Part 3: Chapter One, Part Three: Shaping up the army

Part 3: Shaping up the army

Sorry for the long delay, but here's finally an update. I should get out one, maybe two more updates before the New Year, so stay tuned.



This is the plan for today. I'm going to show off two battles, but we're going to do some grinding first. The voting showed a lot of support for mage and cavalier with mercenary a little behind them. We're going to get an archer at the end of the next update, so don't worry.

The grinding is easy. I just continuously hunt down the poor thieves in the cave until all the villagers are level 6, more than they need for promoting, but that should be no problem. I'm also grinding Silk to level 6, to make her a little more capable in combat and able to earn experience in real battles without much risk. Luka and Alm get a level as well, because why not?

And the results of this grinding?

Alm: Level+1, Skill+1, Speed+1, HP+1
Luka: Level+1, Skill+1, HP+1
Silk: Level+5, Skill+3, Magic+3, HP+2, Speed+1

Alm's and Silk's results are good; Luka's are mediocre. The sad thing is that Skill is completely useless to Silk since magic attacks are not affected by it.


Gray got promoted into Cavalier and gained +1 Speed and Defence.
Robin got promoted into Mage and gained +1 Defence, +4 HP and a Fire spell.
Cliff got promoted into Mercenary and gained +6 Skill, +4 Speed and +2 HP.

Cliff is going to be very useful from now on while Gray and Robin are probably going to be mediocre and maybe replaced by better characters. Robin's Fire spell is a basic black magic, costing 1 HP for 90% accuracy, 3 damage and range of 1-2 squares. It is a solid attack, which is going to be used throughout the entire game.

But now, it's time for battle.

Ram Valley
Thief, Units: 10, Power: 149
Alm, Units: 6, Power: 191

Quality over quantity usually wins in a Fire Emblem game.



Again the battle didn't go exactly as planned. Also, is "waffle around" even a word? If not, it should be.

This map is really easy, especially with everybody promoted from villager. There is only one snag.



The mercenary is carrying a shield. Shields are one type of equippable items in FE2. They generally provide bonuses to defence although there are a few special ones. The leather shield in question gives +3 to defence and it is enough to make this enemy much harder to kill. On the bright side, after killing him, we get the shield for ourselves.

Turn 1



General moving forward, nothing exciting.

Turn 2



Enemy does the same thing as us. The mercenary moved south, toward the mountains.

I move all units forward, nothing worth screenshotting.

Turn 3



The enemies are faster than I expected, so I stand and wait in order to get first strike.

Turn 4



The enemy is within striking range.



Everyone attacks, two thieves are dead and Luka had gained a level. (Level 5, Skill +1, HP +1) All the direct attack characters got scratched, losing one or two HP each.

Turn 5



Enemy moves to attack, but they're generally ineffectual. The archer missed Cliff while one thief committed suicide by attacking Silk.



Silk gets another kill. The frontliners are also doing well, taking little damage while keeping Robin and Silk safe. The one thief that can attack Silk probably will, but since her attack drains health, it's not a problem.

Turn 6



The enemy is almost routed, with every single bandit wounded and some already retreating. One was killed by Gray's counterattack and the only that attacked Silk only succeeded in giving her a level. (Level 7, Magic +1, Skill +1, HP +1, Warp spell)




The thieves are ruthlessly massacred. The single remaining mercenary is hopelessly deep in the mountains, so there's a lot of time to recover and prepare.

Turn 11



He doesn't have a chance.



17/27 HP. I did not make any melee attacks, since I suspect the mercenary can double attack everyone except maybe Cliff. Still, Robin got a hit.

Turn 12

The mercenary double attacked Gray, causing 8 damage while recieving only 1. That's the awesome power of the leather shield. Too bad we've got healing magic and he does not. Also, Robin got another hit: 6/27.

Turn 13

He did not attack. That was a mistake. Robin killed him and took the leather shield.

I gave the leather shield to Silk because it makes bringing her to the frontlines easier. She can still get some awesome spells, so training her is useful for the future.

But we've still got one more battle to fight.

S.Fort
Soldier, Units: 7, Power: 129
Alm, Units: 6, Power 169

A more dangerous enemy, but still easy.



This is a very straightforward map, but it has the first proper chokepoint. And I'm going to use it as much as I can. If I had an archer it would have been even more useful, but it does not matter.

Turn 1 and 2 are generic moving into position with no actual fighting going on, so let's just skip to end of turn 2.



Alm is hidden in the forest and Silk and Robin are outside enemy movement range. Still, I forgot about one important thing.

Turn 3



The steel bow does not only add some attack power, but it also increases an archer range to 1-5. And now that the archer is positioned on a recovery spot, he will be very hard to hit unless I use Robin.



Things got a little confusing in the south, but everything turned out all right. The archer is still worrying me, since there's not enough cover.

Turn 4



A satisfying result: No damage suffered.



This is not going to be good, since Robin is exposed.

Turn 5



Actually, the soldier retreated and the archer is now concentrating on Alm. Gray is still in a difficult situation, but I'm sure he'll pull through.



This is actually a pretty bad situation. Silk is in danger and I hope the archer does not attack her. I should have moved her to Robin's former position so that she would be out of range, but I screwed up. She should still survive, since the archer's got speed of 1. Luka and Gray got a kill, though. (Gray, Level 5, skill +1, HP +1)

Turn 6



The archer missed Silk. I'm going to use her as a decoy, since Cliff and Robin are pretty fragile right now.



Cliff got in two lucky hits, so the archer is down and I have a steel bow for which I currently have no use at all. Also, Alm got a level. (Level 4, Skill +1, Speed +1, HP +1)

After this, this is just mopping up. I'm sending Silk to support Alm and get some more experience, but it is not very exciting. By turn 8, it's all over.

With our victory, it is time to explore the S.Fort.





The first objective is looting. The Bolt sword automatically replaces normal attack with a strength 15 ranged magical attack. It is useful at the beginning of the game and against armoured enemies with high Defence, but low M.Defence. (Seriously, why did the translators use M.Defence and not Resistance, or Resist, to make them easier to distinguish?) I give the sword to Cliff, since aside from Alm, he's the only character that can use it and he has only 8 power.


I'm Claire of the Knights of Sofia. My older brother Cleive leads the liberation force. Let's go to the base together.
PegKn Claire joined you!

The captive in the prison cell is our second objective. As you can see, Claire is a pegasus knight, a class present in every single Fire Emblem game and incredibly useful in all of them. Maybe I'm little biased since I prefer to use, as many pegasus knights and archers as possible, but that doesn't really matter, as they're even better in Gaiden. Why?

In usual Fire Emblem games, pegasus knights are stopped by walls, but in Gaiden, they can fly over any terrain. Also, as usual they are weak against archers, but since archers suck in FE2, that is not a problem. In short, Claire is never going to leave the active characters and we're going to see her in almost every battle from now on.

Well, this is all for now. Next time, we're going to finally get to the Liberation Army Headquarters.