"Days until Disgaea 4" progress - Day 1 - Surprises and Sacrifices

I've managed to successfully finish off the last 2 levels of Chapter 7 in Disgaea 3 last night, giving me a lot more confidence in my party of mishmash characters.  I don't know what's the average number of characters players create, but since we're only given a limit of 10 characters per map, my party is not much more than that.  In fact, only about 8 of the characters in my party are custom made.  The rest were characters that joined on their own.  But for such a small group of character to select from, I'm doing surprisingly well.  Aside from the typical main characters, this is what I have:

• 1 fist brawler (m)
• 1 axe fighter (m)
• 3 mages - fire, ice, and wind (f)
• 1 archer healer (f)
• 1 shooter thief (f)
• 1 spear fighter (f)

In the upcoming battles, however, I may need more magic users, so I may spend some time doubling up on fire, ice, and wind characters.  Another healer would be good, too.  Then I can buff up the rest of my party to have more health.  Currently, my mages, healer, and thief all are less than 1000 health, which can't withstand even one skilled attack from enemies.

The one thing I'm learning to accept during this challenge is the fact that not all my characters will survive in the end.  In my early days of playing a Disgaea game, I've tried my best to keep everyone alive, so that everyone got a chance to survive and level up; if anyone died at any point, I would reset the game and start the level all over.  As you can imagine, I never got very far because of this.  But realistically, I could've probably finished the levels even with the sacrificed characters.

A good example is in the last level of Chapter 7.  Due to storyline aspects, I was already short one player, but I had Mao (the main character) still.  Halfway during the battle, Mao took a fatal blow due to a misjudgement in the enemy's attack, leaving me slightly upset.  However, I still had the upper hand in allies and attacks, so I did the best with the remaining people I had left.  The lesson here?  Party members dying is not the end of the world...unless it's part of the story.

I can't believe I'm very close now...one more chapter to go!