Nolan (Japanese:ノイスNoyce) is the leader of theDawn Brigade and the oldest member of the group.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

Role

At an unspecified point in time before the events of the game, Nolan was a successful merchant, until he was betrayed by a business partner and financially ruined; he then spent several years aimlessly wandering in Daein, training his skills with an axe. He later metLeonardo andEdward during the Begnion occupation, and the three founded the Dawn Brigade. When the trio met and recruitedSothe andMicaiah to their cause, Nolan remained the leader of the Dawn Brigade, while Micaiah became the figurehead of the resistance.

In game, Nolan first appears at the beginning of Part I, and he helps find an escape route for the Dawn Brigade to escape Nevassa. He next aids in retrieving medicine for Laura's abbot, and when Micaiah is captured, he leads the operation to rescue her. He plays no major role in the story after that, but continues to fight with the Dawn brigade for the rest of Parts I and III. In Part IV, he can be allocated to any of the three armies.

Starting stats and growth rates

Fighter Level 9 Affinity Constitution 13

Recruitment:Part I, Chapter 1, automatically from the start StatsGrowth Rates Max HP 29 Speed 10 Strength 12 Luck 7 Magic 0 Defense 9 Skill 11 Resistance 3 Movement 6 Weight 13 Max HP 60% Speed 60% Strength 45% Luck 60% Magic 20% Defense 35% Skill 70% Resistance 40% {{{content3}}} {{{content4}}} {{{content5}}} {{{content6}}} {{{content7}}} {{{content8}}} {{{content9}}} {{{content10}}} {{{content11}}} {{{content12}}} {{{content13}}} {{{content14}}} {{{content15}}} Inventory Skills Steel Axe Vulnerary Nihil Shove Weapon Levels -- -- C -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Biorhythm Best Good Normal Bad Worst

Promotion stat gains

Class	HP	Str	Mag	Skill	Spd	Lck	Def	Res	Con	Mov	Skills	Weapon level
Warrior	+2	+1	+2	+1	+1	+0	+1	+2	+1	+1	--	(x to D) (+Crossbows)
Reaver	+4	+2	+4	+2	+2	+0	+2	+4	+0	+0	Critical +5 Colossus	(x to A)

Availability

Analysis

Nolan is a fighter who joins Micaiah's army in I-1 with a notable level advantage on your other three units. His base stats are balanced and acceptable for his level, with particularly impressive HP. This makes Nolan essential for tanking hits in the early maps. His Steel Axe will initially weigh him down and may cause some accuracy issues, although these will be offset by his stellar growth rates in skill, speed, and luck. He will typically reach doubling thresholds without issue outside of Hard Mode. While his strength growth is only average, he can still wield a Hand Axe without penalty at base, and benefits from a forged Iron Axe once it is available.

With good growths and access to powerful and cheap Axes, Nolan has very high long-term potential. However, he competes directly withJill for investment, who shares many similarities with Nolan in terms of base stats, growths, and weapon type, but has the incomparable advantage of flight. Training Nolan alongside Jill is a viable option, especially on Easy or Normal Mode, but as she is the superior recipient of investment, Nolan will be Jill's sidekick, not her equal. If the player chooses not to invest in Nolan, promoting him early is recommended to make him a more solid filler unit. Nolan is a great unit in theory, but unless Jill is deliberately neglected, he can't achieve his full potential, and has to settle for merely being good.

When Nolan returns in Part III, he should already be promoted toWarrior. He will receive a personal weapon (not in the Japanese version),Tarvos. With 18 might, 100 Hit and a +4 defense bonus, it will help patch up any issues caused by his strength and especially defense growths. Unless he has received little to no investment, he can still put in some work in Part III as a result. If invested in, an alternate choice is to use his new Crossbow access in combination with Beastfoe to one-shot Laguz easily at the cost of some durability. Nolan will also be able to make proper use of bonus experience once he has capped his skill and resistance. As a unit receives 3 guaranteed stat increases from bonus experience levels, Nolan can drastically improve his weaker stats. However, his inferiority to Jill means that, especially on Hard Mode, investing in him can be hard to justify. It is simply more practical to centralise the more limited resources onto their best recipient, Jill, at Nolan's expense.

In Part IV, Nolan should typically avoid Micaiah's army, as he is ill-suited to the desert. He performs better in both Ike and Elincia's armies, notably being able to defeat Feral Ones in 4-5 easily with the Crossbow Beastfoe tactic. It is up to the player where to use him. If he has been trained, Nolan fills out his excellentReaver caps extremely well, giving him plenty of levels to boost his strength and defense, even without bonus experience due to the lack of empty levels inRadiant Dawn. A trained Nolan, even alongside Jill on a lower difficulty, typically makes one of the strongest arguments for endgame selection out of any unit due to the lessened importance of movement and his exceptional stats, although there is no shortage of quality combat units by this point.

Nolan's innate skill isNihil, which is seldom useful until endgame, where it allows Nolan to nullify the Mastery Skills of the last bosses as well as the damage reflection of Ashera's Aurora. However, this should not factor into a decision to invest in Nolan, as Caineghis and Tibarn have the spare capacity and stats to use it about as well. In Part I, Leonardo'sCancel can slightly improve his overall bulk. He makes solid use ofResolve due to his decent durability and already high speed, as well asAdept andWrath, particularly in the event he is having issues with his damage output.Paragon is primarily coveted by Jill in Part III, but it also benefits Nolan to a slightly lesser extent. His Mastery Skill, Collossus, takes up only 25 capacity, granting him an extremely versatile range of skill combinations.

Nolan has the excellent Earth affinity, granting a large boost to Avoid. Nolan benefits most from a Support with one of his fellow Earth units,Zihark orVolug. Zihark is the slightly better option due to having similar movement to Nolan compared to Volug. At A Support, Nolan will gain +45 Avoid, which combined with his Speed and Luck will make him extremely difficult to hit, although prior to capping those stats as a Warrior he may still be at some risk from Laguz. If the player chooses to also invest inEdward, pairing them may be a viable option, as Nolan benefits from the defense given by Edward's Light Affinity and Edward greatly benefits from the increased Avoid.

Fire Emblem Heroes

Nolan's appearance is used for oneaccessory, theMemory Portrait, which was a reward for obtaining Friendship score withEdward: Blade of Justice in theForging Bonds eventDawning Future. It can be bought at the Accessory Shop for 40.

Personality

This section has been marked as astub. Please help improve the page by adding information.

Nolan is an experienced man and a leader who has seen life's trials, but has a gentle demeanor and does not act superior to the others.

Supports

Bond supports

Nolan Fighter Default bonds: None. [[{{{supportd1}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonusd1}}} [[{{{supportd2}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonusd2}}} [[{{{supportd3}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonusd3}}} [[{{{supportd4}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonusd4}}} Extra bonds:* None. [[{{{supporte1}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonuse1}}} [[{{{supporte2}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonuse2}}} [[{{{supporte3}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonuse3}}} [[{{{supporte4}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonuse4}}} [[{{{supporte5}}}]] Bishop Bonus: {{{bonuse5}}}

Endings

Nolan, Wise Champion
Nolan wandered across the kingdoms, saving those in adversity. Stories of his altruism eventually became legends.

Quotes

Battle quotes

Death quotes

Other appearances

Fire Emblem Cipher

Nolan is featured on one card inFire Emblem Cipher.

Fire Emblem Cipher data for Nolan
	Wise Champion, Nolan
		"Even when smeared in mud, if you continue to live you can rise up."
		Attack: 30	Support: 10	Range: 1	Deploy Cost: 1
		Class: Fighter		Tier:Base	Class Change Cost: --
		Warrior's Knowledge:[Always] During your turn, this unit gets +20 attack. Attack Emblem:[Support] Until the end of this battle, your attacking unit gains +20 attack.
	Card #B05-061N • Artist:Senri Kita
Some card information translation provided by Serenes Forest. For more detailed strategic information on these cards, seetheir TCG wiki article on Nolan .

Flavor text

Choose Your Legends placement history

Round	Placement	Character	Votes

CYL 1 (2017)

439

Nolan Radiant Dawn

297

CYL 2 (2018)

475

Nolan Radiant Dawn

274 (−23)

CYL 3 (2019)

509 (+65)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

196 (−78)

CYL 4 (2020)

486 (−40)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

207 (+11)

CYL 5 (2021)

374 (−112)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

211 (+4)

CYL 6 (2022)

361 (−15)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

228 (+17)

CYL 7 (2023)

294 (−67)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

203 (−25)

CYL 8 (2024)

312 (+18)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

190 (−13)

CYL 9 (2025)

313 (+1)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

162 (−28)

CYL 10 (2026)

330 (+17)

Nolan Radiant Dawn

106 (−56)

Total results		This character has 10 entries across all Choose Your Legends polls.	2,074

Trivia

• According toTellius Recollection, Nolan was designed with an apparent age of 34.^[1]

Etymology and other languages

Gallery

Official artwork

• 
  Artwork of Nolan fromRadiant Dawn.

Portraits

• 
  Portrait of Nolan inRadiant Dawn.

Screenshots

• 
  Nolan as aFighter inRadiant Dawn.
• 
  Nolan as aWarrior inRadiant Dawn.
• 
  Nolan as aReaver inRadiant Dawn.

Heroes artwork

• 
  TheMemory Portrait accessory.

Cipher artwork

• 
  Artwork of Nolan.

References

This article is part ofProject Characters, a project focused on writing articles for every character present in theFire Emblem series.