Part 20: Bitter Intrigue

Time to smash some pots. This chapter is... interesting. It might actually be one of my favourite chapters in the game? Or at least it could be, if the central gimmick it uses didn't need you to have a guide open in order to not be trial and error.



I forgot that characters dress in their class outfits during cutscenes. Wyvern Elise looks... weird. If it weren't for the boob window I'd say it suits her.



Anyway, Elise has contracted a mysterious disease and honourable big bro Ryoma is holding the cure hostage unless we either surrender or kick his butt.



The Elise thing isn't just flavour - she's out of commission entirely for this chapter. If you reclassed your servant and Elise is your only healer then this can come as a nasty surprise.

Camilla can have her inventory for now. I guess that makes the spare Steel Axe I bought pointless for this chapter...



Chapter 12 in both Conquest and Birthright is an Escape chapter, with one of your big brothers as the boss. In BR Xander is meant to be an insurmountable wall of stats you're meant to run from, but in CQ you are given the option to defeat Ryoma as an alternate objective.

There's three paths to the objective. The left and right both contain treasure chests but require you to open a locked door, the middle path is the most direct but is filled with dangerous enemies. The simple geography of the map is made more complex by the maze of pottery - each pot can be broken with an attack, but each one contains either a positive or a negative effect that will affect all units within two tiles when smashed. The game tells you which ones are good and which are bad, but that... isn't really enough information to make the informed decisions you'll need to take.



Using a dragon vein to oblierate every single pot at once is also an option... Although it's a much less viable option on Lunatic mode, which moves the dragon vein to a much more dangerous spot. The pots next to it will inflict Hex on whoever activates it, while also leaving you in range of a large group of enemies that will suddenly aggro on you. The closest of these enemies all use bows, which means tanking them with Camilla is out of the question. Unless you've already routed some of the enemies or are planning on making a mad dash for the escape point on the same turn then I wouldn't bother.



Ryoma guards one of three escape points at the top. Running straight past him is a viable option, but if you take him out you can grab some sweet EXP and a stat booster. His high stats all around and not insignificant crit rate make him a dangerous target, but that's what the Enfeeble staff from last chapter is for. Camilla can use the Dual Club against him for decent effect.



New recruits! These two are Xander's retainers. We have Inigo from Awakening with a nicer outfit and Lissa with a dye job. Only the latter of those is a joke.

Laslow is like Selena but with worse speed and defenses, but better everything else (including HP). His combat is nothing special in this chapter but he does come with a personal skill that gives him a +1 str +1 speed rally. It is deceptively useful!

Peri is a Cavalier with great strength, speed, and resistance, but mediocre to terrible anything else. Against my better judgement I am going to try using her since while I don't think she's particularly good, she is kind of fun.



Starting formations are especially important this chapter because of this one singular pot. Breaking it gives a +4 defense boost to the surrounding units, so you want to make sure the units who need it most are getting it.



The game is nice enough to tell you what could be in each pot at the start... but not what actually is. If you want to play this map well you really should just look up what exactly is in each one online.



The most important thing is to avoid the hex pots (the ones marked with a heart) if at all possible.



First things first, Odin breaks the def + 4 pot to give him and a few others the boost. I don't need him to rush ahead so he doesn't mind being the one who stays behind to break it.



The boosts stack with tonics so now he's very bulky. He'll be great at Nosferatu tanking some bow users who are going to show up as reinforcements soon...



Corrin and Silas speed up the left side. Neither of them are going to take any damage if they're paired up so I split them apart to bait the Samurai.



I really want Camilla to take this guy out but I also want her to go up the right side. If I had Elise I could try taking him out with her, but she has the flu : (. I already used Azura so I'll wait outside his range and rush him next turn.



Kaze smashes a mostly pointless magic pot and Camilla positions herself to defend him. I want Kaze to open the chest on the right side of the map and Camilla to back him up.



I guess this is Corrin and Silas's honeymoon? Marcarath is supposed to be a nice place for a holiday.



Dual attacks with weapons that debuff will debuff an enemy's stats, but skills won't activate if the unit with them is only supporting and not participating in combat fully. So Kaze can debuff with his shurriken but he can't use Poison Strike in a dual attack.



This pot slaps you with a Hex, the one next to it merely deals 30% of max HP in damage. It's a bit of a mean surprise if you don't expect it.



Laslow's rally is very helpful! I did actually calculate that the combination of it and Azura' dance would give Niles exactly enough speed to double... but I didn't work out that it would also allow him to cleanly KO. Sometimes things work out very nicely.



And now thanks to this debuff he won't ORKO any more. Oops.



A little secret is that you don't actually need to open this door to enter this room... The Shrine Maiden inside has an Entrap staff, which is like a Rescue staff except it works on enemies. You can leave a unit in her range to be grabbed by it. It can however miss the units you use it on, which means strategies that rely on it can potentially fail.



It was at this point I realised my expert strategy to speed Corrin and Silas to the west door doesn't really matter if there's nobody to actually open it for them. My plan was to have Niles fight the Ninjas in the middle and then swing to the left to open it for them, but he's not going to get there for a while...



Very nice. All stats that help with killing.



There are some of the ninjas I mean. Neither Saizo or Kagero are particularly dangerous on their own, but being paired up together makes them hard to take out. You don't have to fight either of them but Saizo drops a Flame Shurriken which you can't get elsewhere.



Peri's contributions in this chapter are normally just smashing pots and using Shelter, but I want to feed her EXP so I'm giving her the kill on these Samurai. Her growths are good but her join level is low and her base stats are a little shaky.



Peri's damage output is pretty nice. Her personal skill is the same as Shamir's from Three Houses and will boost her stats for the rest of the turn if she gets a kill.



The Entrap Maiden uses her staff, but little does she know that she's not locked Camilla in here with her... She's locked herself in here with Camilla. Also Kaze is coming too. I paired them up and had him in front since his avoid was slightly lower.



Eight of these jerks will spawn in on turn 4 and start advancing on your army. Alone they aren't dangerous, but in groups of 4 they can be deadly. Odin was given all those buffs specifically to deal with them.



It's only turn 4 but Niles isn't cutting through these ninjas as fast as I'd like. Maybe I should have sent Corrin & Silas down the middle to help deal with them...



These two Samurai are meant to defeat whoever gets warped in here, but it's not going so well for them. They won't attack Camilla on enemy phase so she can't take them out all that fast, but Kaze doesn't really want to be fighting them either.



Nice, those are all the stats I want.



Odin to the rescue! He won't take out the Apothecaries quickly, but he will distract them so they don't start shooting my other units.



These levels are great and all but where's res? Kaze's been neglecting it a little.



That's not true, I could go around you! I just want your stuff.

Despite being a ninja, skill is Kagero's dump stat. She whiffed her hit on Niles and spared him a nasty debuff.



Odin fears not these Apothecaries... What kind of class is "Apothecary", anyway? I guess it's thematically appropriate to fight medicine men in medicine land, but this is Nohr territory so these wouldn't be the local apothecaries.



Now he's even harder to kill. These are great stats for Nosferatu tanking, not so much for doing... anything else.



I sure am getting a lot of mileage out of Laslow's rally. It's a shame I have no plans to keep him on my team.



Odin's dealing with the left Apothecaries fine, but the ones on the right are approaching. If Kaze had had to open the rightmost door then they would be going after him, but thankfully being warped in means the door is still closed. If only I had a second Odin...



I really wish I'd planned this better, Corrin and Silas are just wasting time up here. I hoped I could convince a Shrine Maiden to waste Silence uses on Corrin but apparently she doesn't count as a magic user even if she can use Dragonstones. The Silence staff stops a unit from using magic throughout their next turn, it's not the worst staff but it can be annoying if it shuts down a healer or a magic user who you need to defeat someone.



Saizo's only got 17 speed without Kagero to back him up. Niles had to eat a -6 debuff to strength thanks to Saizo's seal skill, but at least he either dodged or blocked every shurriken from him and Kagero...



Now that this room's clear, I need to break this pot to advance further... Which unfortunately contains a Hex spell. One of Kaze or Camilla is going to have to eat it in order to progress.

Going back and commentating on these now makes me realise I could have had either of them stand in range of the ninjas in the room next to them so they could take out as many enemies as possible before breaking the pot. Would have made things a lot easier...



Regardless I did not do that and instead had Camilla smash the pot and eat the debuff. At least she's at full health now!



Peri steals a safe kill to allow Odin to move to the other side. Skill and speed are good! Azura also gets some useless magic.



Odin arrives in the nick of time to stop the Apothecaries from chasing down Azura and co. He's getting a lot of EXP from this!



Finally, Niles is on his way... I almost wish I'd just restarted the chapter and sent Niles to the left immediately. Oh well.



Holy crap, Nyx! If only you got levels like this all the time! Maybe I should promote her now so Odin can get better buffs from being paired up with her.



Oops, I may have aggro'd a large number of enemies by smashing that pot. Now if I were sensible I'd have had Kaze open the door and my units retreat... By this point Odin had lured all the scary bowmen outside away.



I decide to have Kaze stand on a defensive tile to bait some foes over and soften them up. I also smash a pot to heal 1 HP for... some reason??? I really don't understand why I did some of these things.



Jakob eats a mildly inconvenient Silence. Better he be Silenced now than later where it could mean life or death though.



Finally got this stupid door open!



It's looking like Camilla vs the world here. Her defense is good, but all these enemies have either Seal Defense or debuffing Shurrikens.



I'm not sure who to take out first... I really want all of these guys gone as soon as possible. I really did not think this through.



Thankfully by having Camilla stay in the corner to attack the ninja I manage to bait the Javelin guy to attack her at close range since he couldn't stand anywhere else. That was not intentional but it helped!



Every single seal def Spear Fighter who attacked her died in a counterattack. Now if I stand her here so she's not in range of every single unit she should survive another turn...



Neat, I guess.



I have 5 turns left to make progress. As you can see by the map I'm decently close to reaching the goal on the left and the right, but this really hasn't gone as well as it could have... Camilla at least is nearly safe, and my bad plan that somehow worked out ended up taking out a lot of the Spear Fighters at the top of the map. She just has to clear out the last few enemies so Kaze or Niles can grab the chest on her side.



A miss here will get Camilla killed. Please don't miss, Camilla! You defeated Oboro with hitrates like these!



Sometimes luck works out in your favour.



Now to have my units advance as fast as possible on the right. Yep, this sure is killing power I should have been using against the ninjas in the middle of the map instead of slowly chipping them down with Niles...



I'll just have to make up for lost time with some dancing. I've nearly broken through to Ryoma!



silas if you don't get defense i'm filing for divorce



These two are stuck down here with not much else left to do so I guess I'll lure over some straggler ninjas that Niles didn't take out. Owain and Inigo teaming up together, just like old times!



Time to kill a defenseless cleric for EXP. This is absolutely in character for Peri.



Treausre number one obtained. You can buy Armourslayers starting from Chapter 14, but they're expensive and there's a lot of armour units in Chapter 13 you'd want to use this on anyway.



Smashing this pot inflicts you with Freeze, which amounts to one big kaizo trap when it's right before the finish line. Silas was actually frozen in place by a Shrine Maiden with Freeze that Peri just killed, not the pot.



And this right here is why I wanted to use Enfeeble. Even without the crit chance, Silas does not want to fight this guy and that's with a VoF buff.



The Kodachi is a Hoshidan katana that functions like a Javelin. There's an enemy right near the end that drops one and you really want to grab it.



That's treasure number two. Money is important, but you can live without this.



This looks much better. Ryoma would still have a crit chance if it weren't for the Brass Naginata's crit lowering properties.



bye nerd



Elise can read this while she gets better from her illness.



Well that was... a victory.

What I should have done was send Silas and Corrin up the middle with everyone else to clear out the ninjas, and given Camilla some healing items so she could have approached the right side of the map a lot more safely. I did manage to achieve all my objectives, but otherwise this map was one big panic that did not need to happen.



Oh right, Gunter fell down a big hole after Chapter 3. He's definitely gone forever and won't be coming back to join our party, no way.



I leave you with the horrible realisation that my almost untrained Nyx is now both faster and more powerful than Odin. His Nosferatu tanking might have been essential to my victories but I checked his average stats and aside from his good bulk he's not doing so well... Maybe I'll have to replace him when Ophelia joins.

Next time: The babyrealms