One thing i found strange was there were very few characters you actually "recruit" in an FE sense, i.e, go up and talk to them with a certain character to make them join your team. The only ones I can think of is recruiting Aran with Laura and the rogue, Heather with Brom or Nephenee. Apparently, you can recruit characters of the Dawn Brigade in some of the maps when you fight them, but I didn't bother trying that, as they needed all the help they can get.
That was another thing I found a bit strange, fighting your own team, in the missions with Greil Mercenaries versus the Dawn Brigade. I was a bit skeptical at first, trying to avoid DB units, unitl Zihark ran up and tried to kill Ike, yet failed. After it seemed that he had retreated rather than died, I went on a DB slaughter fest and true enough, they all return in the next chapter..
I found Laguz much more useful in PoR than in RD. They were absolutely terrible untransformed, getting doubled by everything and often than not, dying. Then whilst transformed, They were more useful, though the gauge went down like anything, giving you between 3 and 5 turns to use your Laguz, unless you occasionally used Olivi grass.
Bowguns were quite useful for me actually. I gave them to Shinon, who became a total beast with them, incapacitating enemies with his common criticals, or weakening them for others to kill, or totally destroying their weapon with corrosion.
Probably one of my biggest disappointments was with the Black Knight. Early game, he was alright, though Ranulf really ruined it by randomly dropping in before part 4 was it, "O hey that Ike. BK is really *******. Kbai naow." Not to mention how ridiculously easy the battle with him was (compared to the battle on PoR Hard mode), to the point I actually had to try stall so I could grab the Wishblade and get some more exp for my team.
Overall though, it was a really enjoyable game, I particularly liked the graphics of that battles, with units actually falling over (albeit, flying into the air when hit by a trueblade does seem a bit unrealistic, but still..) when they got hit was nice touch to just standing still when you get bludgeoned by something.
10 - Supply Depot (1)
13 - Barracks
15 - Marine (1)
16 - Orbital Command + Supply Depot (2)
16 @100% Marine (1) - Command Center (2)
21 - Bunker (1) + Barracks (2) (3)