You can recruit various enemies to join the Liberation’s side throughout Unicorn Overlord. One of them, Melisandre, is Unicorn Overlord’s earliest Swordfighter, and she serves as a powerful addition to any party. Let’s explore how to find and recruit her quickly.
When can you recruit Melisandre in Unicorn Overlord?
You recruit Melisandre during the level 11 quest The Blade of House Melliet, which takes place just after the demo of Unicorn Overlord. You must fight at least once with a squad including Alain during this quest to unlock Melisandre and her advisor after the fight. You must also clear the map by defeating her at her Post, where she’ll prove to be a tough opponent.
The Blade of House Melliet spawns after you clear the Walled City of Eucuit while saving Scarlett. You can access it by heading north of the city, then talk with the quest giver at the nearby fort. We recommend you do this at level 11. Bring one or two squads of level 11 to 13 units, and you can even bring a few you want to level up if you want to min-max this quest while unlocking Melisandre.
Before the fight begins, you can head west to bolt the gate shut. This will prevent your foes from summoning reinforcements from behind you and potentially keep you from needing to dash back to defend your home base. But, it’ll also stop you from getting the EXP for killing the three Swordfighters and one magic user that spawn.
Once you’re ready, talk with the quest giver to engage in warfare with Melisandre. She’ll start by scouting the Liberation; you can choose to meet her or ignore her. We recommend saying hello to her cordially, though it doesn’t have any bearing on the quest—just the opening dialogue.
What will have a bearing on your recruitment is joining the battle with Alain. The goal is to “impress” Melisandre. At this point, as long as Alain is around level eight, he’ll be fine to take a hit from a Swordfighter, so don’t worry about him being underleveled. You can tell Melisandre is ready to be recruited if she and her advisor Colm talk during the fight. He also doesn’t need to actually fight the Swordfighter herself; any battle will do.
It’s important to note how strong Swordfighters can be against melee units. Try to bring Hunters like Rolf or Magic Users like Auch to avoid their auto-parries and counter-attacks. You’ll also want to bring anti-infantry like Clive to mop up their magic users before they can deal a lot of damage. Carefully place Hoplites like Hodrick to protect your squishy units, but avoid exposing him to the various magic users across the map.
Melisandre is surrounded by non-impactful infantry, but you may need dedicated offense to beat her. Magic users well-protected by Hoplites do a great job at whittling her down—though as long as you have three or four well-armored units on the same team, Melisandre should go down without much fuss. Just make sure she doesn’t get lucky crit strings during the combat overview and you’ll be in a good spot.
She’ll come across as quite into Alain, but don’t worry—Alain isn’t going to instantly fall for her. While Alain can have a relationship with Melisandre if you want him to, they don’t start with any Rapport above the usual.
Is Melisandre worth recruiting?
At the end of The Blade of Melliet, you have the option to execute or recruit Melisandre, like you did for enemies like Mandrin. There is no significant upside to executing the Swordfighter. You will gain 30 Honor, but that is a resource that is easily farmable. Getting a high-level Swordfighter this early on is a big deal, so you should bring her along—especially since she comes with a great starting sword for the early game. You’ll also get another Fighter called Colm to bolster your ranks, which is appreciated—even if he’s as bland as dry bread.
That isn’t to say there are no downsides to her execution. When entering Drakenhold, you’ll quickly be able to recruit Leah and Aramis—two exceptionally competent Swordfighters themselves. Melisandre might seem like overkill at that point, but we couldn’t disagree more. The more the merrier, as they say, and you will eventually have enough full-rank squads to deploy as many Swordfighters and Swordmasters as you’d like.
It helps that Melisandre has excellent bases and growths, with high Evasion, Crit, and Initiative growths and a consistent impact on team comps. She can solo entire squads of squishy units and serve you well as a back-up tank if your main one goes down, or serve as a decent dodge-tank against melee units. Colm is less impressive, but can be immediately paired with Melisandre to give her some extra defense and protection from Hunters. He’s fine, similar to Lex, so feel free to bench him or get him on your squad.
