Part 36

Yeah… I’m not actually sure just who this title is referring to. There are several candidates.

It’s the last chapter for a while that’s pretty much just a really huge battle without any fog of war or other craziness complicating it and it’s pretty epic. It’s also the first chance to promote a lord.


Chapter Summary:
Eliwood leads the way and the group splits up near the Bern palace, hiding while the three lords sneak in past the terrible security. In the palace gardens they witness some unpleasantness in the Bern royal family and then see King Desmond secretly meet Sonia, learning that she has indeed hidden the Fire Emblem on his orders in the black fang’s secret giant mountaintop fortress. As they’re leaving, the Black Fang locates Ninian and Nils and attacks the scattered group all at once. The leader of the Black Fang is one of Bern’s royal wyvern riders, empowered personally by Nergal. She turns out to be bored really easily and just leaves with her forces after a while, giving the others a chance to regroup and track her to the Black Fang fortress.




On with the plot!




But what about castle Ostia?! Their defenses are impenetrable!




Lyn is impressed enough with the supposedly impenetrable defenses that they’re about to have no problem with to decide Eliwood is probably right that the King arranged to have the Fire Emblem stolen himself.




For once this ISN’T an inexplicable enemy cutscene, Hector and Lyn and Eliwood are actually in some bushes 10 feet away watching this because the security in castle Bern really is amazingly terrible. Guinevere and Zephiel get along great and Zephiel stopped by against his father’s orders to give her a baby fox he found as a present. Which is… totally irresponsible. But she loves it.
Oh and does anyone know why the heck Murdock has Con TWENTY in FE6? Hawkeye only has 16 and he’s so huge that Hector mistakes his shadow for a patch of actual shade and can barely believe he’s human apparently.




She runs off to play with her new terrified and non-domesticated baby animal and then King Desmond chews Zephiel out for stopping by to see his half-sister.




With Zephiel gone, the king wonders why he hates Zephiel despite knowing he really is his son.




Unlike Ephidel, Sonia actually gets people. Perhaps Nergal made her think she’s human to encourage her not to just dismiss them like Ephidel did.




They discuss the exact plans for what she should do with the Fire Emblem and she assures him that it’s squirreled away in their secure, secret, giant, mountaintop fortress.




And then it comes out that King Desmond has hired the Fang for another mission, killing someone unnamed at the moment. But the two agree that they should not kill this mysterious someone’s bodyguard, Murdock. And Murdock is the bodyguard for the prince. And the person Murdock is guarding is the one the King wants killed. And he’s hired the Black Fang to kill the one he wants killed.
The heroes were perhaps too distracted by the last revelation to pay attention to this one, so they don’t catch on to the obvious fact that the Black Fang is going to try to kill Zephiel on the king’s orders until next chapter.




And now we find out why Nergal’s Black Fang is doing all this for the king in the first place, they want him in their debt so Nergal can use him in his plans.




She leaves and Guinevere happens to leave the new fox Zephiel gave her with her dad and then runs off. Since he’s jealous that she loves Zephiel more than him, he orders some random soldier to kill the baby fox. Being a soldier in this country sounds really traumatic.




I know! The poor baby fox…
Oh, he meant that the Black Fang already seems to have got the king on their side.




Outside, Ninian and Nils – the two most important people to protect- have been left unguarded and they get to talking about Hector, perhaps the only person Nils says anything nice about other than Elbert. And really Ninian talked more about Elbert.




The two of them are really obvious to everyone but Hector it seems. Hector is a dyed in the wool Eliwood/Lyn shipper as established in 13x.




Foreshadowing. I like the siblings and their various secret conversations.




Ninian goes off to be alone and Nils is immediately attacked by a wyvern rider- he’s terrified that he couldn’t sense her approach like he usually can impending danger.




Lyn and Hector emerge from the palace at that moment and come running to challenge this attacker and she claims not to be Black Fang, but actually loyal to the royal house. Honestly, her behavior on this chapter is rather out of character for her given that.




"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem!"

I guess this might sort of by the explanation for how they’ve avoided detection so far. They’ve actually been traveling spread out in small groups, but we just haven’t been actually told that.


Battle Preparations & The Map:




It’s time to promote my level 20 people. Bear in mind that you shouldn’t promote most people you get to level 20. Most you should just stop using forever. But I’m going to need all the full power flyers I can get later on.




Interestingly, promotion tends to give you whatever stats you DON’T already have. Pegasus knights gain huge HP and some def and str. Wyvern riders gain speed and resistance at the like. Regrettably, Heath is about to hit his speed cap, but at least his Str and Def are really great.




Raven is another special case since he’s the best infantryman in the game and benefits a ton from promotion. Being able to use handaxes is just amazing. Heck, even just iron axes are pretty sweet as long as we’re fighting mainly wyvern riders.




And here’s the map. It’s pretty huge and it’s REALLY mountainous so any of your non-air units will have trouble getting around. On a map this big and this busy, you probably shouldn’t count on being able to do many air drops. No, you’ve got to just get your formation right to begin with. Every corner is going to see significant enemy spawning so you’re going to end up with a three-four front battle as things stabilize.

Other than the initial forces, pretty much everything you fight on this chapter is going to be a wyvern rider. They haven’t leveled up much so they’ve gone from a huge menace that were like minibosses to fight to almost no threat to anyone but Lucius or other really low level defenseless people. Except these wyvern riders have iron lances, not steel, and that makes them WAY more accurate AND significantly faster. Yeah, these ones are upgraded significantly.

This map is actually a lot simpler than the Eliwood’s story version where there was important stuff to steal. Now you don’t have to worry about that and can just kill whatever you need to whenever you need to.

What’s key is getting the top group reinforced without depriving the bottom crews of forces they need. You have no control whatsoever over the top forces formation or characters and they can’t really handle the number of enemies they’ll be up against. You COULD just commit your flyers there immediately, but really what they need is more magic- preferably someone strong but unpromoted who can therefore still gain some XP.

Now the enemy attacks from everywhere, but they don’t attack from everywhere at once or very hard from anywhere. That makes this a surprisingly good chapter for training your weak characters on. That said, the sheer size of it means you’re going to need to bring a fair number of promoted units just to have one on every front in case of emergencies.




The biggest thing to watch out for is the boss’s range. Unless you’ve been seriously arena grinding AND were massively stat-blessed, she’ll kill just about anyone in two turns and there’s no escape from someone with 8 flying movement speed. Don’t aggro her without a reason.



Objective: Survive 11 turns.
Secondary Objective: Get the Hammerne from the bottom left village.
Secondary Objective: Do some shopping
Reinforcements:.Dozens of wyvern riders in fairly irregular patterns, spawning from every corner of the map for the first 10 turns or so. Notably, almost all of the later reinforcements are from the bottom corners, but early on they’re coming from everywhere at least some of the time. There are also a pair of shamans from the top left around turn 4 or 5.
Turn Limit: 11 (And there’s no way to end it early, so as usual for survival chapters you take a -1 turn penalty to your tactics)
Units Allowed: 11 + Hector + Eliwood +Lyn +Pent +Louise (More than any chapter up till now!)
Units Brought:
1) Hector. Required, and actually fairly useful. You may remember from way back when I could actually use him that he was very good against wyvern riders and could kill the slow ones in one round. Well now they’re all faster and these ones finally have iron lances instead of steel, so now he just does really heavy, really accurate damage that definitely won’t kill them. Fantastic for training weak people!
2) Eliwood. Required and about to turn the corner and become the awesome unit he was born to be. He can finally be promoted as of now. Of course, as a promoted unit I don’t want to use him much, but he’s very handy here.
3) Lyn. Required and absolutely terrible for this level. However, the top group has NO ONE else good to give XP to, so you might as well find a way to use her.
4) Pent. Required and pretty great as usual. I’ll mostly be using him for healing duty so he doesn’t eat up any valuable XP that could go to someone else.
5) Louise. Terrible on a level that plays completely to her strengths. That’s about all you need to know about her really.
6) Erk. Wonderful now that he’s properly leveled, Erk is my only unpromoted character- and quite possibly my only character period other than Canas- who can one-round kill these wyvern riders. Mine got a huge enough Mag and Res blessing that he’ll be pretty good for dealing with those top left magic users too.
7) Raven. Now that he has axes, Raven completely dominates wyverns, though mine is one Str short of one round killing them. Which is perfect. With handaxes, he can also back up the bottom units against the nomads if those prove to be a problem for my weak characters.
8) Canas. Here as a primary healer and the only guy on the team who can definitely 1 round kill wyvern riders no matter what if need be.
9) Fiora. She’s much tougher than Florina but actually now has the same Str, so while she’s still no darned good against wyverns, she’s still better than her sister. I expect to need her to do the shopping and she can also reinforce the top group if they run into trouble.
10) Priscilla. With this many people, I definitely need a second healer. Mobility is nice here too. Of course, her being 1 hit from wyverny death at any time is a nuisance.
11) Heath. It’s an air map, he’s my best air unit. He’s also the only person I have who can tank Vaida- due to his insane speed actually. I’ll need him as a distraction for that alone.
12) Ninian. Actually less useful here than on other chapters since I just have so many guys running around and don’t have much rescue dropping to do, but I did still bring her. Always handy.
13) Rath. It’s a map of nothing but wyverns and some archers and such. Rath is quivering with anticipation.
14) Lucius. Mine is still juuuuust fragile enough due to his sub-par even for Lucius HP and Def gains that a wyvern with an iron lance can instant kill him, so he’ll be a bit harder to train than usual. Still, he’s fantastic on offense and this level will be good for training him.
15) Dart. Remember how an 8 level lower Dart took on like 20 wyverns solo? Yeah, he loves this chapter. It’s also my last good chance to train him up before Night of Farewells when I want him to be very good.
16) Bartre. Well he’s still not very good even after his last few level ups, but if he gains a single point more speed then these wyverns won’t be able to double him. Once that happens, he’ll be able to train up and significantly boost my XP score here. Plus that will make Jerme’s chapter a lock. Going into this chapter I only have a 300 XP lead toward it.
Notable Units Rejected:
1) Dorcas. I can finally train Bartre enough for him to pass Dorcas once and for all. And I don’t really have another slot for a weak person to train with so many already on the team.
2) Serra. No need for a third healer when Pent has the top covered.
3) Legault and Matthew. Horrible vs wyverns and there’s nothing to steal. Their day will come.
4) Wil and Rebecca. I actually did wonder if I could manage to use one of them here, but I ultimately decided there wasn’t space on the team and I already wanted to funnel most of the kills other people did the work for to someone else (Bartre). If your Bartre is already leveled, this is actually a fantastic level to pull one of them out and earn massive XP.
5) Guy. Even with his amazing luck last chapter, he doesn’t stand a chance against wyverns.
6) Florina. I already have way more promoted units than I want, no way was I bringing her too.
7) Kent. I did actually consider him as a great XP booster, but he’d be even less effective than Wil and Rebecca and I didn’t have space for either of them.
8) Sain. I already have enough promoted units and he’s overleveled. At this point, Raven is more useful anyway when I don’t need 8 movement. Sain’s day is coming too…

Now Pent and Louise both need some equipment traded to them pronto so they don’t have to use their Elfire and Physic and Silver Bow respectively. That means you have to give some kind of good bow, basic anima tome, and a heal staff to Lyn and Hector and Eliwood. But Hector needs 1 inventory slot open so he can immediately trade the Heaven Seal to Eliwood.
I gave Lyn a steel bow (Rath needs my only iron one) for Louise and gave Hector a Heal staff (leaving one space open) and Eliwood a thunder tome as well as an iron lance and a javelin. As you’ll see, this all works out perfectly.

Erk has a Guiding Ring (and a heal staff) in case he makes it all the way to 20 on this chapter. He’s positioned to make a run to the top left to take down the magic users and wyverns there since he’s the best unpromoted person for that job.

Rath as usual is loaded up with 4 different bows so he can customize his attack to be whatever level of damage I need.
Only the right group actually starts very near many enemies, so I put all my weak units who I want to train in that group and the promoted units that will be spreading out everywhere in the middle group far from the enemy.

No one has the silver card to start with since I don’t know who I’ll send shopping (if anyone) and I want to make sure I can change that on the fly as I found out.




You believe wrong, ma’am.




Pent finally hands the darned thing over. If only Hawkeye wasn’t an idiot we could have promoted Eliwood long ago.


The Characters:




“ I am Pent, Count Reglay of Etruria.” –Pent, Chapter 23x

At long last, the infamous green unit joins the team!
To be honest, I kind of feel like Pent is a bit of a Gary Stu and I’m not too fond of him. He’s an incredibly powerful wizard whose skills and fame apparently wow even Canas (not to mention win him the constant praise of his student Erk), is probably the second most powerful person in Etrutria after the king, is the only student Archsage Athos ever took, is universally respected and looked up to by his fellow noblemen despite being free-spirited and adventurous and non-traditional, and apparently pretty much every eligible woman in the country wanted to marry him, oh and Sain actually stops chasing his wife when he realizes she’s married to him. Pretty much everyone spends all their time being amazed by him and his knowledge and power and skill, even people who should really regard him as something like an equal- like Eliwood or Canas.

It’s hard not to agree with their assessment though. The guy really is as great as people say. Unlike most pre-promotes, he’s actually pretty much just better than most unpromoted people of the same class trained up to his level. He beats or matches Erk in pretty much every stat, particularly when one considers his much higher con. Lucius beats him in Mag and Res but that’s pretty much it and is WAY behind in many stats, including Con once again. Priscilla… yeah. She’s still Priscilla. Same with Serra. Don’t even bring up Renault.
He and Canas are basically the same unit, with their only significant stat differences being in things that don’t matter. Yeah, same stats as Canas. That says a lot doesn’t it? But Canas is still WAY better than him because Canas has dark magic instead of anima.




Pent does have the edge of being the best staff user in the game though. Seriously, he starts with an instant A and the magic power to use it. Ok, ok, Athos is better. But Athos doesn’t count! For his staff mastery alone, Pent will see a decent amount of use.
Also, note that he starts with an instant A support with his wife. This is actually one of his greatest weaknesses in a non-ranking run, but in a ranking run is only a boon –albeit a minor one.




Just to drive the point home, he even starts with one of the best staves in the game (This makes 3 total physics for me, which is pretty much the ideal number to have, just as planned).




“Despite what you may think, I shoot much better than I dance or sing.” –Louise, Chapter 26

Pent’s wife, Louise is a somewhat more interesting character. I’d say I liked her if she wasn’t so totally defined by her status as Pent’s wife most of the time. Still, she does have some pretty good supports with other people.


Her stats are terrible, her class is worse. She’s not even good at killing air units.




“Make this last awhile, will you? I want to enjoy this!!” –Vaida, Chapter 26

Vaida is probably the evilest person to eventually join your team in this game. She’s a murderous, brutal lunatic and really comes across as pretty much a female version of Valter from Sacred Stones a lot of the time.
She’s allegedly all about her loyalty to the king of Bern… but actually her actions constantly contradict that. I mean for starters, she voluntarily deserted and fought other soldiers of Bern rather than commit an atrocity (why the hell did she care when she kills people for fun?). Then she sorta joined the Black Fang, a group that definitely doesn’t have the king’s best interests at heart. Then, when she was finally doing a mission that benefitted the king, she abandoned it halfway through just because she was bored. Which might have had something to do with her just kind of sitting there watching other people fight instead of helping out herself. And then the KING tried to assassin Zephiel using the Black Fang, and she kind of should have known that since she was always talking to inner circle Black Fang members. So what does she do? She flies off to join the people who foiled the king’s plan as they go mucking about in an area of Bern outsiders are NEVER supposed to be allowed to reach alive.
For no adequately explained reason, she calls Heath a turncoat when she attacks him even though he was one of her men and they deserted together and in fact he only escaped alive because she stopped to hold off the other soldiers for him.
Honestly, Vaida is NEVER in character. She’s a complete mess and her role in the story is pretty pointless and annoying too.

But she’s a darned good unit! Wyvern riders are almost always the best or among the best units in their games and Vaida is no exception. Even though she’s a pre-promote, she actually looks pretty good next to Heath due to her tremendously high Def. Her slow speed and high Str make her perfect for injuring enemies without killing them while her massive Def and great HP and huge movement mean you can send her anywhere and she’ll come out alive. Ballista bolts just ping off this woman and she even has a great comment on the archer-filled chapter 31 to the effect that bowmen are nothing to her.

As a boss, she’s the most powerful thing in the game that isn’t a dragon. Look at those huge base stats and the enormous bonuses on top of them. She will double your fast units. She will kill anything you have in 2 hits. And she’s invulnerably tough.



And with this Spear equipped, there’s no way to get free hits on her or anything. (This spear is the “uberspear” of legend, the massive stat bonuses which in-story are from Nergal are actually from this supposedly normal spear. People who are cheating and making teams for multiplayer love to grab this spear off her using the mine glitch).

Anyway, you don’t need to fight Vaida but you CAN kill her. You can even do it without arena abusing and the like, though you’d have a lot of trouble on a max ranking run. The key essentially is to get at least one VERY strong and fast person (at least 20 speed she she can’t double him)and give him a handaxe or the like and put him on the fortresses in her range. As long as you can actually inflict damage every turn, you can wear her down. Dart is great for this kind of thing. Anyway, no one can beat her without healing (other than a very lucky Canas of course). But you can’t use any healers nearby or she’ll kill them instead. So what you have to do is use 1-2 people with Physic staves loitering outside her range. With Ninian dancing for them, just one will do. Anyway, start fighting her early since she can take a while to kill. With the fortress and the physic staff, you should be able to outlast her.
You could also put Filla’s Might on Canas, give him Luna, and pray for a lucky crit. That’s the simplest method.

But of course killing her is a bad idea. Don’t do it. If you do, you don’t get to recruit her later on.


Playing Through:




Alright, the first order of business is to kill these 3 enemeis with these 4 weak units + Ninian. There’s pretty much only 1 way I can do it, but it works great.




The archers have steel bows so Dart can wreck this one.




Thaaaaaaat’s Dart! Like Raven, he is a master of the left side of the screen.




Using the woods for cover, Rath weakens the archer.




Ninian gives Filla’s Might to Lucius. The myrmidon has a steel blade, so he’d instant kill Lucius in melee but Lucius can double him with lightning. With Filla’s Might he’ll now be able to kill him.




Not so good. Still, I think that extra 1 point of HP was all he needed to not be instant killed by most wyvern riders with their iron lances!




And Bartre finishes the archer for a good level.




Now to the top front. It’s just like old times! I can’t control the starting formation or even what units appear and no one has the right gear, so I’ve got 1 turn to trade things around to get my act together.




Lyn gets in position to lure that brigand, one of the few enemies on the level she can beat even with mine’s nice stat blessings. Then Louise takes her steel bow.




Next Hector takes the thunder tome in exchange for his new Heaven Seal. That means both items Pent needs now belong to one character, so Pent can take both at once.




I move Eliwood next to where Pent will go to trade and THEN promote him. Pretty good gains statistically, if nothing spectacular. The important thing is he now has access to lances and 7 movement. THAT’S sweet.




Pent re-equips.




And because I repositioned Eliwood, Pent can now heal him of his promotion-induced injuries. XP is XP.




Now to the middle group. Erk makes his run to the left. If I’m lucky, some of those casters will aggro to him instead of Lyn after the brigand blocks off the spot right to the left of Lyn.




Priscilla heals Heath’s promotion-induced injuries. I guess being struck like 20 times by lightning probably does hurt.




And Canas does the same for Raven as the two of them hurry to assist the weak units on the right.




Beginning of turn 2. Look at that cloud of wyverns! I can’t let them get near Lyn and Louise or I lose, so Eliwood is going to distract them immediately. I can reach that nearby fortress, but remember that that’s actually in Vaida’s range so it’s a no-go and I’ll have to go without it. Eliwood could take on like 20 wyverns now no problem anyway though.




Lyn finishes off the brigand for a good level.




This mess is my turn 2 top formation. Pent is meant to lure in a couple of wyverns so that I have fewer to kill on turn 3. Hector doesn’t really have much to do, nor does Louise. Fiora has flown in to assist.




Heath meanwhile grabs the village before a brigand can get to it. Now he has plenty of time to get to wherever he’s needed. Ursula is almost as out of character here as Vaida is, willingly betraying the Black Fang out of petty jealousy of how much attention Vaida is getting from Sonia at the moment. She later demonstrates that she’s really a Black Fang true believer and even willing to let herself be killed because the Fang’s rules say she must. So… what the heck? She gives Heath a precious Hammerne staff and sends him on his merry way.




On the bottom front, I used the newbs to eliminate a few enemies. No one leveled up, but they’re pretty much all close again. But now they’re in trouble because Bartre or Lucius would each die to 1-2 attackers and there are 3 in range.




I check the enemy speeds and figure out that only one nomad can actually double Bartre with his steel bow, so Raven kills that one.




Canas blocks for Lucius and now everything is fine. Only the nomad can hit Bartre and he can’t double. Meanwhile, Priscilla acts as bait for this brigand so that he won’t get stuck attacking the invincibly dodge-y Merlinus and can instead by killed conveniently




And enemy turn! Eliwood is looking pretty darned great now that he has a weapon other than swords.




Turn 3. Wow, there’s just wyverns everywhere!




Well Erk can hopefully bait 1 or 2 since he looks squishy but is actually monstrously powerful. On this fortress they don’t have a chance against him.




Yeah, even with a wyrmslayer and a forest Lyn isn’t good at killing wyvern riders who’ve already been injured. This is a very good Lyn. She’s still terrible.




So I had Hector weaken it and then let Lyn kill it with an iron sword instead. This mess is my new top formation. Getting ridiculous sprawls like this is close to unavoidable on this map where you keep having to take the offense in different directions every turn.




In the south, Bartre kills the knight who Raven just barely left alive with his handaxe for a fantastic level. Ladies and gentlemen, my Bartre has just come back from his awful starting levels and is now officially above average (if only slightly).




I really want to feed all the XP I can to him, so Ninian dances for him. There’s only 2 targets this turn, but due to the terrain and positioning it’s surprisingly hard to kill them both with weak units while also accomplishing my secondary goal of getting more heal XP.




Heath comes flying back.




Rath finishes the brigand after Lucius weakens it and gets a classic Rath level.




On the top left, Erk has to deal with a Luna shaman. Even in the hands of an unpromoted enemy fighting against a guy on a fortress this thing is deadly.




I was unable to actually kill that nomad (without just letting Dart get it) so I trapped it for Bartre to kill this turn. And poof, a bunch of bottom right wyverns spawn. There will be 2 of these pretty much forever.




Everyone, break left! Got to get out of wyvern range.




The lead wyvern actually has a javelin. Which means if I make Rath and Canas the only people in his range and put Rath at the edge, he’ll actually go for Rath and get shot heavily.




Are you surprised to know that there’s still dozens more wyverns up here? You shouldn’t be. Fortunately, the reinforcements are MOSTLY done there.




Everyone else pulls back and Eliwood tanks the swarm from the safe fortress.




Whoo, more wyverns!




I’ve decided that Fiora will do the shopping and Heath will do the luring away of Vaida, but Heath needs to bring Fiora the silver card and something to sell for cash first. Divine will work.




Canas cures the wound the brigand gave Priscilla earlier. Got to keep your fragile characters at tip top HP.




That’s an awesome level up for his trouble.




I’ve said before that one use remaining weapons are fantastic tools. In this case I’ll use one to feed a nomad to Bartre. Raven would kill the nomad in 2 hits with any weapon, but with this he’ll just guaranteed get it to low HP.




And it was well worth the trouble. Now my Bartre is actually fast! For a Bartre that is.




Rath and Lucius fought off the wyverns and a brigand, though another wave of wyverns is coming. A halberd is like a longspear or horseslayer but better because it’s an axe. I bought one from a secret shop back on Four Fanged Offense but two will be very nice to have.




Erk keeps pushing on. That sage will actually be his greatest challenge since it’s really high level and heavily armed with an Elfire.




Uh oh. This wave of wyverns decide to fly south instead of west as usual. They might be making a run for my weaker characters.




Yes, that’s something of a threat. Plus there’s the shamans now for the top group.




Erk finishes off the monk who attacked him, and you can see he was heavily injured by the sage last turn. He’ll PROBABLY still win this. That level will help a bit.




I was right! With that one point of HP earlier, Lucius is all grown up and can finally survive a single enemy attack.




Yeah I checked the numbers and because of that wyvern they’re not so good. He needs a physic to get out of this alive with more than 60% probability.




Not the kind of level ups I promoted you for, man.




Raven cleared a path for Dart to go over here alone while the really weak characters stay bunched up. Dart alone vs bunches of wyverns. I feel like we’ve seen this one somewhere before. But this Dart is much higher level.




I need to get Raven back in the action. Ninian gets another great Ninian level up.




I’m flying Heath in to intercept part of that wave that was going for my bottom characters.




Lyn kills a shaman for a bad level.




This is pretty much the plan for the ensuing 4 turns or so of 2 wyverns with iron lances. Bartre on a fortress will aggro and weaken them, then Lucus and Raven and Bartre will finish them off and Canas and Raven and Ninian and Priscilla will rescue drop the fragile people back out or the like.




Surprisingly, that one stupidly went for Raven when it had a perfect shot at Bartre. They just love to die.




And more wyverns on his side too. I’ll just keep chopping.




Heath finally reaches Fiora and gives her the silver card and Divine to sell.




Another solid level for Bartre as he finishes a nearby wyvern.




Not so good for Dart, but he already has what he needs.




MORE wyverns on turn 9! This is the last top spawn though.




Nice! Rath and Lucius and Bartre continue to kill the bottom wyverns as fast as they spawn.




What I’d like actually is for Bartre to get into that mountain Raven is on and pull everyone back a bit. Then there’d be no risk of other people aggroing the wyvyerns as they fired away. Unfortunately I don’t really have time to get him there. This turn I’ll just rescue-drop Ninian back out of range so my rhythm isn’t broken.




Turn 9, Heath moves to just outside Vaida’s range so he can lure her next time.




Pretty good, Lucius!




Pretty bad, Bartre! I was actually enjoying that 0 res.




Turn 10, that’s her range. I’d really like to step onto the fortress- which would normally be in her range. But two of her minions are currently blocking the spots she’d need to fire from and since she goes first, she wouldn’t be aggroed. I’ll need to be one square closer instead.




Erk is in a forest hoping to get some more wyvern fighting action while everyone else stays out of range of most of them and Fiora gets as close to the stores as she can this turn.




Vaida apparently forgets she deserted with him and was his commander at the time and she saved his life and meh whatever the woman is just nuts.




Turn 11, no more wyverns spawned so I can actually kill everything.




Because I couldn’t pull Vaida that 1 square further away, I can’t actually shop safely at the armory. The vendor is still fine because Fiora can keep moving after shopping, but at the armory that still leaves her in range.




Since window shopping takes no time, I still looked at the inventory. Pretty awesome stuff, but not for a max ranking run and I already have enough javelins and handaxes.




And nothing good I need here either. Darn. There have just been no door keys offered and now I really need some.




Well even if she’s not shopping, she can at least get some XP off the remaining wyverns.




BORED NOW! Yeah, she leaves even though she could totally win just because she’s bored. What an idiot. Also WHAT ground forces? All she has left are those 2 wyverns right there who started next to her and didn’t move till I’d lured her away.




Sure is a good thing Vaida is nearly as incompetent as Ephidel.




Ninian and Nils explain where her massive power came from –and why they couldn’t sense her presumably, Nergal is wise to their abilities and cloaked her from their powers it seems. Everyone realizes this means Nergal is nearly back to full strength. Uh oh.




Lyn proposes an excellent idea. We really need to get back to their fortress to find the fire emblem, and what better way than by tracking them?




And Lyn is a Sacaean, so she knows all about hunting and tracking, so she leads the way. That’s the end!


The last chapter wasn’t a stupid and pointless filler level, it was a fairly interesting and clever filler level that told us a fair amount about the black fang and was fun. THIS was a stupid and pointless filler battle. The dialogue and story advancement themselves were good, but the battle was utterly pointless and the villain was completely out of character and stupid. This game has no problem with massive numbers of cutscenes in a row in different places over the course of several days with no battles in between them at other points and it works well, they should have just done the same thing here and skipped this absurd and boring fight.


Oh, here’s an interesting house conversation though:







This woman met Market when she was traveling and down on her luck and took Market in for a while.




And apparently Market is already semi-legendary from leading some OTHER people’s group to awesome victory.




Most interesting of all, the conversation actually changes a bit if you go back a second time. Makes me wonder how many interesting changing house conversations I’ve missed out on. I also wonder if perhaps the woman’s assessment of Market’s skill in the first conversation would be different if I wasn’t doing so well. Maybe someone could check that.

I really do find Mark/Market to be a rather interesting character. Kind of like Hawkeye I appreciate the unresolved mystery of it in a gamethat really makes a recurring theme of mystery and the power –and problems- that knowledge brings.


Total Restarts: 15 (No problems here).
Turn Surplus: 13 (As always you lose 1 on survival chapters that don’t end if you kill the boss).
Things I Regret Missing: The lockpick on chapter 11, that darned archer on chapter 11, this one brigand who attacked Marcus on chapter 12, 2 more brigands who ignored everyone else to attack Marcus on chapter 13x, and 2 archers who ignored Hector and Dorcas (DORCAS!) to attack Marcus on chapter 14, like 10 more enemies I could have killed if Hector could have survived one more turn on chapter18, and Uhai who decided to take a 100% chance of death to Sain over a free hit on Hector, the chance to finish shopping properly with my silver card on chapter 21, the armorslayer that I have acquired if not for a stupid minor mistake on chapter 22, and these 3 wyvern riders who decided they preferred a 0% chance to hit Isadaora and then 100% chance of death against her to fighting a low level Heath, those 2 pegasus knights at the end of Crazed Beast that I just didn’t have enough time to feed to Bartre.