Vanguard

This article is about the class from the main Fire Emblem series. For the lance skill from Heroes, see Vanguard (lance).

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Vanguard Ike as a Vanguard in Radiant Dawn. Ike, the general of the goddess Yune's army. Hope rides on his blade. He wields the skill Aether.

Weapon(s) Sword, Axe Skill(s) Shove, Aether (Radiant Dawn) Heavy Blade, Veteran Intuition, Aether, Strengthtaker (Fates)

The Vanguard (Japanese: 神将ヴァンガード Vanguard) is an advanced Lord-like class which was introduced in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. The sole unit of this class is Ike, one of the game's two protagonists, and is his final class which he attains by changing class from Hero in an event. The class returns in Fire Emblem Fates as Ike's special class when he is obtained as a bonus unit through his amiibo, and other playable men are able to reclass to Vanguard as well through downloadable content.

The Vanguard's stats are well-balanced and high all around, keeping to a similar pattern as the Hero. Vanguards are powerful, sturdy and fast all at once, having high HP, strength, skill, speed and defense. While other classes surpass Vanguards in individual stats, few have its overall proficiency, and combined with exclusive access to the ranged regalia sword Ragnell and the powerful Aether skill, Ike as a Vanguard has a formidable front-line presence. Its only notable weakness is its resistance, which remains as traditionally weak as most physical units.

Stats

Base stats

Game	HP	Strength	Magic	Skill	Speed	Luck	Defense	Resistance	Movement	Constitution	Weight	Experience	Weapon Level
Radiant Dawn	53	19	3	23	19	0	17	6	7	12	13	--	S A
Fates	21	10	0	6	7	3	9	1	6	--	--	--	E E

Max stats

Game	HP	Strength	Magic	Skill	Speed	Luck	Defense	Resistance	Movement	Constitution	Weapon Level
Radiant Dawn	65	37	15	40	37	30	32	23	??	??	SS SS
Fates	65	36	25	29	30	30	32	27	8	--	A B

Class growth rates

Game	HP	Strength	Magic	Skill	Speed	Luck	Defense	Resistance	Charm	Constitution*	Movement*	Weapon Level*
Radiant Dawn	80%	50%	10%	70%	40%	30%	40%	15%	--	--	--	--
Fates	20%	20%	0%	5%	5%	10%	15%	0%	--	--	--	--

Click here for more details on the mechanics of class growths in each game.

Class skills

Game	Skill	Learning conditions
Radiant Dawn	Shove	Innate.
Radiant Dawn Fates	Aether	• Radiant Dawn: Innate (mastery skill). • Fates: Learned from Level 25 and up.
Fates	Heavy Blade	Learned from Level 1 and up.
Fates	Veteran Intuition	Learned from Level 10 and up.
Fates	Strengthtaker	Learned from Level 35 and up.

Class change

Radiant Dawn

Advanced class	Promotion method	Advanced class
Hero	Event: cutscene prior to the Part 4 Prologue.	Vanguard

Fates

Any class	Promotion method	Special class
? Any male class	Using a Vanguard Brand.	Vanguard

Playable Vanguards

Playable Characters
Name	Game
Ike	Fates (via amiibo)
Playable Vanguard units in the Fire Emblem series.

Flavor text

Game Text (English) Text (Japanese) Radiant Dawn Ike, the general of the goddess Yune's army. Hope rides on his blade. He wields the skill Aether. ?? Fates An otherworldly class. The leader of a band of heroes. Uses swords and axes. ??

Trivia

• The Vanguard is one of only five playable classes in Radiant Dawn whose members can achieve multiple SS ranks. The others are the Light Priestess, Saint, Chancellor and Black Knight.

Etymology and other languages

Names, etymology and in other regions
Language	Name	Definition, etymology and notes
English	Vanguard	An army unit or individual soldier who operates on the front lines or as an advance guard, leading the charge of a battle or, as a modern colloquialism, any endeavor or movement.
Japanese	• 神将ヴァンガード • ヴァンガード	Officially romanized as Vanguard; literally "divine general". In Radiant Dawn, all Japanese class names are spelled primarily in kanji (i.e. 神将), with a foreign-language name in katakana applied as furigana (i.e. ヴァンガード) and used as the basis for the romanized name in the class roll. In Buddhist terminology, a shinshō (神将) refers to a general who protects pilgrims. • Vanguard. This katakana-only name is used in Fates.
Spanish	Adalid	Military commander; derived from the Arabic دليل dalīl, "guide".
French	Rédempteur	Redeemer
German	Vorreiter	Trailblazer
Italian	Condottiero	Mercenary leader

Gallery

• 

  Ike as a Vanguard in Radiant Dawn.

References

This article is part of Project Classes, a project focused in writing articles for every class present in the Fire Emblem series.