useless Satyr rather than a Minotaur, so even if everything goes perfectly in the battle, restarts may still need to happen.

These units' usefulness in a speedrun are unknown:

• Channellers - They are very effective in numbers, but their usefulness comes from their ability to teleport across the battlefield, which may take longer than just using brute force with bigger units. This needs more looking into. At least one arcane class is required to complete the game.
• Undead Summoner - You can unlock Taithleach by completing the Dead of Night league in Mordare. Completing this league may actually be the quickest for a speedrun, since The Wyrd league requires several nonhuman classes, and Circle of Elites Tier 2 requires Tier 1 to be complete in every other arena. But Taithleach may not help with speedrunning much, since his Skeleton summoning abilities aren't very powerful for a while, and he seems to slow down battles a lot. He does have the ability to curse opponents to death later in the game, and he can wield Death's Head Staff which can kill someone in one hit sometimes. His abilities could make him extremely useful in the later portions of the game, but he probably won't be useful for a good portion of the game, keeping him at a low level when his time comes to actually be useful. Though he is basically immortal in battles where your opponents are all ranged. At least one arcane class is required to complete the game. They also are non-human, which helps with battles that restrict human gladiators.
• Dervishes - They are completely immune to air affinity attacks, which could be useful for battles that are extremely difficult, but the author of this Knowledge Base entry simply hasn't played around with them much to know a lot about them.
• Summoners - Can be recruited in the Southern Expanse, but the author of this entry doesn't know much about their abilities.
• Murmillos - They are kind of hard to recruit, since they seem to usually be at a much lower level than your school. But their Throw Shield attacks, along with their good defense and ranged attack resistance makes them pretty effective.