Part 24: Uprising
Time to head to Cheve. Both Birthright and Conquest have you heading here in Chapter 13, but on different sides...
Time to quell an uprising! An uprising I don't feel particularly good about quelling. This chapter is the start of Corrin's "maybe Garon is completely and utterly irredeemable" realisation, something they realise much earlier in Birthright...
This is a rout map in both routes, but in Conquest it's a lot trickier... There's 4 bosses to fight, and 4 villages to save. Scarlet, the boss, is leading the Nohrians, while 3 Hoshidan commanders lead their own groups of fighters to aid in the resistance.
What's interesting is that this map doesn't have any dragon veins unlike its BR counterpart. You'd think Conquest would love to complicate things more, but apparently not always!
Here is Scarlet. Defeating her doesn't do anything special, but aggroing her squad will spawn in a large number of reinforcements, meaning you'll not want to approach her until you know you can handle them.
She comes with Death Blow, which works differently in this game. It gives her 20 extra crit, a high enough value that means she's pretty much always going to have a crit chance against whoever she attacks. She's also got Bowbreaker to make bows much less accurate against her, and Seal Magic to annoy your mages. Lastly, her personal skill gives her yet another crit boost when she's on low health. She's a bit scary.
Here are the three Hoshidans supporting the revolution. Every single one will stay put until you enter their range, at which point the whole squad will aggro. Reina and her squad of Cavaliers hold the middle of the map and make reaching the villages much harder, Orochi and her mages hold the left, and Takumi and his Knights hold the right.
These two units are the only obvious lunatic mode differences that come to mind. They're both there to make it slightly harder to tank the Diviners with a high-rest unit and the Knights with a high-def one respectively.
Oh and these jerks will fly up to harass you as soon as the map starts. There's four of them and they're hard to kill quickly, they suck.
These are the four villages to visit. They're not in any immediate danger, but they are a small incentive to not turtle.
Harsh deployment limits mean Arthur and Nyx can't come. There's a very important thing that I need Kaze for...
Incidentally, this important thing also involves giving Camilla 3 different tonics, HP speed and defense. Although it turned out she didn't actually need the speed one.
Camilla waits in this very specific spot, and Azura dances her...
...so Camilla can reach Reina on turn 1! She can only do this with a partner who increases her movement.
These odds, as you can see, are not very good. Reina's Air Superiority skill and naturally high avoid make this a risky move to pull... Or they would if this were not the first thing I do in the map. If this doesn't work I can reset at no cost. Maybe it's a bit cheaty, but it makes the map a lot easier! Otherwise the way I'd have to deal with Reina is to stick a unit in range of her and multiple of her Cavaliers, all of which have Elbow Room and strong attack. Camilla can't tank them because Reina's got a bow and will easily one-shot her.
If this were an ironman then instead I'd probably resort to giving Corrin a load of defensive tonics and pairing her up with a Knight to lure the group over. Doing this does feel a little bit cheaty, but oh well. It's an effective strategy!
Eyes? I don't even know if Camilla has more than one. This happened first try, luckily enough. If you want to make this more reliable you can give Camilla a skill or luck tonic, but the cost isn't worth it when you can just reset until you get lucky.
Unfortunately the trial isn't over yet. Camilla is now in the range of a lot of units, including Orochi. Thankfully Orochi's weapon triangle reversing magic spell works against her here... Still though, this is what she needs the defensive tonics for. Even with all that bulk things can go wrong for her if she refuses to dodge any of these attacks on enemy phase!
On the right, Odin spares me the danger of having to use my brain to solve a problem. Nyx or no, he can easily tank with Elise's help.
On the left, Niles defaults to his standard role of mage killer. Even as an Archer he'll do okay.
It's true, I should. That's a decent amount of damage! And thanks to Seal Resistance it'll be an even more decent amount on subsequent turns...
Thankfully she's got to actually hit with it to hurt with it.
Niles's resistance or speed aren't quite what they used to be...
Okay fine level up like you're still an Outlaw I don't care. Camilla can also level up like she's an Outlaw...
Kaze keeps getting good levels but I still worry about his resistance. He's refusing to get it much like how Silas refuses to get defense.
The middle of the map is now quite a bit emptier. Most of the cavs wiped themselves out against Camilla.
Aggroing Orochi means I've aggro'd her whole squad, which means I either need to run away from them or take them all out. That might be annoying, there's quite a lot of them...
The rest of my army is off on this side. Odin weakened the Knights, now my units who need the EXP can take them out.
The nice thing about effective weaponry is that they make for excellent dual attack support. Elise just needs to tap this guy to get Peri to finish the job for her.
If I put someone here to choke the point then I only have to take out 4 of these units to keep the rest of my army safe. That seems doable...
Breaker skills give the user +50% hit and avoid against that specific weapon type. Classes learn these at level 15 promoted which normally makes them super lategame, but Jakob's weird so he gets it early. Would have been very helpful literally a turn earlier...
It took very careful use of dual strikes to get all this to work. Point has been choked and only one Diviner remains!
Camilla uses her high movement to bail, luring Orochi along with her. She can't tank another enemy phase like she did before thanks to Seal Res.
New units! A Knight and a Fighter, it's like Elise's retainers but gender swapped. These jerks showing up are why this chapter gives you so few deployment slots...
Charlotte is a Fighter who's all strength, speed, and HP. The Steel Axe and Gamble skill she joins with make her near useless in this chapter since she cannot hit anything for the life of her. She's one of the game's best support partners but her actual combat performance is a bit more dubious... A bit like Nyx, really.
Benny is a Knight. His defense is high and his speed is low. No gimmicks, no weirdly unfitting stats that'll become apparent if you reclass him, he just moves slow and doesn't die. I married him in my first ever playthrough.
The Wyvern Riders are coming up from the bottom of the map and my squisher units need to escape their range. Peri runs to Benny and pairs up with him so he can drop her off to safety.
It's hard to tell, but there's 3 spots at the top of the map that give big healing and defensive bonuses. Odin pairs up with Elise to stick himself on one to lure in the wyverns and nostank them.
She might not increase his magic, but she increases his bulk well enough. She'd achieve a similar effect just by standing next to him but I couldn't get him to reach the gate without her help.
An Outlaw arrives on the scene to take a gentle stroll in the direction of the houses. He's only got 3 move so he won't get there fast, but his arrival does encourage you to hurry it up a little.
These combos are really annoying just because they take so much effort to take out. Effective weaponry and magic does well enough, but I've only got so many users of that.
...you know, it wouldn't be impossible to make Peri a Sol Master Ninja instead.
It's been too long since the last Corrin one-shot. Gotta keep up that magic to keep them coming!
Now Camilla can finally get her revenge. Orochi's fortune failed to take into account that this is Conquest, not Birthright.
These jerks really picked the worst place to stand. The villages aren't in any danger yet, but I do not appreciate all these roadblocks.
I wish they'd made Charlotte start with a Hammer instead, she needed Benny's help to take out this low health armour guy. I'm not planning on using her so I don't want to feed her kills, but it just happened that she needed to take this guy out.
That's 3 out of 4 visited. Unfortunately the last village is under the watchful eye of Takumi...
This man is a criminal so it's okay to torture him to death for EXP.
There are two groups left to deal with. Entering the range of Scarlet's squad will spawn two big groups of enemies in the locations I've circled, which can very easily screw your victory in the last moment of the map. Entering her range from the top right is the best plan - it keeps you from having to engage either group of reinforcements the instant they appear, giving you time to mop up before they arrive.
Azura earns some EXP while I get my units into position...
Camilla takes Odin to improve her magic and dives in to the danger zone. I don't want her to actually be in range of Scarlet, which unfortunately limits where she can wait.
And here come the jerks to ruin your day. The Cavaliers at the bottom have at least one Beast Killer...
Time to take out Scarlet in one single attack. Bows are out of the question, but magic attacks take her out just fine. We are absolutely the bad guys in this situation btw.
Now Silas can stand where she was to form a chokepoint between the villages.
...or I can just wipe out all of her squad so I don't need one.
Odin shall distract these wyverns while the cavs aggro on my army. I really am glad that Odin is here, he makes strategy so much easier.
Thanks, Elise. That defense and skill really make up for earlier...
This man fears the Dark and makes a retreat to heal. A little annoying, he's just prolonging the chapter for no reason...
I like to think Odin's usefulness in spite of his garbage levels is a testament to how good he is.
Now for the worst part of the chapter - dealing with Takumi and his 19 crit. He'll sit patiently until you enter his range, but his range is quite vast. The combined crit bonuses from being a Sniper, his personal weapon, and his high skill are quite scary. You might want to hit him with a Freeze or an Enfeeble... or maybe take him out at the start so he doesn't end your run with a crit right at the end.
More dancing to get in position...
Conquest shall make fine Takumi bait. The combination of her Dragonstone and support from her allies raise her bulk up to be high enough...
She even manages to earn enough crit avoid to avoid any risk of a crit! Although one wouldn't have killed her anyway.
If Silas got this level I wouldn't complain. At least he's got the cool Quick Draw skill now.
Peri takes the Takumi kill, further reinforcing his opinion that all Nohrians are scum.
That's the last village down!
And we're done!
You know, in a sense this is technically true. Considering what happens in the final chapter...
EVIL HANS JUMPSCARE
...seriously this is so sudden and out of place it may as well be one. I'm never trusting any link to a flash maze game Garon sends me again!
Next time: Groans of increasing discomfort