Part 25
Playing Through:I just warped in, you know?
Another bad level for Saul. Mine has really turned out completely sucky across the board. And thats saying something.
Because Sauls magic power is low, there was no way Miledy could start on the other side of this paladin and thus no way to kill the Purge user immediately. Instead she gets a lucky crit trying to carve a path through him.
The Roy rescue chain begins.
And continues smoothly.
And finishes.
Now a minor bit of rescuing wizardry. Lugh actually pulls Fa back here.
Which allows Lance to step into that space and then drop her forward. She nets +1 squares overall, and Lance and Lugh get to crowd in closer too.
More rescuing gets Saul to a reasonable place.
And Astol starts running up to eventually steal the red gem.
Thats dangerous accuracy considering Roy is fully supported with maximum possible avoid bonus.
The Purge bishop finds this mercenary Miledy left alive and therefore heals him instead of firing.
And Zeiss and Gale pop up to have a chat.
Gale somehow knows all of Narshens secret plans for Zeiss and warns him.
So he tells Zeiss to just hang out here.
Well those are terrible orders. That basically makes Murdock a traitor. He has the means to help Bern win this critical battle, but decides hed rather watch Narshen fail. Gale too really. Theyre both nearly as stupid and incompetent as Narshen.
Im not dealing with your 3-10 range instant kills today, man.
Even as a falcoknight, Thany is totally ineffective against mercenaries and needs to be healed up after every fight.
Score! My Lilina is SO blessed where it counts.
Saul heals Astol too.
And he moves up again and gets a nice level attacking the fighter.
Leaving this mercenary to Tate.
Oujay blocks the fighter in so he has to attack Astol.
Alan gives Fa a kill.
She turns into her giant chicken form. I appreciate her 100 accuracy after trying to train Sophia.
Darn. Well it doesnt matter much; I still couldnt kill the guy before next turn.
Everyone else just crowds in.
Why is that your biggest concern? Youre about to die.
A pretty solid Miledy level as the one-woman army keeps hacking through the nearby enemies. Its too bad shes going to cap all that left stuff soon and then stop growing.
Because I couldnt kill the Bolting guy, its touch and go for one turn here.
But now Ive got this. First, a kill for Roy. I need to get him to 20 fairly soon and thats not easy when hes so weak.
Now the bishop is down, so Lugh takes back his heal staff from Lance and starts getting people back to full health.
Lance weakens this fighter for Roy to kill.
or not. I dislike critical hits more and more every day. Theyre especially bad early in Awakening Lunatic or Lunatic+ mode where any enemy critical OR critical by one of your own units often means you lose, but they really get in the way of strategy in every game in the series.
Pretty good level at least.
No more purge, no more silence, and no more bolting. Things are under control now.
A little late. It would have been really nice to have that +1 damage a few turns ago.
Another kill for Fa. Whats she supposed to be breathing anyway? Its clearly not fire.
Pretty nice. Def is what Id most like, but her Def growth is actually pretty poor.
Astol swipes the red gem from the mage.
And Tate kills it.
Thany helps Lilina catch up.
As does Oujay. Everyone is ready for that mage with a 1-2 range weapon.
Miledy has to deal with 2 aircalibur mages soon, so she moves to safety and Saul heals her up.
Alright, her dodge is pretty adorable. Anyway, its important to note that turning into a chicken to defend herself from a ranged attack does NOT use up any charges of her stone. She only spends charges when she attacks.
Like now.
Nice! Fa is doing well so far. Notice that she gained 2 HP this time. Both her Luck and her HP growth are actually over 100%, so she always gains 1 point of them and sometimes 2.
Here comes Hugh. I want to recruit him on my next turn.
So Alan and Lance carry Roy to the edge of Hughs range.
Tate gets another kill but still doesnt hit level 20.
Everyone else keeps moving through this boring slalom hallway.
Some rescues keep Lalum moving along.
And Saul gets his final, still horrible, level up.
Time to fight the aircalibur mages.
One down.
Fa is falling behind, so Shin carries her.
We sure do!
Sure could. The ideal party would pretty much be nothing but wyverns and mages.
Hugh moves to deal with the knight. Hes only 1 Mag short of one-rounding him already.
It took a while, but Ive decided how Im going to get into the treasure room, and this formation will cover it.
Miledy instant-kills the other aircalibur mage. Douglas will be badly injured but not quite one-round-killed by her.
Stiiiill just trying to move through this hallway.
A bit of rescuing gets Astol in range to open the door.
With the help of a dancer, even infantry can do some pretty great rescue-drops.
So Im back in support formation and ready to kill the knights (and maybe the bishop if it doesnt have a target it wants to heal).
Just one point of Mag is all he needs to start laying down the instant kills.
Fa uses her key to open the door.
Hugh, now armed with a Fire tome Roy had for him, kills the knight.
Shin takes Fas keys, then Alan and Lance carry her out.
Shes in bishop range now, but no worries. Fa is impervious to even the strongest magical attacks.
And with that space cleared, Lugh kills the mamkute.
That spell is epic.
Kind of a meh level. Oh well. Hes still doing very well despite his recent run of mediocrity.
Astol opens the door.
Tate gets a great final level.
After a dance and a heal, she promotes. Looking good!
Its turn 6 and the enemy is basically wiped out. Ive been doing pretty awesomely.
Douglas is on his feet because of these physic bishops. Which is why Ive been leaving them alive.
Since theres basically no one but Douglas left to heal, the spare bishops start attacking.
Money!
Roy has places to go, so Alan is just running with him.
Fa kills the bishop. Shes doing great on Def.
Hm, how to proceed. Because the AI loves to attack the lowest Def person, I believe I can force Douglas to go after Astol, which is for the best.
And a bolting. That could come in handy.
Lugh heals Fa up. She needs the extra HP badly.
Douglas is still trouble. He could kill Lalum or Saul here, and he could be killed by Lilina (who he REALLY wants to attack).
For now I take out the last bishop.
Sleep is really not a viable option here. Im not running a 40% chance of Douglas dodging it and then doing something stupid.
After Miledy unequips her good gear, she and Astol control Douglas instead.
Douglas gets a lucky hit on Astol.
And Oujay had just terrible luck here, double-missing and getting hit.
Another kill for Lugh opens the path for the two groups to reunite.
Shin skips down to this chest so that he can move efficiently get back into the action later on.
With help from Lalum, Astol can reach the mamkute.
Wow, a completely empty level. Unlike Nils/Ninian, her speed cap is a lousy 20 instead of 30, which hurts her badly.
Alright, thats both red gems. Now the only items left to steal are Narshens and that of the thief who hasnt spawned yet.
Durandal OHKOs the mamkute.
Nice. Im hoping hell cap his Luck.
Now Alan gives Roy to Thany who is then able to drop him near where Cath will spawn.
Lilina fells the last sniper.
That makes 5 or so.
Hugh vs knight round 3.
Miledy is now ready with the member and silver cards traded in from Hugh and Roy via some intermediaries, so she heads off to go recruit Zeiss.
I spotted a chance to get rid of Douglas, so Roy actually pulls back to let him chase after Thany. That means I cant recruit Cath quite as soon, but it should still be worthwhile.
And here she is.
Now because Shin was standing on the last chest on the right, the thief instead started heading left- which sends him right to the waiting Astol. Just as planned.
Tate is ready to deal with the mages who will now start spawning and she and Miledy work on the wall.
Thany leads Douglas away.
The left force here is kind of light considering they have to deal with 2 sets of reins and also get 5 treasures.
Pretty bad level there.
So here come the reinforcements.
Tate lies in wait for more mages with her javelin.
Fa, Shin, and Lugh will be dealing with the top right mercenaries.
Wow, Fa is doing great on Def.
Yoink!
He also assaulted her.
He gives Cath basically the same speech Lilina gave Garret and she joins for the same reason.
So Ive realized that the only way to win in time is to give Lilina the chest keys and have her work with Cath to loot everything. That leaves way too few people to deal with the reins here since Roy has to get to Narshen.
Lugh keeps Fa going.
And Alan and Lance send Hugh to help Oujay out, a minor change of plans.
Luckily Oujay is strong enough to completely slaughter mercenaries even with an iron sword.
The wall is broken at last.
And the thief is killed too.
Nice! Double HP AND Luck.
And another heal.
Lilina and Cath get to work.
Roy is ready to be carried by Alan and Lance.
Douglas has been neutralized.
Hugh gets a pretty bad level as he joins Oujay in the fight. On the other hand, this does give him all the damage he needs to start one-round killing knights. Too bad there are none left.
Another hero crest. The game is too stingy with them.
And another knight crest. We went quite a while without one to promote Lance but now theres plenty around.
Miledy recruits Zeiss.
So you betrayed Bern. You totally did. Theres no other way turning around and killing Bern soldiers on the orders of Guinevere, who also betrayed Bern, can be described.
More Fa goodness.
Astol swipes the Delphi Shield.
Alan and Lance carry him out.
Hugh kills a fighter.
A pretty good item, though I still have a dearth of good staff users.
And thats the last chest.
Just another point or two of speed
Miledy gets to the secret shop while Zeiss starts fighting some mages. Theyre his hard counter but he can still flatten them.
This game only has 2 secret shops and they dont really sell interesting stuff, just promotion items and then stat boosters. Buying stat boosters (especially boots) is an easy way to completely break the game, so I wont be doing it.
With a vulnerary, Zeiss keeps fighting the mages.
Fa is just getting better and better.
The timing is now right for Alan to attack Narshen. I should be able to kill him on turn 16, just after the last reins spawn.
Remember that part when Narshen was right about anything ever? Neither do I!
Im looking forward to fighting a bunch of random episodic villains who actually do things instead of this guy.
As you can see, theres not much to be found here. Id be interested in buying fun toys like super-effective weapons or Physic or Barrier, but theyre not available in secret stores in this game.
Its turn 16 so the last enemies are here and ready to be killed. Astol swipes the very last item.
A pretty bad level, but oh well.
Remember the 15 or so times you could have beaten us?
Turn 16 win! This chapter is too big, but it would still be one of my favorites due to the huge number of things to do if it werent for Douglas.
And here's the king, completely unguarded and unharmed. At no point did anyone try to use him as a hostage or anything.
His portrait kind of sucks somehow but Im having trouble putting my finger on just why.
Go on the sidequest!
Weve been told that a few times.
Dude, we KNOW Mildain is alive and with us!
Ugh, whats wrong with you? Theres no one to hide from anymore- not that you should even have hidden that you were still alive from the king himself to begin with.
That was one of my more glorious victories and pretty much the best outcome possible. I stole absolutely everything (down to the northeast thiefs lockpick), got every single chest, found time to visit the secret shop, maintained support formations most of the time, recruited everyone (including Cath, who you dont even usually need to get), unlocked the sidequest, killed every single enemy, won on the earliest possible turn, exceeded the XP requirement by several hundred XP, and didnt even have to burn any of my Sleep staff.
Total Restarts: 10 (I did a few partial test runs to improve my starting formation)
Turn Surplus: +14 (Scored 9 whole turns here!)
Things I Regret Missing: A couple of uses of Marcuss silver lance on Rude, a Chapter 5 nomad Marcus had to kill, two Chapter 12 fighters I couldnt kill since I needed supports built elsewhere, a pirate and a wyvern rider on 14x who I didnt have time to go after.
Legendary Weapon Scoreboard: Durandal slew Ohtz using Oujay on chapter 14x, turn 2 and the top left mamkute using Oujay on chapter 16, turn 9. Forblaze slew the top right mamkute using Lugh on chapter 16, turn 6.