Part 14: Ep 14: Tactical Espionnage Strategy
Chapter 5: Doors to Destiny Part 3
Since the last update, I finished preparing for inheritance in gen 2, while Reptor is patiently waiting for us. Without going into much detail, here are a few highlights.
Noish, Alec, Arden, Midayle and Dew have been completely stripped down, of course. I'm surprised how well these five have done, to be honest. Dew and Arden became surprisingly good after promotion, and Noish simply did great through and through.
Sigurd and Aira will pass down some pretty fantastic stuff, so I have the Paragon Ring and Blaggi Sword available as soon as chapter 6.
I've also stored Aira's Iron Blade for a little trick you can do in gen 2. In this case, Larcei's starting equipment in gen 2 is a brand-new Iron Blade + Inherited items. However, if Aira passes down her own Iron Blade, then Larcei's "free" Blade will not appear, and she'll get Aira's instead.
I could simply give Aira's weapon to someone else and bypass that shameful steal, or I can just put it in the Storage. Somehow, that will let Larcei keep both Blades.
Adean is kinda out there in the mountain, but she's passing down the Silver Card so Adean can abuse her staves. Delmud will also be able to start with an A Swords/Axes right off the bat, which means I can hand him all of Lex's axes for the Joha brothers.
As for our mages, I want neither Tinny nor Ced to misuse long-range tomes before I can recruit them, so Arthur will inherit them all (good thing they're C rank). As for Thoron, nobody will be able to use it before Ced joins, so he might as well get it. The Sleep Staff should make Chapter 8 especially amusing to watch (remember that NPC means infinite uses).
Since Dew and Briggid were both very close to level 30, I have them trade money for a few turns.
That leaves only Tailto who hasn't capped levels yet. Yes, that was totally worth it.
Now, on to the fight proper. Us VS Them, the Final Battle and such... Well, if not for the fact that this map is rather poorly designed and forces the player to move about 20 units through a large portion of desert, just to fight the enemies in a cramped area. So much for a Final Showdown.
There's always the possibility of luring them out with Ferry and ambushing them in the desert, where they're most vulnerable. But then you have to wait for the AI to reach near Phinora, and believe me, that takes even more time, because the AI is obstinate about keeping a tight formation at all times.
Anyways, here's what we're facing. Master Knights and Barons, Heroes and Mercenaries, Mage Fighters and Mage Knights, one Paladin and Valkyrie, and of course, Reptor himself as a Sage.
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Just a reminder, this is how they looked like in vanilla FE4. How did I ever get scared of those guys? Half of them aren't even promoted!
The Valkyrie is your typical asshole self-healing healer, with Fortify and Silence to make the fight last even longer.
The Master Knights aren't actually that bad. Sure, they have ridiculous stats and decent equipment, but nothing much else.
Same thing for the Barons, who compensate their lower stats with better equipment and Great Shield.
The Mage Fighters are there to bring the pain on mounted units, although I don't remember if the AI is all that good with switching to Rapiers.
The Heroes look like they come straight out of Andorey's squad.
Their Merc partners wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for surprise Sols here and there.
All in all, the Mage Knights on the front are the least threatening units of the group.
Sure, they all have personal skills and good equipment, but that hasn't stopped our army before, right?
But then, there's these three, stationed right around Reptor. Olwen...
And Amalda. And those three aren't fucking around.
You may be wondering how that would make any sort chronological sense, or why their skills are all wrong. That is actually a thing this hack does a lot, and especially in gen 2: recycling unique character portraits from Thracia 776, and giving them to especially powerful squad leaders or sub-commanders.
Really, there's probably 3 or 4 Olwens in the whole game. At least this time they picked Freegian characters to defend the Freege Duke...
Speaking of Olwen, Olson and her share this Thoron-lookalike. It's actually the semi-legendary tome Dime Thunder from Thracia 776. It hits hard, has a brave effect and boosts Skill by 5, but the animation for it is just the regular Elthunder.
I'm not exactly sure why they didn't simply use the Elthunder icon for it, though. In FE5, that's what the Dime Thunder icon was.
Reptor seems pretty scary at first with his Mjöllnir and maxed Magic stat, but his mediocre luck mitigates his weapon's bonuses, and he basically has no skills.
(Fun fact: Reptor was a Sage in the prototype version of FE4, which probably explains this new class. )
His Holy weapon gives him great bonuses and is almost impossible to dodge, but also slows him down quite a bit. Lewyn is as fast as him, for instance, without Forseti equipped.
He does have a really powerful item on him called the Dracoshield, which provides him with Great Shield, Def+5, Res+5, and immunity against effective damage and criticals.
We're going to see a lot of these in gen 2.
Oh, and I guess there are also Velthomer Mage Fighters, ready to turn against Reptor's troops as soon as we get near him. Then they'll immediately die from their counter-attack.
All in all, the only reason to fight Reptor and pals is to get some additional experience, as they don't drop anything. I also need to defeat Reptor if I want to talk to Aida.
The thing is, I'm not going to talk to Aida. After all that bullshit he's been through, Sigurd isn't inclined to talk anymore.
I mean, Reptor's gang isn't all that difficult. I've managed to defeat them with a slightly weaker team by simply stranding them in the desert and picking them off one by one. It's just very boring and shallow, considering most everyone has hit the level cap already.
So, what I'm going to do is dismount over here and not select to "Wait" right after, so I don't have Sigurd join Adean in the mountains...
Amusingly enough, Sigurd trades +2 Skl/Spd for -1 Str by dismounting. This would probably be very abusable is not for that damned glitch.
And by climbing those cliffs, Sigurd starts his very first stealth mission.
Re-mount, and I'll just have to silently sneak by...
Reptor is still firmly focused on the south. You'd think hearing meteors raining down behind him would surprise him a little bit.
And there we go, we can just go and conquer Velthomer undetected.
Nooo, Sigurd! Stay focused.
And with that, Sigurd does what he does best and conquers the last castle, killing all the Mage Fighters in the process. And since Reptor is pretty much his own castle (his troops only disappear if you slay him), he's just going to hang out around here, staring to the south for his nemesis to attack.
He's probably going to be there for quite a while.
However, since I just cut a few corners there (Sigurd isn't supposed to conquer Velthomer in any way: his only choice is to talk to Aida after she turns against Reptor), the game also skipped all the events leading to Sigurd's demise and tosses me directly into Chapter 6.
And then the whole thing proceeds as if I had completed chapter 5 properly. The only thing we miss is Arvis's wonderful BBQ party but hey... we all know how it went, right?
Unless we're now in an alternate timeline involving a lot of stealth, nanomachines, and Sigurd engaging in a naked bout of fisticuffs with Arvis on top of a giant robot.
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Regardless, onward to gen 2! I'll be taking a little break from Binary before starting Seliph's journey, but there is still one Intermission update coming up soon.
Next time on Let's Play FE4 Binary: There's something odd about this picture, but I can't quite figure out what...
