Welcome to Gaia! ::

If you've been on SF [and/or GameFAQs or Reddit] you've probably already seen the shenanigans.
I've kicked it around Tumblr as well.
Might as well drop it here.

Basically, Awakening's final challenge "Xenologue: Apotheosis" not only bested, but basically crushed without any DLC Skills, Classes, etc. [No extra legendaries, and nothing you couldn't do on a vanilla copy of the game (Spotpass is legal)] and also without the Rally Skills [so no +8 All Stats (Heart is double-banned)].

This is SR/Secret Route [AKA the Anna route] and it took 34 turns [several of which were during Wave 2 (Nightmare Sniper wave)].

Video (It's 1:24:22, so well, long)

[Ignore the note about wave 2. I did a retrospect and found that to be... actually safe when Minerva got attacked-- that Great Knight not only could not 1 Hit Kill Minerva, he also could not double her; however her counter for a kill was pure RNG.]

Pairings if you're wondering [since they were the strategy, actually-- created several units with key purposes and smashed things.]
Chrom/Sumia
Robin(M) [+Spd/-Def]/Lucina
Lissa/Henry
Sully/Donnel
Miriel/Lon'qu
Maribelle/Virion
Panne/Gregor
Cordelia/Stahl
Nowi/Libra
Tharja/Gaius
Olivia/Ricken
Cherche/Vaike

Morgan/Gerome
Severa/Yarne
Kjelle/Brady
Noire/Inigo
Cynthia/Owain
Nah/Laurent


All Pairs bolded were used as primarily Combat units.
Olivia was deployed as strictly a dancer. [And had [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker] ...ok, I've really got to drop that joke]
Staffbots/Healers were Minerva, Nanna, and Raquesis all as Valkyries.

Strategy was actually fairly basic for Apoth, large circle jerk. Some key points:
I trapped the wave 2 boss [Nightmare Sniper] to delay for some turns, and bumped the Invincisorc adds off their stairs [and attempted to draw the Ikeadin and his paladins to the left (which didn't work)].

Lucina was used to hard-counter the Invicisorc adds. [She has a 99.924927...% kill rate on them, and a 75.3% chance to kill them without damage]

Severa was used to ENEMYPHASE TANK the Invicisorc with the Brave Bow. She has a greater average output than 80 against them, so while "Damn dual guards" happened, it's a key move, and she can hop PP if that happened anyway.

Morgan was running a version of the Lancekiller build [to best Anna, who basically isn't a threat normally, but in such challenge runs is a notable showstopper with a 1-2 and a 65% chance to pop Aether]. Sumia!Lucina!Morgan has +3 Speed on Lon'qu!Severa, and as a result, doesn't need Speed+2 to hit 60 Speed as a hero. With Aether, Luna, Avoid+10, Lancebreaker and Galeforce she does the same Anna-defying shenanigans that Severa does but has 1 displayed hit less from the enemy and simply does better on PP, while maintaining a better output. She was treated the same as Severa was a year ago. (and yes, took the Anna kill)

All 3 of the 60+ speed units [Lucina, Severa, Morgan] were used for fighting Thronie and his ilk.

Brady continued to magic tank.

...Laurent was the "New" weapon, in that he actually was kind of unique, bringing back dear ole "VANTAGE WRATH" with a single shot of Ruin, instead of running Brave spam [He also was a combat pair without Galeforce, because EPK works]. [He popped 90s into the Nightmare Sniper trash on the final wave for his most notable moments]

Fun note: Magic > Physical Waves 0, 1, 2; Physical > Magic Waves 3, 4, 5. In terms of "getting it done".

...Can't figure much else. You're not stripping any more power out of your team and still kicking SR apoth's arse.