Party: Kalkin L10, Lowe L9, Tao L11, Gong L11, Khris L8, Anri L9, Arthur L9
Current Battle: Bustoke Quarry

...The amazing thing about having only Kalkin and Gong as physical attackers is that I actually have Arthur at L9 two battles after getting him. And I'm not even Egress-grinding him! (Normally, training Arthur is really tedious due to having to forsake kills from better units in order to give him EXP.) ...And also, unnervingly, Kalkin and Gong really don't have that high an attack, so Arthur has a reasonable attack with the Power Ring on. Ooh boy, this is going to be awkward.
(Fortunately, in Shining Force, enemies have very little magic resistance worth mentioning. I even beat the Marionette on the first try! ...Okay, sure, Kalkin, Gong, and Arthur did the majority of the damage, but still...)

On the bright side, both Tao and Anri have "BLAZE level 2", so I can dish out a fair amount of AOE damage if the enemies clump up. And, when playing with few attacks and two mages, those healers actually have something to do! :D I mean, even KHRIS is a natural L8! (Yes, I still think she's a bad unit. That Agility is horrible. I'm going to pass her the Speed Ring so she doesn't always go after Lowe and Gong. :\ )

Um... I should probably add something so as not to bore you.

• The Manarina battle wasn't that bad, but I ran into embarrassing issues with being halted for several turns by Kalkin falling asleep and clogging up a chokepoint. And then I walked him straight into two enemy BLAZE L2s. And... um... yeah, basically suffered from tactics!fail on my part. Lack of permadeath makes me lazy.


• The Cavern of Darkness battle was... *LMHO* YES, enemies, walk straight into my BLAZE L2s! And conveniently bunch up at chokepoints for my units to take you out one at a time! And do little bits of damage for the sake of my healers' EXP! And...


• The Circus battle was a pleasant EXP farm, with the exception of the Marionette boss. ...Let's just say that my mages ended up being accidental FREEZE L3 bait, but Kalkin, Arthur, and Gong carried the day.


• The Shade Abbey battle was highly difficult, as an army of mages and healers doesn't do well when swarmed by strong physical attackers. I had to redo that battle a few times, though one Egress was optional.


• The Bustoke Quarry battle would be much harder if its enemy AI wasn't DOA. The archers move to attack, but fail to grasp that they should move away a square and fire when the only nearby unit is Kalkin, who is happily whacking away at them with his Middle Sword. And the mages literally don't attack unless they can hit more than one unit with BLAZE L2, which means I can just have units properly-spaced apart stroll up to them and start whacking away without fear of retaliation. And... I'd say the only competent AI is on the healers, who heal and attack as appropriate. The Shining Force AI has an erratic grasp of ranged attacks (and adjacent-square attacks when it has to prioritize targets), and it shows. [Reportedly, a fanmade hack that mainly fixes the AI is significantly harder than the base game...]

 I know the AI occasionally engaged in threshold behavior on the FULL-party run- enemies wouldn't start to move until a certain amount of characters were in range.  It could be that, with only 7 characters in play, the game's not picking up that it SHOULD be reacting.

I say this because the Master Mage in Bustoke Quarry attacked only once in three turns, and when it did, it was a MELEE attack. Units were in range for a FREEZE L2 the entire time, and the Master Mage died with full MP. 

WTH?

It wasn't the only unit in that battle that did that, either. A Skeleton refused to attack any units, and a DarkMage was similarly unresponsive. "Darksol pays his units in weed".was an understatement. I should have said "in morphine".

Edit: I confirmed that there's weird threshold behavior. When I had only one unit near two Pegasus Knights, they refused to move, but movement began after I brought a second unit nearby. So when I send one unit out to clean up a mob, he can do it by himself so long as his HP stays reasonable. *scratches head* The Shining Force AI is fascinating in its inadequacy. I wonder how its algorithms work...