Nino usuallu turned out average for me, even when I went through the effort to get her to 20/20+Afa's Drops. I've had one tank Nino, a couple of average ones, and a couple of phailed ones. By the end of the game she's interchangable with Pent, but I prefer Pent because during Light he has a higher proficiency in staves and becomes my secondary stave wielder. I just give him Elfire and Bolting (Priscilla gets Fimbulvetr) along with Mend, Warp, and Restore/Berserk (depends on how I'm feeling.) Then when I get Excalibur from Ursula I throw away Elfire and take that.
I now know what my least-favorite chapter of FE:SS is...it has to be Chapter Six, the one with the fog of war =/ I can usually handle any situation but I still just plain suck at fog battles; I actually raise all my lords in FE7 to 17/0 or higher just so I can get the alternate version of Four-Fanged Offense. If Eirika doesn't die from an axefighter with a 20% chance of hitting ALWAYS coming out of nowhere and landing the hit, the Bael kills the child on the turn before I'm about to kill Novala.....the thing is, I don't know if the child has to survive for me to complete the chapter goals, I've never killed Novala after the child dying. The odd thing is that when the Bael attacks the child, the poison icon and sound effect appear on her when she's attacked. Anyone know why this is?