Welcome to our new series of articles, looking to detail every single Non-Gym trainer battle throughout Pokemon Sword & Shield. We’ll be including details about the Pokemon they use and tips for how to beat each one, so if you’re looking for some help or you just want to read about our trainer battles, then look no further!

Lass Lauren

Location: Route 2

Pokemon: Chewtle – Lv.6

Just a bit further down Route 2 you’ll find Lass Lauren. This is the first trainer battle that you can avoid should you wish, by walking around the long grass behind her. We would recommend you go ahead and battle her however, the exp at this point is very useful and the battle is not a difficult one.

Lass Lauren only brings one Pokemon to the battle: Chewtle, which is a Water Type, making it weak to both Grass Type and Electric Type. It is resistant to Steel, Fire, Water and Ice, meaning that attacks of these types will do 50% less damage.

Guide

This battle serves as another introduction to ‘Type’ benefits and how your choice of Pokemon will influence your play. Should you have chosen Grookey as your starter, you will be able to use it’s Grass Type attack ‘Branch Poke’, which will do significant damage to Chewtle and end the battle very quickly.

If you chose any of the other starter types, you will have to beat it with normal attacks – do not use Water or Fire attacks, since these will do reduced damage. It’s also very unlikely that you have any Electric Type attacks yet, unless you’ve already caught a nearby Yamper, and even then it will only know a very weak attack.

Be careful if you chose Scorbunny: Chewtle may use Water Gun, which will do significant damage to you and might require the use of a Potion.

Recommended Pokemon

Grookey will work very well as we mentioned, however any other Pokemon that you can catch nearby will also work, as long as their level is similar to the Chewtle. Our favourite non-starter at this point was Rookidee, and at level 8 this had no trouble dealing with the fight.

Another trainer bites the dust and we continue onwards to meet the Pokemon Professor! Oh and there is the small matter of the reward for beating Lass Lauren: $504!

On reflection, it’s hard to get excited about a reward such as this when your mum just gave you $30,000…