Part 57: Hinoka

Oh, I was wrong! These two don't show up after beating a map, they just show up after the time in your castle advances one "phase". So building their respective buildings and then waiting a few hours makes them show up. Neat.



Unfortunately neither of them start with any items... They might be a little better receieved if they did. Both of them are staff users so they'll easily slot into your roster as support filler. Izana has an interesing personal skill combined with 2 Hoshidan class exclusive rallies and a pretty good class, Flora is not dissimilar to Jakob statwise and a good contender for worst unit in Conquest. She's not useless, she's just lacking in ways to justify using her over any other staffbot or knife user.



Before I attempt the next map I want some tonics. 2 HP and 2 res for Xander and Silas, and then a defense tonic for Silas too. I had to sell my Blessed Lance to afford these, but somehow I don't think I'll miss it.



This map has a mix of mages and magic weapon users, all of whom are very fast. Selena's... prickly coleslaw will help against them. Are cacti a vegetable?




Time to face Hinoka! She's honestly more of a character in Conquest than she is in Birthright, she was a last minute addition to the royal family from what I've heard and it kind of shows. Not a bad unit or anything, just not really relevant to the plot of her own route...



Garon has a horse! I wonder if the horse is slime too. Riding horses is a thing people did and still do to get from one place to another faster than walking and yet some part of my brain looks at this and goes "uh, continuity error? Garon does not have access to a mounted class???". I think it's the part of the brain used in making posts about videogames online.



Xander's little speech here is quite infamous but I've only read it once and will not read it again. "Justice RIP" is my least favourite map theme in the game and yet seems to be the one that gets played the most on both routes, and I blame Xander for this.



Time to invade the royal family's front lawn. This map is much like the stairs map in that it can either be very fun or an absolute nightmare depending on how you've build your team and how many royals and flying units you have. It is also filled with dragon veins and can potentially be skipped quite easily with fliers... I'm pretty confident I have all the tools I need to make it easy this time around, but in the past this map has stonewalled me for hours and almost made me abandon some playthroughs.

There's a lot of distance between us and the throne but very few obstacles in the way. For a seize map that's generally a good sign, but there is a lot going on here.



Hinoka once again does not move and comes with a DLC only skill that removes her flying weakness and makes her benefit from defensive terrain. She could be a Spear Master instead and things would barely change... It's even her Heart Seal reclass option.

She also has Sol, Luna, Darting Blow, and a pair-up partner to boost her strength and defense. Her stats are very high and she'll be very hard to hit, so if you're planning on cheesing the map with a quick clear you'll need someone who's accurate and has even better offenses than hers. You'll also need to send in at least 3 units, one to defeat her, one to defeat her friend, and a third to seize the throne.



You might think Azama's stats look absurdly inflated compared to what they would be normally, but he really is just that good. Compared to his 20/15 averages he's actually worse in some respects. Azama is the Effie of Birthright, he's got stupidly high growths that don't fit his class at all.

His personal skill no longer triggers thanks to his weapon, but he's still got Counter and he's still very hard to kill. He's now got two Hexing Rods, as if to say "you can't stall me out like last time, you have to attack me before I run out unless you want your whole army hexxed!". You can totally waste all of those uses if you have no shame like I have though.



Setsuna is the Nyx of Birthright in that her stats and growths are stupidly low for what feels like pure spite on the developer's part. She's mildly dangerous here thanks to a combination of high speed, Pass, Swordbreaker, and Seal Strength, but otherwise she's no big deal. Just make sure you can take her out once she's aggro'd since you won't be able to wall her off thanks to Pass.



Hinoka's ability to use dragon veins is what makes this chapter what it is. When you use one, all flying units have their base movement lowered by 50%, and all grounded units have theirs raised by the same. Seeing as half the enemies here are flying and those tend to be the most dangerous, having it activate will generally make things easier for you.

When Hinoka uses one, the opposite happens. 12 movement fliers are very, very hard to deal with, especially when your foot units suddenly find themselves with only 3 move. Each vein lasts for 2 or 3 turns, and Hinoka will use hers whenevr there's no other vein activate. You can override her effect with yours, but she cannot do the same. She does however have infinite uses while you only have a small amount scattered around the map that'll disappear after a single use.

There are two ways to play this chapter: pop veins as often as you can to neutralise her fliers while your grounded units clean up, or let her activate her vein and rush the map with your own fliers. The latter allows you to potentially clear the map in two or three turns, but it also makes it much easier for Kinshis and the like to pick off your weak units like Azura. Generally I go for the former, but I do have 4 flying units of my own, 3 of which have very high stats and the other 1 has staves...



It goes without saying that bows will be useful, but watch out for Bowbreaker on the Kinshi Knights and Aegis on the Falcon Kights. Use Beast Killers or Hunter's Knives when you can, they're much more reliable.



The last big hurdle of this chapter is the reinforcements - they're mean and there's a lot of them, most of which are fliers who come from awkward places. There are three triggers in all. This island here is the first - being in aggro range of any unit on this island here will cause 3 waves to spawn over the next 3 turns. Using a vein to increase the movement speed of grounded units will also increase their aggro range, so be warned!

I think the other island north of your starting point will also trigger those reinforcements, but I'm not 100% sure. The wiki says no but the wiki is frequently wrong.



Trigger number 2 is Setsuna, if she aggros then you'll get another set of 3 reinforcement waves over 3 turns. How close you can get to her without spawning them will again depend on what vein is currently in use.



Lastly, 2 waves will spawn if you aggro any grounded enemies right at the top here. In my opinion you should be rushing the throne with everything you have at this point, hopefully seizing before any of them can start moving.



Here's who I'll be bringing. Xander definitely wants the speed and support so Laslow's coming along to help. Maybe he can eat a hexing rod use?



I'm going to start this out the coward's way - stay put and wait for all the enemies who do move to come to me before triggering any reinforcements. Things might look safe now, but they're about to get very hairy...



Years after Ephraimcopter and Hectorcopter, here is Hinokopter. And unlike them she doesn't need a silly animation edit to propell herself upward, she literally hovers in the air during this cutscene after leaping off of her pegasi and spinning her lance above her head. I don't know if this is cool or if it is dumb. It might be both.



Here come some fliers and here come some walkers. Conquest, for all of its cruel mechanics, is generally nice and fair and does make sure Hinoka can only activate her vein at the end of her turn. You're not going to get a game over because all the enemies suddenly gained 4 points of movement before their turn starts.



Here we go. The map looked fairly devoid of danger before, but now...



...it's entirely coated in red. Turns out 12 range on a flier is a lot! At this point you generally have two options, pop a vein and turn the situation on her or try to wait it out. Activating a vein requires walking onto one of the two islands near the start, and I don't want to trigger the reinforcements so I will attempt to wait it out.



Highlighting the range of the Kinshis lets me easily build a wall of tanky units to keep everyone safe from harm. Bulky 1-2 range units are a lifesaver here, they can lure in attackers and take them out to prevent things from getting crowded.



Not activating Sol and critting to kill on the first counter-attack is just about the worst thing Silas can do for his survivability, so of course he will always do it. I wish there was a knife that could activate skills but couldn't crit.



If a Falcon Knight doesn't have Aegis then it probably has Pass. They are designed to annoy you as much as possible and they are quite good at it! Thankfully Silas can still muscle through them.



They also pack a lot of Bolt Naginatas, so you'll need good mixed bulk. Peri thankfully has this.



I didn't even factor in Bowbreaker into my strategy, I just send Ophelia over here because I thought she could nostank... In fact they wouldn't even be attacking her if it were not for Nosferatu lowering her avoid by 20%. How convenient!



Now I can use my fliers to eliminate their fliers. Kinshis might be annoying but they have garbage stats, even Shigure can take them out fairly easily.



...maybe I should give up and make Silas a Mechanist. It would lower his crit chance as well as raising his defense?



Midori is helping! It's hard to imagine her being too useful outside of this chapter, but I'm glad she's here.



Aegis sucks but thankfully I've got more than enough attackers to get around it.



Azura is a name of Spanish origin that means "Sky Blue". Incidentally, the word "Azure" comes from a French mistranslation of the Arabic word for Lapis Lazuli.



After a couple of turns the vein resets, and I get one turn of having things back to normal before Hinoka reactivates it. The grounded units that immediately aggro'd on turn 1 still haven't quite reached me yet...



Let's see if I can activate VoF now. May as well do it while things are relatively safe.



She got speed and now she's below half health. Nice! Seal Strength does not stack with Draconic Hex's debuff, so all having it will do is increase the strength debuff it gives from -4 to -6 instead of making it -10. It's not worth it.



Oops, accidentally left Elise in range of a Kinshi... Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of things when the enemies move so far that they can get you from off screen!



Weird, they didn't move... That's convenient!



Staying in this thin line between the 2 red zones will prevent any reinforcements from spawning. I want this map as clean as possible before I trigger them.



I am very pleasantly surprised with Elise's levels. I really thought capping her best stats would prevent her from ever getting anything again, but she's been very good at proccing skill. I don't even think she needs Secret Books anymore! B tomes will also improve her accuracy with them a little.



Okay, no more stalling. No other enemy on the map is going to aggro until I push them. Time to take out as many enemies as I can...

Incidentally, that one vein that's just in range of Azama's hex is 1 tile to the right on lower difficulties. Just a minor "fuck you" from Lunatic!



Ophelia will clean up these Onmyoji at the bottom. Some Kinshis will spawn near her as soon as she does, but she doesn't fear them.



Elise can take out the Onis above them. She only needs a basic Fire tome to do so.



Lastly, Silas will lure out these guys. I've got two different veins I can activate if things go sour...



The two thread-voted favourites get some fairly standard levels for units who have capped a few stats already. Maybe I could buy a Spirit Dust to have Ophelia reach her cap?



Here's wave number 1. 2 Kinshis at the corner of the map might not seem like much, but they can get out of hand quite quickly. Ophelia will deal with them.



You can lure Setsuna from outside of the hex's range when you've activated the vein, something which completely slipped my mind this run. Alternatively you can send in a bunch of fliers to mop her and her cohorts up on player phase, but then one of them would get hexxed.



It's perfectly safe for Elise to be this close to Setsuna, her movement is too low to reach her right now.



...oops. It happened again!!!



This also happened, but it happened on purpose. I have enough mostly useless units to waste on all six Hex Rod charges.



Thankfully Elise had enough HP to survive one Kinshi strike. I really need to make sure this doesn't happen a third time.



Here comes wave number 2. Silas is my best bet for dealing with these, and he's already in position to do so.



You could bring the Hunter's Knife if you wanted to one-shot them with a knife user, but Silas is already so strong he doesn't need it. If anything this just lets him build gauge easier.



...what if I just made Camilla a Sol Master Ninja instead? She could do it, she's married Kaze and can support Beruka for Hero.



The last set arrives, just in time for the vein to wear off and their movement to be reduced. None of these waves were dangerous this time around, but when the map's full of enemies they can be a lot scarier.



The wyvern sisters will show these inferior mounts who's boss! Camilla makes quite a good suppot partner for Elise, she boosts her bulk and magic even further. And no there is not a Kinshi Knight her to shoot her down this time.



I'm close enough to Hinoka that I could potentially risk a flier rush to reach her. Unfortunately if it didn't work I would most likely lose a unit...



Time to bait Setsuna and all of her friends hiding in the shadows. That Oni could deal a lot of damage to Silas with an axe hit, but he can't reach him this turn.



...6 uses it quite a lot. Just 4 left!



I totally misread Setsuna as being cool and collected and above it all when I first played this game. I guess being too dumb to understand the danger you're in is a type of cool.



Two FKs and some grounded mages show up as the first wave. The combination of both is a little hard to deal with.



I need to clear these guys out and Xander can easily afford to eat a hex. Don't need HP if nobody can hurt you!



...and then I forgot about the hexing rod entirely and now half my army is partying in the danger zone. I guess better them than Xander...?



See? Xander did get hexxed! All part of my plan.



He... got defense? And magic? If he had gotten the latter without the former I would have disowned him.



Xander can easily tank with half the hitpoints. He's not the ideal bait thanks to not being able to double, but he'll do.



These reinforcements are more numerous than the last set. 4 Kinshis, all with Bowbreaker.



It's okay, Midori has knives as well as bows.



This final group will engage Ophelia, who I strategically forgot to move and left in range of them. I will pretend I planned this.



Hooray? I guess strength is cool.



Doesn't this map look so much emptier now? As soon as I mop up the reinforcements and waste the remaining hex uses I'll be able to rush the boss.



So long as the vein is activated, I can have my units attack Hinoka without being in range of anybody else. The enemies near her won't aggro, but the reinforcements that spawn the turn after will.



Azura's Japanese name is "Aqua". I think they changed it because they thought it was too on the nose.



Skill again, very nice!



Oh, Hinoka won't use her dragon vein if there's no fliers left on the map! That makes sense. Thankfully there's still some safe places to attack her from without baiting anybody.



I can just walk up to her now. Annoyingly enough this is with Rally Strength... I guess I could just hope for a crit. If Silas gets Luna'd I can always heal him anyway.



I guess Enfeeble isn't the answer this time.



No crits, but Silas did hit both times and dodge in return.



Now would be a good time to show off Hinoka's friend, who has Certain Blow and Life and Death. He'll hit accurately and hard and might lead to a game over if you don't pay attention! Make sure to check that whoever's attacking Hinoka could also survive a round of combat with him if she decides to switch.



Azama heals her up but only by 10 HP. That's what happens when magic is your dump stat and you're a healer.



Hinoka attacks back on her phase, Silas misses one hit and the other gets blocked. Annoying...



Reinforcements appear, some of which fly and therefore trigger a dragon vein usage. Wait, did she attack and do this on the same turn?



Cheating is a serious offense and must be punished, you do not have Galeforce! Thankfully the activated vein means all my fliers can rush in to help, but all I needed was Peri.



Her friend can die also. Anybody could have done this but Corrin needed the EXP, she still needs LaD.



I'll seize at the end of this turn, but before I do it's time for some entirely preventable violence. He's right, it is barbaric! It is also very satisfying.




I am so glad that Seize is at the top and not Dragon Vein. Accidentally activating it and losing the chapter because of it is absolutely something I would do.



That wasn't so bad! All I needed was a super overleveled army full of fliers. This chapter does not normally go so smoothly... My usual strategy is to hop between veins and stall out the movement of the flying reinforcements as much as possible, but this time around I didn't even need to activate a single dragon vein.



Time for you to leave and fade into obscurity. Garon and Iago won't remember you're in this game, it's fine!



Fire Emblem characters love to die pointlessly for honour, Camilla knows this. Your survival is non-negotiable!



Even Fates understands the inherent homoeroticism of threatening your rival with a blade up against their neck. This scene is absolutely an appropriate time for a ship tease.


Next time: Ryoma will wait patiently for my army to pick up their kids