Part 64: Four-Fanged Offense

Time for the other version of Four-Fanged Offense - to go down this route, you need to have the combined levels of your lords be at least 50. Linus is our man instead of Lloyd this time around, and the story and conversations slightly change because of that. Our first pit stop is right after Hector and Lyn run off to gather information and Eliwood grumbles about basically being their chaperone, then immediately afterwards when Lloyd and Linus find them.



: We're leaving Eliwood behind!

: So? We don't want to be in the way, do we?

: Huh? In the way?

: ...Teehee... You mean you don't see it? Anyway, it's more important that we start gathering information.

: I guess we go our seperate ways here then? I'm going this way.

: Hector!

: Yeah?

: Be careful.

: Mm. You too.



: I thought they were in Nabata!

: Does it matter where they've been? We've found them, so let's take care of them.

: I guess you're right... Yet the timing's not right. Attacking them while they're in town is against our creed. Shall we tell Father and await his orders? ...I'll go and tell him. You stay here and watch them.

: Why don't you and I finish them now?

: We can't! You have to be patient. All you need to do is watch where they go. Understand?

: Uh-huh.

I really don't get that part with Lloyd. He asks if they should go tell Reed, and then immediately turns around and says "Yeah, I'll go tell him." I tried to make that a little less of Lloyd answering his own question, but the script is really weird there.



: Hey! Igor!

: What is it, Linus?

: We're going hunting! We'll taunt them and pull them to the center of the town.

: Hold on a minute. You're not really going to ignore Lloyd's orders, are you?

: He doesn't want the villagers harmed. That's what he said, right? So we make sure they're not.

: I understand, but...

: Come on, Igor! We want to show my brother we can do this, right? I'm counting on you.



: You just never, ever listen to anyone!

And yet he's going to go right along with it...



: Who- Ah, you're Black Fang?

: That's right. You have the honor of dying at the hands of the Four Fangs. Our commander is Linus, the Mad Dog.

: Eliwood! Is that the enemy?

: Yes. Let's meet his challenge!

: ...Come. You'll get your throats ripped out...

Oh Igor, you poor fool. Fun fact, Igor's sprite is a myrmidon, and we will not be fighting a single myrmidon in this chapter. So obviously the fucker got while the getting was good. Can't say I blame him.

Clearly he's figured out how Fire Emblem works.



The other Four-Fanged Offense trades fog of war for a lakeside setting, which is really just trades one set of issues for another. One one hand, you can actually see the map, but on the other, there's a very large section of the map impassable to everyone except Dart and your flyers, and there are going to be tons of wyverns taking advantage of that fact. Speaking of Dart, he's not here for training. He's had his time in the sun.



There's a village in the southeast corner, guarded by a few mercenaries and wyverns.

And some very tempting ballistae. You'll want to get an archer down th- oh.



And two more in town itself. If you couldn't tell, mercenaries, wyverns, and pirates are the name of the game here.



Linus is hanging out past town, with his entourage of heroes. Note the sage; you get no points for guessing what he's packing.



Despite appearing much earlier than in Eliwood's story, Linus is still about as dangerous as he was in Cog of Destiny. His Silver Blade will hurt like hell, so you want to bait him into using the hand axe and rush him with swords. 4 HP, 2 Str, 2 Skl, 1 Spd, 1 Def, 1 Res, if you care.

You'd think that someone packing a Silver Blade would have a higher tier axe as backup, but no. Well, can't complain.

No Short Axe in this game, so your only ranged options for a Hero are Light Brand, Hand Axe, or Tomahawk. Considering he already has a Silver Blade, I can understand why they went with the hand axe, though I question why they didn't just let him move like Lloyd does in HHM...



: A skirmish... But which side is in the right? I can't tell... Not much I can do. I guess I'll slip in on this end.

Well, who do we have here?



Geitz is the final warrior of the game, and he's not half bad. 4 HP, 3 Str, 2 Skl, 1 Spd, 1 Def, 1 Res for his bonuses, and his growths aren't too bad for being a prepromo. He actually makes an excellent replacement for Dorcas/Bartre if you didn't raise either, and he can even sub in for Dart in a pinch, though not particularly well. Dart's the one who needs to bring him around. He's carting a Killer Axe and Steel Bow around, so baiting him from afar is the recommended tactic.

Very handy, and yes, that's not a typo; he's got a +3 bonus to strength. Not bad.



Our basic strategy looks something like this. Kent, Bartre, Raven, Hector, and Priscilla are heading into town, and Canas, Guy, Fiora, and Dart are heading over to Geitz.



Raven goes wyvern hunting and wins big.

Bah. Raven getting great levels. Boring.



Guy is now in range of Geitz, and Dart is close behind him.



Fiora kills a pirate for an excellent level.

Oh, now we're talking.

Geitz is all too happy to miss Guy with his bow, so let's have a chat with him.



: What? Do you think you can just come up and start-

: Ah, I know! You're that guy who worked for Belger... Geitz!

: Dart? Is that you? What are you doing here?

: I like to raise some trouble on land every now and then. How about you? What are you doing? Working for your father?

: Don't mention the old man! As far as I'm concerned, I'm no part of that family anymore!

: Well then, what are you doing here?

: Nothing... I was wandering about when this battle erupted. ...Say, Dart, do you think I could join up with you?

: Huh? Of all the stupid...

: You're "raising trouble," right? So let me in on the action.

: It's fine with me. We're up against a pretty tough bunch, though.

: I've nothing else to do. I'll fight 'til I get bored!

Wonderful.

Our noble band of adventurers, ladies and gents.



The east group is pretty much going to stay here for the rest of the chapter killing off stray pirates and wyverns.



Why hello mister Bolting asshole, I almost forgot about you for a second. Unfortunately, he's just outside of Raven's range, so we're going to have to heal him up and hopefully draw him further south. Raven hops in the arena for a little extra avoid, and Hector moves north to bait the sage.



The hero in town is particularly annoying, as evidenced by he and Kent going at it for three turns now. Kent gets an alright level, but he really needs to start picking up a little strength. Bartre offs the hero and gets a free Silver Sword.



All the villages have the same treasures as the other FFO, just in slightly different places. Geitz grabs the Earth Seal from the southwest village.



Well, it hurts like hell, but we drew him into range.



Raven takes care of him. I don't give a fuck at all about this sort of level anymore. At least the sage is nice enough to give us his Elfire tome.

Oh no, Raven's marginally less statistically ahead in everything. Whatever shall we do.



Once you get past the initial hump, this chapter's actually pretty easy. There are a couple wyverns on the way over here, but this area is more or less completely under control.



Village number two.



There's another pair of wyverns that spawned in up by Linus, but this is pretty much all that's left aside from that mass of pirates that will accomplish fuck-all. From here on out, it's going to be two turns of wyverns in the south, then two turns of wyverns in the north until we hit turn 19.



Last village.



This is a little defensive line for the northern wyverns. Kent is just shy of being able to kill the wyverns with his Steel Axe, so it's an excellent setup to feed Florina a few kills. Bartre is in range of a javelin-wyvern with his bow equipped, but Kent takes most of the attention given that he can't counterattack.



Well look at that, there is still a glimmer of hope in there.



A fantastic use of his previous blessings.

NO MIDDLE GROUND



Fiora moves out to deal with the west group of pirates. The rest of them are heading straight for Guy.



Just look at that nice, orderly line of pirates. They're far more courteous than I was expecting. Guy backs up into the forest and we weather another turn of wyverns coming to die and the pirates slowly march closer to Guy.

Best of luck with that, pirates.



Eh, it's alright. He also S-ranked Swords, adding another 5 crit to the pile.







Not bad at all. That's finally all the wyverns, so it's arena time!



Florina's up first, and despite what it may look like, this is actually a very good Florina. She's up a by a point or two of strength, three skill, and two resistance. Behind by a point of luck, and dead on in everything else (except HP, because we gave her the Angelic Robe). I personally am not a fan of Florina for this very reason, but to each his own.



Hey, she can finally hold a fucking Iron Sword without a speed penalty. And she still takes a 3-speed one from an Iron Lance, let alone something stronger (and heavier).

This is why I don't really like the Con system as is. Why they couldn't have just given it a growth like every other stat... and of course they then switched to using Str when Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn came around and that just trivialized the entire system... yeah.



And then Lyn. Oh christ, Lyn. I know I said this in the thread, but it seriously needs repeating. This is a Lyn who has been systematically screwed by the RNG. No defense in 19 levels. Down by 2 strength after getting an Energy Ring in Lyn's story. But she's still ahead in her resistance, and with a token extra point of luck.

Reiterating: Lyn getting no defence in 19 levels has odds of about 1.4%.



And some healing levels from the arena. Canas is the most schizophrenic member of this team when it comes to his levels, I swear to god.

Hey, better schizophrenic than constantly shit.



After everyone picks up some fresh weapons and grinds some supports, we're ready to finish up here. Before you leave, make absolutely sure you've got 20,000 Gold to throw away. Linus won't move, so the first plan of attack is to kill off his buddies.



Guy baits the first one over, and Bartre is happy to finish him off.



Fiora baits the second, and Kent takes the honors for that. Guy hops in range of Linus's hand axe and we wait.



: All the evil that you've done up to now... Repent it, and sleep.



And then he hits Guy with a hand axe.

Gotta hand it to Linus. He's good.

Well, Guy has a base of 54 avoid with his Steel Sword equipped, plus 15 due to the weapon triangle and 2 from his Priscilla support, and Linus has a hit rate of about 107 with his hand axe, so it was about a 36% hit chance before adjustment.



So Guy returns the favor with back to back crits.



Never stop, Guy.

_{it is in bold tags}



: ...I lost. My brother tried to warn me... You're strong... Too strong.

: ...

: But... I will not die quite so easily!

: What!?

: You'll go with me!

: Eliwood!



: Huh!? What did you..?

: I noticed something during the battle. You did your best to keep the villagers clear of the fighting.

: Of course. They've nothing to do with this. You are our target, not them.

: You are not evil. The Black Fang fights with honor. So why is it that we are enemies?

: It's your fault! You're evil...Bah!

: Huh!?

: None of this makes sense! Sonia told Father that you're a band of criminals. Father agreed, and I obeyed, but...

: Sonia? Isn't that...?

: ...I'm going to withdraw for the moment. I'll be back when this is all straightened out.



: ...I'm not sure it's wise to trust that woman.





: You... I never felt you...nothing...

: ...Mad Dog Linus. Such wonderful quintessence.

: ...Curses...I've blu-blundered... Brother...I'm sorry...



: You fool, after all I told you... ...Wait for me. I'll be joining you soon enough. And I'll bring you their corpses as a gift.

-----



HP: 85%
Strength: 50%
Skill: 30%
Speed: 40%
Luck: 40%
Defense: 20%
Resistance: 20%

All things considered, Geitz is actually a pretty solid warrior, especially in HHM. If you haven't been using Bartre or Dorcas, he's an excellent substitute. His growths are pretty much exactly on par with Bartre's, with a slightly lower Skill/Def/Res and higher Luck, which makes him the least "prepromote-y" prepromo in the game, with maybe one exception we'll see a little bit later. Dart's still the best non-lord axe user in the game, but second-best compared to Dart is nothing to be ashamed of.

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Total resets: 30