Part 29: UPDATE 24: The Setting Sun

Hell, to be honest, even THAT much would be enough to make me use the damn things wherever I could, and maybe even make me create some Centurions so I wouldn't have to ruin all my special-character units with Soldiers. Unfortunately unless someone decides to break out the heavy Mod Gloves we have to make do with what we've got.

ANYWAY UPDATE TIME



Quick renaming session here -- as the only complete suggestion, we're continuing our mythology kick! And Donna is... the Italian word for "woman." If that's a mythology reference, come to think of it, I don't recognize it. Oh well, alea iacta est. vv



But enough poncing around, we did plenty of that last update! There's a strategically important location that's been overrun, and it's up to us to claim it in the name of revolution!!! ONWARD

Update 24: The Setting Sun





Another boring briefing sesh, it appears -- all that means, though, is that Hugo wants to get down to some ACTION as much as I do!

: "Let's get started... We will make Romella our base of operations."



: "We must capture the fort."

Right so exactly the same map as last time. Let me just go ahead and guess what'll be in the center of it this time, though!



BINGO

: "We can win or lose based on our approach. We can avoid them, but since we don't know their plans, we can't do anything foolish. What should we do...?"

Oh quit being coy, Hugo. You know as well as I do that the answer to that question is "wholesale slaughter."

: "I'm sure you're aware that some of your men can change classes. Some can even become Centurions."

actually no none of them can do that because i am not a goddamn moron and they've promoted an average of twoish soldiers each

: "We have gained information on the use of legions from the Western Division. It seems very difficult. It would be wise to take time to learn how to effectively control a legion."

man I know that if you didn't tell me this stuff this would be a no-op briefing, but seriously bad advice is NOT better than no advice at all.



I appreciate the brevity, I suppose, but I gotta say I feel like you're just phoning it in at this point. Your mid-year performance review is coming up, Hugo.

i warn you my red pen has no mercy



I don't think we've seen today's mission music before; even if we have it's a pretty good one and not one of the two basic tunes, so it's linked.



Okay, let's see. First off, staring down disapprovingly at us from Melphy is Swan, who is throwing one of the biggest monsters at us that we've seen yet, but is of course not standing behind it.

Flarebrass


Come ON guys. It's a FIRE DRAGON, you couldn't think up a better name for it? All the other Venerable Dragons have names that are references to something from some mythology or other except this one which is a word they made up. At any rate its back row attack Crimson Note has a chance of inflicting Power Down.



I sent Ankiseth up to deal with her for his first assignment. As you can see, she is using that dragon entirely wrong. In the front row, it uses a standard fire breath attack, and she's not even meatshielding with it. Lame.



As you may recall from their class writeup, Sword Masters do something particularly special from the back row. It's not quite special enough for me to USE it, though, so I'll just show it off here instead.



Here you can see WHY I don't use it.



Anyway at some point after all HER characters attacked mine did too and she died THE END.



While all this was going on, Norton the Raven and his larger friends were coming at me from the South.



It was pretty much no big deal. I gotta say, though, I'm a bit disappointed that battles between two air units take place on the same background as every other battle, like two inches above the ground. Imagine this all happening against a cloud backdrop! Can you see it? It's SO BEAUTIFUL IN MY MIND.



Today's obligatory attack on my HQ only consisted of one unit because they were all hiding out here waiting for me. Yes, the second mission we've seen with Legions in it has a full-sized one for us! Let's see what they've got!



Yeah, in a 5-unit Legion, this is pretty much the only way the leader's unit could possibly look. For the benefit of anyone who doesn't read the posts between updates: Your Legions can only have one unit beyond the first for every group of soldiers in the core unit.



A decent amount of healing in this unit, but the thing is Paladins really aren't very good at healing. Not worried about this one.



Man. I can't put my finger on it, but this unit seems... FAMILIAR somehow!



Hrmnm. Okay, this guy might be kind of a pain in the ass to deal with, but he has a hilarious name so I forgive him. So far it's looking like he'll be the most dangerous unit in



Uuuuuggggghhhhh

Okay, know what I'm doing here?



I'm abusing poor AI, that's what. I guessed (correctly) that the Legion in this mission just plain will not ever move for shit. From behind that Cockatrice unit is completely harmless so let's just send Troi around back there and



Wait. Shit. Get out of the way, Tia!



Oh. Ah. Hm. Looks like I managed to attack her from an angle that makes her like three times as dangerous as she would be from the front. Well, this isn't the BEST news.



I guess I DO get to show off Crimson Note this way. I'd never get to do that if those things stayed in the front row the whole time.



Largely the same as Evil Dead, as you can see. Not too heavy on the damage, but a good spread, with the same chance for status as usual.



Luckily I only got hit with one Power Down, as you can see in these shots of a Supportive Attack. It actually looks pretty decent with a full load of twelve Soldiers, but it topped out at 11 damage which should tell you all you need to know about it. Not entirely sure why it dealt more damage to the Paladins than the Archmages though. vv



yeah what the hell i wasn't using this pedra for anything important anyway



So yeah that went PRETTY well but Troi isn't really in the best shape to be fighting a fresh new unit after all that.



Yeah fuck this. One more beak to the eye and Troi's down but good. Luckily since this Legion is not on a Stronghold and cannot move to one, that damage is more or less permanent. Enemies have started getting in the habit of carrying items, but they have to be pretty low on health to actually use them. Like Hyper Potions on gym leaders. You understand, I'm sure.



Observe that with Tia expelled, this Legion shuffled itself around a little bit for some reason and the Cockatrice unit is now on the north end instead of the south.

Oh and also there's another Legion on the march in the north. I've got two units at Melphy and they sure are outnumbered! Let's see what I've got coming at me!



Wow yeah this Legion Core managed to be even lamer than the other one. Protip: military commanders should probably not go by "Kitty."



That sure is a lot of healing! I'm not worried, though. This'll be cake.



I was kind of disappointed in Guy, Equius, and MaskedHuzah here for somehow managing to not kill Kitty (she's certainly as defenseless as her namesake heyoooo) but it actually worked out for the best. Bear with me.



Remember that thing Ankiseth did last time? Yeah it was a pretty long way back to Fort Dardunelles, and when they got there these guys were all facing backward. Easy as pie.



In the meantime, Ivory was... a bit off when she attacked Min Mei. Alright. Once again, not the BEST thing to happen here, but it'll let me show off what petrification is like when that inevitably happens to one of my characters.



First things first.



Ah, there we are. Hypatia is now Petrified. She'll stay that way until (a) she dies, which would happen the normal way via damage accumulation or (b) I use a Revive Stone on her. Until then she's doing pretty much nothing, receiving no XP (annoyingly since she needs it more than anyone due to still being a Dragon Tamer) and not counting as "alive" when the game calculates whether my unit has been wiped out (which won't happen of course).



All in all, not a bad outcome. If you fight a unit designed for that purpose, you're probably going to have a couple of petrified characters, and only one isn't really that bad.



Zero is even better, though, so I'm sending Ivory back to HQ, where the Shop is, to get that checked out.



man this Legion was like the best Legion in history until YOKO showed up



In the middle of a war
In the middle of a war I call your name
Oh Yoko~~
Oh Yoko!
My knights will chop you up



At this point Dio is getting in a fight with Kitty whether he wants to or not. Luckily it goes as well as it possibly could.



And of course Droite takes the opportunity to go crazy with vengeance. His loss!



Man, the central group better step on it 'cause right now Dio and Guy are way ahead of them.



Oh hey, a DIRECT Tolkien reference for a change! Unfortunately Orcrist and Sting are not in this game, but 1 out of 3 ain't bad.



Due to getting critted into a slot where he was more vulnerable to Inferno, Woo died extravagantly enough to make me shout his name in exultation.



Blah blah Soft Potion blah Hypatia's not deadish anymore.



This back row really didn't do a half-bad job of healing Roland, mostly because there were three of them. I mean I still KILLED him, but it was a valiant effort.



With that, the FINAL CLIMACTIC BATTLE between MY LEGION and THE ENEMY LEGION can finally begin!!!



Okay yeah it's over now. The epic and bloody Battle of Bungasue draws to a close.



this armor is really awesome mostly because of its name



Worth noting is that Akbar's unit appears to now be completely incapable of accumulating Fatigue. I think it MIGHT be because it's made up entirely of Soldiers now that the big man himself is dead, but they might be carrying something special, I'm not sure. vv



Other worthwhile findings included a second Flame Flail and a Fire-element robe. This thing's INT boost is so-so but it gives pretty good Fire resistance (as you may guess).



Huh. This guy has a pretty Mexican-sounding name for a Scotsman. Go figure. At any rate he WAS guarding a stronghold in the south but decided his time would be better spent at the enemy HQ and started trekking up there.



I took the opportunity to slip into his house while he was out. Also I took Garu Kaio, which was suspiciously unguarded!



One of these two events was enough to make him change his mind and charge headlong at my entire army. I responded with brutal force. _{Damn, Asnabel is so awesome.}



This unit is patrolling right outside the HQ. Hey y'know what we haven't seen any of lately? Pumpkins. Yeah just imagine this song playing for the next few shots.



okay good start



getting there



AWESOME. Katreda's unit finally performs to my expectations.



TWO units on the enemy HQ. Something is amiss.



Yeah I guess Stella here was the unit that WAS guarding Garu Kaio. Approaching the HQ is enough to goad her into making a move.



Can't you hear me yella
You're puttin' me through hella
Stella~~~
STELLAAAAAAAA





And even if it's easy to be free
What's your definition of freedom
And who the fuck are you anyway

: "Is it to win battles? ...You say it's the right of the strong to rule over the weak? If that's the case, then don't expect the weak to remain so. ...I don't want a revolution."

well you know
we all wanna change the world (shooby doo-wop uh huh shooby doo-wop)

: "I don't want an uncertain future. I don't want to suffer! ...I'll protect the happiness that I have right now!"



okay lemme just combo break my lyrics references right here to say that there was some definite suffering going on and that happiness lasted approximately 2 battle actions



yeah yeah I know I've heard this three or four times already, now your ellipses say you're going to die very soon and I'd appreciate it if you could y'know get on that

: "......Lodis... The Lodis Empire sent the troops here..."

yeah I know I saw the cutscene



Gotta hand it to her, she really did milk that death scene for all she could.



Against my hopes that Ujeanne would drop her awesome mace, our prize for this mission is another elemental robe. Hooray~~~



I KNOW, me neither

Troi is in a cutscene and he has at least one line!

: "Lodis... The Holy Lodis Empire's force is finally here..."

: "What are we gonna do? We can't just..."

yeah I guess before Lodis's invasion was just an idle theory Frederick was kickin' around the conference table and now it's for realzies, a fact from a boss, so the reaction is a little bit of all around.

: "Everybody, remain calm. Since joining the Revolutionary Army, we knew this was inevitable... Right?"



Hugo enters at this point rather than having been there all along, presumably because this way he's exempt from having to yell at Dio after his line earlier, which would kind of kill the mood.

: "Lodis' prime objective must be to eliminate us, the Revolutionary Army... They will block contact with the Eastern Orthodox Church, cutting off reinforcements... ...Wait a moment. They could elect the Eastern Orthodox Church as their primary target instead."

: "I don't get it, Hugo. Why would Lodis attack the Eastern Orthodox Church? They haven't done anything yet."

Haha Hugo you're being silly, the EOC is a religious organization, not a military one! Surely the Caliginous Order from the Holy Lodis Empire wouldn't make it a priority to oppress and harass a religious organization that happens to be slightly different from... oh.

: "It is a common tactic to defeat the enemy one group at a time. The Eastern Orthodox Church is the smallest militarily, and therefore, easiest to defeat. And doing so will leave us standing alone."

: "We haven't received any report on Lodis' activity, but the matter will only worsen if we remain idle..."



: "We need to gain their support, but we can't endanger them."



Speaking of which, let's have a scene with the Eastern Orthodox Church.



They're all just hanging out in a church staring at each other when something that's pretty bad news happens.



Specifically a demonic possession. Yeah if this happens inside a cathedral that qualifies as pretty bad news.



We've heard this guy's name before! Yes, that is his default dialogue portrait. It usually fits.



See?



oh noooooo



y'know

There WAS at least one priest present, and a friggin' ARCHBISHOP; there are probably some more exorcism-y things you could have done before jumping straight to the Old Yeller approach.

: "The devil possessed the Berthan Sentinel? The archbishop had a pact with the devil...? E, Eastern Orthodox Church was the servant of the netherworld!"

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN



And on that... jolly note, it's time to press on into the Eastern Region! See you guys then!